Voice of the 'Fan

In the space of 48 hours, the Yankees are finding themselves filling up their off-season shopping list.

First, Mark Teixiera announces on Friday that he'll call it a career when the season ends. The other shoe dropped this morning with news that Alex Rodriguez is going to play his last game on Friday, 8/12, vs. Tampa Bay, then move into a special advisor/roving instructor gig until the end of 2017.

In Rodriguez's case, maybe this should've been considered before the start of the season. His skills were starting to decline in the 2nd half of 2015, despite the hot start to that season. Teixiera has, like Rodriguez, been plagued with injuries, more so than A-Rod, in fact, the last couple of years, including this year, and while he decided to employ some psychological warfare with the Mets' Hansel Robles Wednesday night, getting drilled in the leg by Steven Matz earlier in the game may have proven to be the final straw. In defense of Rodriguez, maybe we wouldn't be at this stage if he wasn't such a cheat, dependent on PED's much of his career. If he was clean as he claimed to be, maybe his body could hold out for at least another year.

In other words, I think he knew time was catching up to him sooner than he'd like, precluding any career goals that remained. He's an expensive bench player on a team that has more holes than the Titanic, and now the Yanks will eat the remainder of his player contract, something that should've happened when he was popped for PED's 3 years ago.

What it amounts to is the law of diminishing returns taking effect on the Yankees. They held on to their aging stars too long---CC Sabathia is likely the next to go, after the season---which has happened too many times in the past. Loyalty is one thing, but reality reminds us that loyalty does have an expiration date.