Yankees' Mark Teixeira admits he's overpaid

As you age you lose a step. It's just a natural progression in life. You just can't pull off some things you used to be able to do when you were younger.

New York Yankees first baseman, Mark Teixeira is coming to grips with this reality. Even though he's only 32, Texieira's numbers have slipped since signing an eight-year, $180 million contract with the Yankees in December of 2008. His power is still there, but the batting eye is gone. No longer hitting .280, he's now hovering near the .250 mark and heading toward DH territory.

Knowing he's not the player he once was, Teixeira admits to being overpaid and knows that he's on the downside of his career.

"I looked at the first six or seven years of my career, I was in my 20s, it was easy. I wasn't searching for the right formula. To think that I'm going to get remarkably better, as I get older and breaking down a little bit more, it's not going to happen," Teixeira said.

"Maybe I'm slowing down a tick. Look, I'm not going to play forever. Eventually you start, I don't want to say declining, but it gets harder and harder to put up 30 [homers] and 100 [RBI]," Teixeira said.


"I have no problem with anybody in New York, any fan, saying you're overpaid. Because I am," Teixeira said. "We all are."

"Agents are probably going to hate me for saying it," he continued. "You're not very valuable when you're making $20 million. When you're Mike Trout, making the minimum, you are crazy valuable. My first six years, before I was a free agent, I was very valuable. But there's nothing you can do that can justify a $20 million contract."

I'll give Tex credit for admitting that he's overpaid for the production he's given the Yankees. But couldn't any player say the same? There are plenty of others who will try to justify their outrageous salary due to past performances. It shouldn't work that way, but then again, we live in a regular world and they don't.

Teixeira knows the end is coming and sounds like he doesn't want to hang on. No one wants to admit when they're declining but sometimes you just have to deal with that reality. I know I wouldn't want a fan telling me I was washed up. Don't just try to hang on trying to prove you still have something left in the tank.