Posnanski On Rose And Jeter

Joe Posnanski is writing a book about the 1975 Reds:

When I talked with Pete Rose, I asked him if he thought Jeter had any chance to catch him on the hit list.

I wish I'd had a camera at that moment because the look of pure disgust on Pete's face was beyond priceless, it was worth more words than every blog post I've ever written. He said, "Come on."

I said, "Well, he has about as many hits as you had at his age." And if anything Pete's look became MORE disgusted, and he smirked and he said what might be my favorite quote of the year, and one that (sadly) I probably won't be able to get into the book so I give it to you now:

He said: "You tell Derek that the first 3,000 are easy."

Posnanski also wondered about Capt. Molasses's future in New York:

He's had a very mediocre offensive season. He's going to be 35 next June -- which is old for his kind of player. His top Baseball-Reference comps — Roberto Alomar, Frankie Frisch, Ryan Sandberg, Bobby Doerr -- were all more or less done at 35, and others like Alan Trammell and Barry Larkin had one good year left in them.

Connecticut Mike left an interesting comment:

He is owed $20m in '09 and $21m in '10, which is the last year of his contract. As of right now he has 2513 hits. ... There will be tremendous pressure from the press and NYY fans for the organization to re-sign him, especially seeing as how he will probably be shy of 3000 hits at the end of 2010. The Yankees organizational philosophy seems to be moving away from long term deals for older players (Posada and Mo re-signings notwithstanding), but they will almost have to re-sign Jeter after 2010 when he will be 37.

The real question is how many years will they give him, and how much of an albatross will he be around their organizational neck for that contract. The Yankees can afford a bad contract financially, but they cannot afford to keep a subpar player in the lineup, and they will be hard pressed to bench Jeter or make him a part-time player.

How many more years would Jeter want from the Yankees? Five? That would take him to his age 42 season. I can't see the Yankees paying him $20+ for those years, so how much of a pay cut would he accept? Would he play first base? DH? Even now, his slugging percentage is only .400. Would he sign with another team?