Alex Rodriguez: Yankees Expect Him at Third Base Next Season

Alex Rodriguez, the New York Yankee who's coming off a year-long suspension for using performance-enhancing drugs, is expected to return to third base next season but has to earn a starting spot, according manager Joe Girardi.

As the Yankees celebrated the end of the Derek Jeter era last week, the team was bracing itself for the return for the controversial star who has spent all season on the sideline, part of the time fighting Major League baseball over his suspension.

Rodriguez is coming off his suspension in connection with the Biogenesis scandal, along with two bad hips and assorted other injuries in recent years, according to the New York Daily News. The Yankees are expected to pay Rodriguez $61 million for the 2015-17 seasons.

"He hasn't played in a year," Girardi said, according to The New York Times. "That's not easy to do. I've got to see where he's physically at, see from a playing standpoint where he's at. Do we expect him to be a player on our team? Absolutely. Do we expect him to play third base? Yes. But in fairness, I think you have to see where he's at."

Yankee general manager Brian Cashman told the Daily News that Rodriguez would not play in a winter league but indicated to him that he was planning to put himself through two-a-day workouts at UCLA during the off season.

"Between that and his workouts in Miami and he's going to plan on working with our staff in Tampa at some point this winter," Cashman told the Daily News. "He looks forward to reintroducing himself in a positive way for us going forward."

Rodriguez sued Major League Baseball and the New York Yankees team doctors in an effort to play sooner but he later dropped both lawsuits, according to ESPN. Cashman said Rodriguez is ready to leave that history behind them.

"So we had a good conversation on that end," Cashman told ESPN. "I would term it 'good.' I didn't rehash anything from the past. It is not productive to do so. He's been suspended. He served his time. It gets completed by tomorrow. Then he will be reintroduced obviously with you guys [the media] and our personnel."

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