Essentially, this is all happening because Rodriguez has an opt-out clause in his contract. That means that even though he still has years left in his ten-year contract, he's allowed to say sayonara after seven years if he so wants. Next season is when Rodriguez can opt out.

Most people believe A-Rod is outta New York like a bat out of hell because a relationship that looked so beautiful on paper is turning out to be not so much. The fans blame Rodriguez for the lack of a title in the past six years (oh, to be a Yankees fun), the press beats up on him, and his teammates whisper not-very-nice things behind his back. This is making poor, ungodly rich Alex unhappy.

Now here's where the Giants come in. The conventional wisdom has it that this will be the Barry's last year in SF (although Bruce Jenkins disagrees). The Giants will have a lot of money to spend and will need to find another big-ass superstar to show off as a shiny bauble for Giants' fans. Barry Zito will only get you so far, we guess. So, enter A-Rod.

Now, there were rumors the Giants called the Yankees over the off-season to test the waters about a trade. And Giants officials have neither said hell yeah or no way to the idea. They have even said that they have no problems spending the money on two superstars. Thus all the idle speculation.

None of this means it'll happen. Like ever. We're sure if Rodriguez decides to leave the Yankees, most of the big money teams (in Chicago or LA) will buy more wheelbarrows just to shovel all the gob-loads of cash at his feet. And despite front office claims, we've always thought the Giants plan was to not spend a lot of money on two superstars as it means they'll have most of their payroll tied up with just two stars (it's the reason Sabean traded Matt Williams away). We'd also like to point out that Giants fans are still bitter that the team didn't sign Vlad Guerrero when the only reason why fans thought it would happen was because of idle speculation such as this.

But isn't this more fun than debating who the Giants' fifth starter will be?