A-Rod opted out of his contract yesterday, leaving $72 million in guaranteed money in hopes that he can sign an even bigger contract and, possibly more importantly, get out from under the constant pressure of the Yankees.

Looking at this and what else the Yankees could possibly lose this offseason, it makes me a little happy.  Jorge Posada, Andy Pettitte, and Mariano Rivera are all free agents.  I suspect Rivera will be back, but I'm not so sure on the other two.  This would leave the Yankees thin at 3rd, 1st, SP, and C.  Here's to a basement finish for the Yankees in 2008.

On the flip side of this is the horror that is the possibility of A-Rod arriving in the NL West.  I suspect both the Dodgers and Giants will makes plays at him.  I'm not so worried about him on the Giants, but a Dodgers team with A-Rod in the middle of Ethier, Kemp, Loney, and Martin is not making for happy thoughts.

Other popular landing zones for A-Rod include the Mets, Angels, Cubs, and Red Sox.  I wouldn't rule out the Rangers, Braves, or Astros.  It actually seems that A-Rod and Boras picked a bad year to do this.  A lot of the top spending teams have quite a few players locked in to $10 mil+ contracts for the next season or two.

Personally, I'd like to see him sit on the FA market with no interest until the day before spring training where he signs with the Royals for $15 mil a year.