Alex Rodriguez To Retire: Stats, Net Worth, Video Highlights Of Yankee Star

Alex Rodriguez said Wednesday he plans to retire after the 2017 season, when his contract with the New York Yankees expires.

"I won't play after next year," Rodriguez told ESPN's Andrew Marchand. "I've really enjoyed my time. For me, it is time for me to go home and be dad."

The oft-controversial Rodriguez, 40, will retire with an array of honors, incredible stats and a mixed legacy. He's coming off a solid season in which he hit 33 home runs and played in 151 games, just one year after sitting out the entire 2014 season for a performance-enhancing drug suspension. He has admitted that he had used PEDs at times during his career.

Rodriguez, known often as A-Rod, is a three-time MVP. He played in the majors for 21 years and over that time has averaged a .297 batting average, 41 home runs per season and .382 on-base percentage. Rodriguez put up eye-popping numbers and was for years the game's biggest player — on paper a sure-fire Hall of Famer — but the steroid legacy complicates matters.

He also enters the 2016 season with 687 career home runs, putting him 75 behind Barry Bonds' career record of 762. Should Rodriguez actually follow through with his plan to retire after 2017, he'd have to average 37.5 home runs over the next two seasons to tie Bonds. That's not impossible, but at age 40, not entirely likely either — Rodriguez's 33 homers in 2015 was considered a pleasant surprise for Yankees fans. As it stands, he's one of just eight MLB players who hit 600 home runs. Last season Rodriguez also reached the milestone of 3,000 hits, one of just 29 players to hit that mark.

Rodriguez has signed a number of high-profile mega contracts and the 2017 season will be the final on his current 10-year, $275 million deal. By the end of the contract he will have made about $420 million just through on-field earnings, the most ever for U.S. athlete. His exact net worth is unclear, but has made some successful real estate deals and has in the past made endorsement money from companies like Nike, Rawlings, Topps and Vita Coco.