SAN DIEGO—All week long, the Yankees waited on word of Alex Rodriguez's suspension. By now, we thought, team executives would be popping Dom Perignon in their offices. Confetti would be raining down on River Avenue. The mayor would be making plans for a ticker-tape parade.
Instead, the Yankees can only brace themselves for a very different kind of ending to this saga: Rodriguez might actually play for them again.
By Monday morning, MLB plans to announce a lengthy suspension for Rodriguez along with several other players involved in the Biogenesis case, according to people familiar with the situation. The league's hope is to reach deals with all of the players on suspension lengths to avoid a potentially messy, drawn-out appeals process.
But Rodriguez has given no indication that he intends to accept such a deal. He took his traveling circus to Trenton for the first of two minor-league rehab games Friday night. And his representatives haven't backed down from their vows to fight any attempt to suspend him.
Maybe they're just posturing, and maybe they're not. But barring a last-minute agreement, the most likely outcome at the moment looks like this: On the same day he is suspended, Rodriguez makes his season debut with the Yankees in Chicago against the White Sox.
Like any player, Rodriguez can delay serving any suspension until an independent arbitrator rules on whether to uphold it. That is unlikely to happen before the end of the regular season. If Rodriguez appeals, there's not much the Yankees can do to stop him from playing for them, short of taking a sledgehammer to his quad.
The only thing Bud Selig can do to try to keep Rodriguez off the field if he doesn't agree to a deal is invoke a seldom-used clause in the collective bargaining agreement that gives him the right to take action against a player to preserve the integrity of the game. In doing so, Selig would essentially deny Rodriguez the right to an appeal. But that is a potentially perilous path that could easily backfire.
It's one thing to float the clause to put pressure on Rodriguez to accept a deal. It's another thing to actually use it. And using it would start a war with the players' union. The union has been supportive of MLB's investigation, but would undoubtedly fight to preserve a player's right to appeal a suspension.
Is keeping Rodriguez off the field for the next two months worth jeopardizing hard-earned labor peace? Not if MLB is confident in the evidence it has gathered.
That leaves a Rodriguez return, however temporary, as the most likely scenario.
"I think it's possible," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. "We expect him to be a player. I can't tell you what's going to happen. Only Major League Baseball knows what's going to happen. We have to prepare as if he's going to be a player for us."
If they can tolerate the spectacle, there's reason to believe that might not be the worst thing for the Yankees. The longer Rodriguez is suspended without pay in 2014, the easier it will be for the Yankees to keep their payroll under the $189 million luxury tax threshold. The longer it takes for any suspension to kick in, the more likely it is to keep Rodriguez out most or all of 2014. And Rodriguez's return, if nothing else, would be a boon for TV ratings.
But is that worth stomaching the sight of him in a Yankees uniform again, when relations between him and team executives have become so dysfunctional? Is it worth the daily drama that only A-Rod can create?
"I think like anything else, it will die down after a few days," Girardi said. "That's kind of what happens. There's a media buzz for a couple of days whenever there's a huge story but then it dies down because everyone has made their rounds."
Girardi might be a tad overly optimistic about that, but there's not much else he can say. If Rodriguez doesn't cut a deal by Sunday, the Yankees might not have much of a choice.
Write to Brian Costa at [email protected]
A version of this article appeared August 3, 2013, on page A22 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: A-Rod May Be in Pinstripes Monday.
