2008's 1st baseball post

Baseball is almost in full swing (get it? "full swing?") and already many things are shaping the coming season. Beckett's back, Dice-K's debuting, Crisp could become a Cub...

But the biggest story is one that many of us may have missed. We don't often pay attention to which agents are representing which players. However, when the agent's name is Scott Boras, we sit up and take notice. Yes, one of Boston's fan favorites has switched agents. Manny Ramirez is now under the secretive umbrella of the Boras Bastion (Battalion?).

Why does this matter? Boras is viewed by players as the best agent in the game and viewed by owners as the most annoying to deal with. Which means that Boras equals Bad news for fans. If you think that baseball players make way too much money and that free agents are bought for much more than market value, you have Scott Boras to thank for much of that.

Most agents will inform the teams interested in a certain player what the going rate is. Not Scott, he makes sure that the GMs who want his players are completely in the dark about what other teams are offering. It's against the rules MLB for GMs to communicate regarding such things. Let us suppose both the Angels and the Astros both want Boras' free agent star pitcher. The Angels really want him, so they offer a higher than market value 4 year $20 million deal. Now, if the Astros knew this they could offer 5 years at $22.5 million. It's a longer contract, but less per year. Now the player has a difficult decision. However, because Scott doesn't let the Astros know what's already on the table, if they really want the pitcher they might offer 5 years $30 million because they feel they can't risk someone under bidding them. Sometimes, Scott has been known to swing a high price for a player that only has one team interested, because they just don't know who else might be making a play.

Good business? Yeah, for the player and his agent. For the fan? No. Scott thrives because there is no salary cap in baseball. (And don't try to tell me the luxury tax is prohibitive. If teams want to spend for a player, they'll pay the tax.) This is why teams with superstars that are on their second or third contracts have to charge $60 for bleacher seats, $35 to park, $9 for a beer, and $6.50 for a hotdog. We, as fans, pay the prices that Scott manages to negotiate for his players. We pay his 10%. We are the victims of his "good business."

Not only that, but he acts as a trainer for his players. Even has even been known to go so far as to request that a pitchers regular pitch count be lowered. No doubt, so that when he hits the free agent market, he isn't out there as damaged goods.

How can one man have so much power? Here are just a few of Scott's clients (and what they made as of opening day 2007 in millions of dollars):

A-Rod...................28
Manny Ramirez........17
Barry Bonds.............15
Carlos Beltran..........14
J D Drew................14
Andruw Jones..........14
Adrian Beltre...........13
Johnny Damon.........13
Magglio Ordonez.......13
Carlos Lee..............12
Pudge Rodriguez.......11
Jason Varitek...........11
Derek Lowe.............10
Greg Maddux...........10
Kevin Millwood.........10
Barry Zito...............10
Mark Teixeira..........9
Kenny Rogers...........8
Jarod Wasburn.........8
Jeff Weaver.............8
Daisuke Matsuzaka.....7
Eric Gagne...............6
Matt Holiday.............4
Xavier Nady..............2

Scott has 2 of the 4 highest paid players in the game. He controls 5 of the top 20 and 11 of the top 50.

Scott Boras is probably the most powerful man in baseball. If you want a superstar, chances are very good you'll need to go through him. And with Manny joining the ranks, they just got a little better.

And baseball just got a little worse.

Here is a very good, fairly unbiased article on Mr. Boras