What is A-Hole A-Rod Really Worth?

It seems to be everyone is agreeing that A-Hole will get a raise from his ~$27M last year to something like $29-30M. What everyone is forgetting is that the $27M he got was too high to begin with. The Rangers made a stupid move in offering him that much when no one else was even close to that number. Has A-Rod performed, absolutely. Is he the most valuable player in the majors and will he be for the next 10 years, probably. At least for the next 5 he'll be in the top 5 even in a "bad year." So what is he really worth?

Let's use round numbers and say we agree with Boras that he's worth $30M/yr. What are some of the other contracts out there? Here's a list from Wikipedia:

1. Alex Rodriguez New York Yankees $ 27,708,525
2. Jason Giambi New York Yankees $ 23,428,571
3. Derek Jeter New York Yankees $ 21,600,000
4. Manny Ramirez Boston Red Sox $ 17,016,381
5. Todd Helton Colorado Rockies $ 16,600,000
6. Andy Pettitte New York Yankees $ 16,000,000
7. Bartolo Colon Los Angeles Angels $ 16,000,000
8. Jason Schmidt Los Angeles Dodgers $ 15,703,946
9. Jim Thome Chicago White Sox $ 15,666,667
10. Bobby Abreu New York Yankees $ 15,600,000
11. Barry Bonds San Francisco Giants $ 15,533,970
12. Richie Sexson Seattle Mariners $ 15,500,000
13. Mike Hampton Atlanta Braves $ 15,475,185
14. Carlos Delgado New York Mets $ 14,500,000
15. Vladimir Guerrero Los Angeles Angels $ 14,500,000
16. Lance Berkman Houston Astros $ 14,500,000
17. J.D. Drew Boston Red Sox $ 14,400,000
18. Pedro Martinez New York Mets $ 14,002,234
19. Andruw Jones Atlanta Braves $ 14,000,000
20. Miguel Tejada Baltimore Orioles $ 13,811,415

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest_paid_baseball_players#Annual_Salaries_by_Year

You can make an argument that A-Hole should be paid more than all of these players. But should he be paid twice as much? I don't think so. I also think part of the problem is that many of these contracts were awarded right after A-Holes contract in 2001. Jeter, Giambi, Manny, Helton, Hampton all signed lucrative deals after the A-Hole mega deal for $252M. The market has since dropped as teams realized players weren't worth that much and you couldn't pay one player that much $ and be successful. I would argue that today's market is lower than 2001 and that A-Hole is being overpaid at $27M and he'd never get that kind of contract in today's market. Time will tell, but I think the only reason why people are talking about paying $20M for A-Hole is because that's what Boras is telling them, no one is actually thinking about what he's worth comapred to other players.

It's similar to Joe Torre, he was being paid $7M a year to manage the Yankees last year, that was more than twice as much as the next highest, Lou Piniella at $3.5M. Tony La Russa has since inked a deal for over $4M a year, but that's still a significant increase over everyone. Was Joe Torre really that much better, no. It's the same to A-Hole. When A-Hole starts hitting .400, with 80 HR's and 200 RBI's then I'll say he's worth twice as much as everyone else, until then, I'd put his market value at around $20M per year.

I hope an owner doesn't cave in to Boras and teams do their own due diligence, they'll see that A-Rod is not worth $30M, he's worth $20M, higher than everyone else in today's market, but not worth twice as much.