So now it seems that Alex 'I'm never going to negotiate' Rodriguez and MLB are ... in the process of negotiations. The remainder of the players and teams have been informed of their upcoming suspensions which will apparently be announced on Friday. it just occurred to me... if arod is only suspended and not banned for life, even though he's not getting paid, his salary should still count against the mfy payroll, shouldn't it? or is that calculated based on dollars paid not dollars contractually obligated? I have no idea how this affects the whole salary-cap/lux-tax issue. The fun part about all this is going to be that, even if this suspension is (as anticipated in many quarters) for the rest of this season plus all of 2014, his deal with the Yanx would still be in effect for three seasons after that and the only thing better than them seeing that anchor on their roster in 2015-2017 at ages 40, 41, and 42, is seeing that anchor on their roster for 2015-2017 after what amounts to (via injuries and banishment) a nearly three year layoff!! What I suspect at that point is that his remaining salary would be small enough to where the Yanx would find some way to buy him out. Even they weren't going to swallow his $100+ million he was still owed going into this season, but at "only" $61 mil for those years (the Yanx actually got somewhat smart and partially front-loaded his deal this time) I'm sure they'd go to him and say something on the order of: "look, how's about taking [insert figure here] to just go away? ... Yeah, you could refuse and then we'd have to pay you the full amount but: a) we hate you; we have no intention of playing you; c) we don't even want you at our facilities or interacting with our players; and d) did I mention that we hate you? Also, since there's no way anyone else is going to pay your creaky, old, two-hip surgery, PED-deformed ass anywhere near the [buyout] figure we're offering you, if you want to EVER play again and boost your already tainted numbers up a few notches so you can tell your grandkids (assuming that they aren't going to hate you also) that you hit more HRs than Willie Mays, then you'll take this sum and be free to strike your own deal somewhere else" IOW, I've finally come around to the realization that AR has already played his last game in a MFY uniform.