Alex Rodriguez. (PHOTO: Tim Fuller/USA TODAY Sports)

The website BaseballPlayerSalaries.com provides some incredible stats about embattled Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez’s $28 million salary for 2013. Among them: A-Rod makes 89 cents a second, and makes more every week than many MLB players — including practically all rookies — make in a year. Because of injuries, Rodriguez has yet to play in a game this season.

Due to baseball’s salary structure, in which players typically make no more than slightly above the league minimum for their first two or three full seasons in the Majors, a theoretical team (that somehow managed to draft, develop, and acquire young players with unprecedented success) could field the following roster for half of Alex Rodriguez’s 2013 salary.

Starters: Chris Sale, Matt Harvey, Madison Bumgarner, Patrick Corbin, Shelby Miller
Catchers: Carlos Santana, Jason Castro
Infielders: Paul Goldschmidt, Jason Kipnis, Manny Machado, Josh Donaldson, Jean Segura, Matt Carpenter
Outfielders: Mike Trout, Domonic Brown, Starling Marte, Desmond Jennings, Lorenzo Cain
Bullpen: Craig Kimbrel, Drew Smyly, Tanner Scheppers, Justin Wilson, Mark Melancon, Alex Torres, Rex Brothers

Mike Trout, arguably the best player in baseball, makes roughly 55 times less money than Alex Rodriguez does due to baseball’s salary structure. (PHOTO: Kelvin Kuo/USA TODAY Sports)

That team would be in a heck of a financial bind within a couple of years, once all those excellent young players are eligible for salary arbitration. But that team, fielded on half of A-Rod’s 2013 salary, would likely be the best team of all time.

Of course, it’s worth noting that it’s hardly Rodriguez’s fault he’s making so much money to sit on the disabled list. You’d have to be utterly insane to turn down the 10-year, $275 million contract the Yankees offered Rodriguez after the 2007 season.

And though the Yankees couldn’t have expected everything that has since gone wrong for A-Rod, giving a 10-year contract to a 32-year-old player was an awful idea in the first place. And they shouldn’t be surprised by a 37-year-old player enduring lengthy stints on the disabled list. No one can blame the Yankees if they’re actually trying to get out from underneath Rodriguez’s massive contract, but it’s their fault it’s weighing them down.