Girardi doesn’t expect his relationship with Rodriguez to be damaged by the decrease in A-Rod’s playing time during the playoffs.
The rumors began during the postseason when the struggling Rodriguez routinely was removed for a pinch hitter or benched entirely. Those are decisions that Girardi doesn’t regret.
“I made decisions based on the season, a month, what I’d seen,” Girardi told reporters, according to the New York Daily News. “For me to go back and say I would have changed anything, these weren’t just let me go off the top of my head and make a decision. These were things we evaluated a lot before we made our decisions. I don’t look back and second-guess myself, no, I don’t.”
Girardi added that he plans to speak with Rodriguez soon but that he doesn’t expect their relationship to be damaged by the decrease in A-Rod’s playing time during the playoffs.
Rodriguez, 37, went 3-for-25 this postseason and was 0-for-18 with 12 strikeouts against righthanded pitchers. But Girardi doesn’t think Rodriguez is in full decline.
“Can Alex be a very good player again? Absolutely. I don’t have any question in my mind. Because I think the desire is there,” Girardi said. “As far as being a heads-up player, I think that’s there. As far as being a 45-50 home-run guy, we don’t see much of that in baseball, at all. How many guys hit 40-plus homers this year? Four, maybe five? So I don’t anticipate that’s going to happen, but I think he can be a very good player. . . . You always have a chance as a player to rewrite things and make adjustments.”
Rodriguez still has five years and $114 million remaining on his contract and has said he will use his no-trade clause to block any potential trade this offseason.