jackky: The Brewing Dispute over Alex Rodriguez8

When reports emerged in January the Yankees were intending to contest the house run milestone bonus agreement the team entered with Alex Rodriguez in 2007, it was unclear set up matter would ever actually come to a head. Following a season-long suspension for performance enhancing drug use, no one knew without a doubt whether Rodriguez would even result in the Yankees opening day roster, let alone get enough playing time to hit the six home runs nece sary to tie Willie Mays at 660 (triggering the very first of 5 potential $6 million milestone bonuses underneath the 2007 agreement).Rodriguez, of course, made the team and ended up hitting his 660th career homer on Friday evening in Boston. Consequently, attention has once more focused on whether the Yankees have any realistic hope of escaping the milestone bonus agreement.As I noted in January, since the bonus agreement has not been released publicly, it is not easy to completely a se s the Yankees likelihood of escaping the $6 Andrew Adams Jersey million payment. However, neverthele s there is still much that we dont know of the contract, recent developments have shed some additional light around the legal arguments the Yankees will likely depend on when attemping to avoiding paying Rodriguez underneath the agreement.Following Rodriguezs 660th home run on Friday, the Yankees publicly confirmed for the first time the team didn't plan to pay Rodriguez an added bonus for that milestone. Brian Cashman, the Yankees gm, told reporters on Saturday that the team didn't believe it was obligated to pay Rodriguez under the terms of the 2007 agreement.It appears that the Yankees position is dependant on one provision in the milestone agreement in particular, a clause that was revealed over the past weekend during a game broadcast on the YES network. Specifically, the contract reportedly states that:It may be the sole discretion of the Ny Yankees to determine whether all these milestones is commercially marketable because the homer chase. The Yankees have the right, although not the duty, to determine whether its a commercially marketable milestone.In short, the bonus agreement would appear to give the Yankees the authority to decide if you should designate each one of the specified home run thresholds like a milestone. So, from the teams perspective, if the Yankees elect not to declare Rodriguezs 660th home run a milestone, then the team doesn't have to pay him the $6 million bonus.This revelation certainly strengthens the Yankees case. Whether or not this ultimately turns out to be enough to win a potential grievance, however, remains uncertain.As a preliminary matter, as the provision does indicate that the Yankees po se s the sole discretion to determine whether to designate a particular home run as a milestone, the clause does not allow the team to apply whatever standard it might choose when creating that call. Instead, as Michael McCann recently noted at SI.com (in a piece that is really worth reading), the phrase commercially marketable is comparatively well defined legally, with courts holding that an opportunity should be thought about commercially marketable if it carries the prospect of considerable sales with the po sibility of an income.The key question under this provision, then, is if the Yankees could reasonably conclude that the advertising campaign dedicated to Rodriguezs 660th home run wouldn' Devin Unga Jersey t carry the potential of turning a profit. And while the contract provides the team the sole discretion to create this determination, the Yankees must act in good faith when exercising this discretion.Along these lines, Rodriguez could reason that the Yankees decision to not designate his 660th home run a milestone wasn't made in good faith, but was instead wrongly intended to punish him for his prior conduct (may it be his PED suspension, his decision to sue the teams doctor for malpractice, or something else). Rodriguez could a sert, for example, that the fact that the Yankees have been preparing for months to contest the milestone bonus itself shows that they was acting in bad faith.If the team was genuinely Corey Webster Jersey trying to decide in good faith whether his 660th homer could be commercially marketable, Rodriguez could contend, then the Yankees might have waited to see how fans taken care of immediately him once he returned to the field. Indeed, considering that Yankees fans gave Rodriguez a comparatively warm reception on opening day as well as the significant media attention the 660th homer generated he is able to plausibly reason that the milestone was more marketable than the Yankees allege.It is also po sible, obviously, the team revealed a poor faith motive for that decision to not designate the home run as a milestone during a number of its communications with Rodriguez. If so, these statements provides further support to the argument that the team wasn't acting in good faith.Beyond the i sue of excellent faith, Rodriguez may also a sert that the history of the milestone bonus agreement undercuts the Yankees interpretation from the contract. When Rodriguez would be a free agent back in 2007, he and also the Yankees had originally negotiated some performance bonuses directly a sociated with Rodriguez surpa sing various homer marks.Major League Baseball refused to approve the agreement, however, citing league rules prohibiting teams from awarding players bonuses for on-field accomplishments (as opposed to MVP awards, etc.). Consequently, the parties instead recharacterized the bonus provisions as a marketing agreement, using the Yankees compensating Rodriguez for the use of his name and image as opposed to the designated home run milestones themselves in any related marketing campaigns.So Rodriguez may potentially argue that the real intent of the parties was not to give the Yankees the discretion to determine if you should market his 660th homer, but instead only to reward him for reaching each of the designated milestones. And while this sort of negotiating history normally would not trump the plain language of the contract inside a court of law, any dispute in this instance could be resolved by an arbitrator, not a judge. So it is po sible albeit rather unlikely this historical context could persuade an arbitrator to exercise a greater amount of discretion in this instance and rule in Rodriguezs favor.Even then, though, the Yankees may likely reason that Rodriguez is effectively attempting to transform what has been clearly designated like a marketing agreement into the sort of performance bonuses prohibited by MLB. They would thus contend the arbitrator cannot interpret the agreement in a way that will render it an immediate violation of league rules. This might somewhat be enough to convince the arbitrator to rule in the Yankees favor on the matter.Finally, it's also entirely po sible that there's other, yet-to-be-disclosed language in the bonus agreement that supports Rodriguezs position. Sources Cole Farrand Jersey within the Major League Baseball Players A sociation have reportedly suggested that such language does in fact exist and helps strengthen Rodriguezs case.So it is still too early to predict who would win if Rodriguez elects to challenge the Yankees decision. In line with the contractual language released to date, however, it would appear that they has a stronger basis to avoid make payment on milestone bonus than might have initially seemed to be the case.Moving forward, the bonus agreement reportedly gives the Yankees two weeks following Rodriguezs 660th home run to determine whether or not to officially declare it a milestone. A suming that the team does, actually, elect not to designate the house run as a milestone, Rodriguez and the MLBPA would then have 45 days to file a grievance from the Yankees. At that time, they might have Ten days to review the complaint and notify Rodriguez of the items, if anything, it will do in Romeo Okwara Jersey order to resolve the i sue.A suming that the Yankees do not reverse course at this time and agree to pay Rodriguez the $6 million he would then have 15 days to file for an appeal with MLBs Labor Relations Department (LRD). The LRD might have 35 days to confer with union representatives in an attempt to settle the situation. A suming the situation cant be resolved at this stage, Rodriguez (or even the MLBPA) would then get 15 days to request that a neutral arbitrator decide the problem. That arbitration would be scheduled sometime over the following year, most likely throughout the off-season.Rodriguez and the Yankees could, obviously, agree to settle the problem sooner or later during this proce s. But thinking about the acrimonious history between your parties, we're probably unlikely to determine this dispute resolved anytime soon.