Winners and losers from short-lived A-Rod Derby

With Alex Rodriguez nearly off the market, the Marlins have the next-best available slugger in All-Star third baseman Miguel Cabrera. Richard C. Lewis/WireImage.com

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Nobody does offseason intrigue quite like the Yankees, who are closing in on bringing Alex Rodriguez back after their recent public split.

This pending reunion between the game's biggest star and the sport's marquee franchise will reverberate throughout the major leagues this winter. Who makes out in this thing? Who loses? Who looks like a schmuck?

Here's a look at winners and losers in this still-to-be-played-out play:

Winners

A-Rod: You can love him or you can hate him, or you can simply learn to accept his meticulously cultivated, and sometimes really creepy, public persona. However you look at the man, A-Rod is undeniably a huge winner in this deal. He gets it all.

OK, so he doesn't land that imaginary $350 million contract that his agent dreamed up. Even with all the incentives he probably won't get to $30 million a year. But he returns to baseball's most storied franchise with a hefty raise and the title of the game's most ridiculously paid player, which he figures to retain for the length of this contract. That's pretty good.

Maybe more than that, A-Rod scores a rare public relations coup by taking the first steps to reconcile with the Yankees. In this one surprising turn, A-Rod comes out looking ... humbled. Reasonable. Human, even.

There will be those A-Rod bashers, of course, who decry his signing, who continue to whine about his lack of a ring and his failures in October. Some may never see A-Rod as a "true Yankee," whatever the heck that is. None of that matters now.

A-Rod has taken the best below-the-belt punches that the Big Apple can throw at him -- the tabloid covers, the talk-show bashing, the booing, the paparazzi treatment, the jealous murmurings and cold shoulders from teammates -- and still performed like few other players ever have. He has overcome his own considerable missteps. And he's come out with this:

Rodriguez is going to be a Yankee, now and probably for the rest of his career. He will outhit some of the greatest sluggers of all time, and maybe set the game's home run record, wearing pinstripes. He will go to the Hall of Fame as a Yankee. He may well get his uniform number retired in the new Yankee Stadium.

A-Rod, the winner. New York is going to have to get used to that.

Brian Cashman: In late October the Yankees showed all the signs of a team that was falling apart. Now, under the nifty direction of general manager Cashman, the Yanks are getting the best player in the game signed long term. The best catcher on the market, Jorge Posada, already has re-upped. One of the best closers ever, Mariano Rivera, probably will follow. In short, Cashman has kept the Yankees, baseball's best team over the final three-quarters of last season, largely intact against a lot of long odds. The last step: Getting Andy Pettitte back for another year. If Cash can lock him up, the Yanks will give the Sox a run for their World Series trophy.

Hank and Hal Steinbrenner: They played the A-Rod snubbing perfectly, acting the slighted ones, vowing to go on without him, and now the owners' kids look positively magnanimous in welcoming him back. In reality, they're just playing hardball the old-fashioned Yankees' way; spending, sometimes overspending, to get the best players. This team is different than the old Yanks, though, because a gaggle of talented young players are ready to complement all those high-priced veterans. It's indeed a new era for the Yankees, and the Steinbrenners are leading the way.

The Marlins and Miguel Cabrera: With A-Rod settling in New York, Cabrera is clearly the top long-term slugger available in this market. Which means the price to trade for him just went up. The Marlins may not get what they want this winter for their pudgy but productive third baseman. But they will, eventually, even with the Yankees out of the bidding.

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