Boras feeling the heat?

[JUSTgottaBELIEVE]

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/2221144...petitive-cancer

 

I mean his view is certainly biased but I agree with him in some aspects.

[GreenSox]

I think he's right - too many rebuilders. I cause, I think is the 1 game wildcard.. Teams aren't going to go "all in" for a 1 game playoff series. And honestly, it's ridiculous.

 

Instead, dump divisions and the top 4 make the playoffs...or top 6 and run normal playoff series.

[jenksycat]

Can't have it both ways. Can't have massive guaranteed contracts...then b**** that teams aren't handing out potentially crippling 100m+ deals like candy anymore.

 

Some teams are tanking/rebuilding yes, but lots of teams just aren't going to pay stupid amounts of money for aging players based on what they did in previous seasons. Houston & KC proved a rebuild & smart signings can work, you don't need a bunch of guys making 20m+ to win s***.

[Soxbadger]

Boras should keep his mouth shut. Comparing this to the Black Sox is idiocy.

 

The Black Sox were paid by gamblers to purposefully lose games. Last I checked the current White Sox are not being paid by outside forces to lose games. The issue for Boras is the fans. White Sox fans would likely be more angry if the Sox spent $200mil on a guy than if they lost 120 games next season.

 

He has to adjust his model, because he is living in the past.

[Wanne]

Pfffffft...what a whiner. Boras has always been part of the problem IMO...then tries to scold owners on how they should run their team after asking for ridiculous amounts of money for his clients the past umpteen years. Then grasps at straws with some 100 year old example hahaaaa...geezus. I'm sure we won't hear this same whine from him next year will we?....

 

[iWiN4PreP]

It's f***ing hilarious.

 

If GM's/teams were just smart enough to see the incredibly destructive deals before, we would already be further a head in solving this mess.

 

You don't give these guys huge paychecks when you know statistically that these contracts are going to be incredibly destructive and hurtful to your franchise in year 3/4/5.

 

Players/Boras need more realistic expectations.

 

At the same time, there is a very real problem with the haves/have nots in baseball, and that is really sad as it seems to be getting worse and worse. I like baseball because any team can win and it's such a gruelling season with so much importance on the team as compared to say NBA where it's 1 player beats all (LeBron / Steph).

 

 

[Dick Allen]

The market for the huge contracts hasn't changed all that much. The Mets don't spend much anymore but that is on Madoff. Other than that, most of the teams that spend have spent.

 

He just timed it wrong with so many guys and so many teams wanting to re-set their luxury tax situation and/or saving their wad of cash for next year.

[wrathofhahn]

Like I said in the other thread players contracts are bloated. His players would sign in a NY minute just not based on the bad deals of the past.

 

You can go through these 7-10 year deals they almost never work out. Pujols. Fielder. Ellsbury. Crawford. Owners are tired of setting their money on fire and I don't blame them.

 

Until you can build a competitive team via FA why should rebuilding teams bloat their caps with a bunch of unmovable deals?

Edited January 26, 2018 by wrathofhahn

[LittleHurt05]

Never count Boras out, this is all part of the game. Maybe it doesn't all go in his favor, but all it takes is one team.

[Balta1701]

Never count Boras out, this is all part of the game. Maybe it doesn't all go in his favor, but all it takes is one team.

It's not just him complaining about right now. Him putting this complaint out there is him speaking both on behalf of and to his clients and to his future clients. He's playing "public lobbying" right now.

 

This is indirect pressure on the MLBPA, and that pressure eventually will turn up in the CBA talks. And right now, conveniently enough, MLBPA is negotiating with MLB on a way that both sides could agree to a pitch clock; MLB can do it on their own but if they want the players to agree to it they need to give something up to the players that is of value to them.

[wrathofhahn]

It's not just him complaining about right now. Him putting this complaint out there is him speaking both on behalf of and to his clients and to his future clients. He's playing "public lobbying" right now.

 

This is indirect pressure on the MLBPA, and that pressure eventually will turn up in the CBA talks. And right now, conveniently enough, MLBPA is negotiating with MLB on a way that both sides could agree to a pitch clock; MLB can do it on their own but if they want the players to agree to it they need to give something up to the players that is of value to them.

 

Doesn't matter teams are just so much smarter now then they were then. If you are rebuilding it makes no sense to clog up your team salary with a bunch of overpaid veterans who won't help you win and won't be able to produce once you get good.

 

Nothing Boras can do about it. One great player doesn't have the same level of impact as basketball or football. Basketball only has five players on the court. Football is run by qb's.

 

In baseball the best pitcher in the league only starts once every five game and in that one game may pitch 60% of the innings. Your best hitter is one of 9 players playing and also has to play defense.

 

Time and time again we've seen agents convince bad teams to go for it and resign for example Stanton. Or sign Mike Hampton.

[chitownsportsfan]

Like I said in the other thread players contracts are bloated. His players would sign in a NY minute just not based on the bad deals of the past.

 

You can go through these 7-10 year deals they almost never work out. Pujols. Fielder. Ellsbury. Crawford. Owners are tired of setting their money on fire and I don't blame them.

 

Until you can build a competitive team via FA why should rebuilding teams bloat their caps with a bunch of unmovable deals?

 

Contracts are "bloated" only in the sense that vets are overpaid relative to the amazing accuracy of WAR/$ projections and their younger pre-arb and pre-FA counterparts. (And of course nobody ever b****es about the FA signing that turns into a bargain for the club.)

 

The thing is that the MLBPA did an unbelievably bad job at the last negotiation. The luxury tax is not just a nuisance it's a defacto hard cap. It's also a helluva an excuse not to take on salary not just to go over it -- but to approach it -- in that ethereal Garpax patented "financial flexability" corporate speak.

 

Also, and this is a helluva factor -- revenue has never been less tied to performance. With the revenue sharing, MLBAM revenue, etc there's less incentive than ever to win in order to make money.

 

s*** is really bad and I am pretty worried there will be a strike just as the Sox get good again.

Edited January 26, 2018 by chitownsportsfan

[credezcrew24]

Never count Boras out, this is all part of the game. Maybe it doesn't all go in his favor, but all it takes is one team.

 

As safe a pick as possible

[greg775]

I think he's right - too many rebuilders. I cause, I think is the 1 game wildcard.. Teams aren't going to go "all in" for a 1 game playoff series. And honestly, it's ridiculous.

 

Instead, dump divisions and the top 4 make the playoffs...or top 6 and run normal playoff series.

Agreed. That one game wildcard is absurd. You guys are right. If you are the losing team in the one-game playoff, it really is silly. It means nothing and your season was unsuccessful. One game wildcard? A joke.

 

You can go through these 7-10 year deals they almost never work out. Pujols. Fielder. Ellsbury. Crawford. Owners are tired of setting their money on fire and I don't blame them.

Nice post. This is a good thread.

 

Never count Boras out, this is all part of the game. Maybe it doesn't all go in his favor, but all it takes is one team.

I also agree with this. He still might strike paydirt with Hosmer and Moustakas.

[BlackSox13]

I agree with Boras that the number of rebuilding teams is hurting the FA market but that's not the only reason. There are numerous examples ( take your pick ) of players that were signed at their peak to long term contracts and end up becoming an albatross. So rebuilding teams aren't the only reason for this, as Boras would like us to believe. IMHO, it's misdirection on his part to ignore the numerous examples ( some his own clients ) of horrible contracts that teams regret.

[Dominikk85]

Can't have it both ways. Can't have massive guaranteed contracts...then b**** that teams aren't handing out potentially crippling 100m+ deals like candy anymore.

 

Some teams are tanking/rebuilding yes, but lots of teams just aren't going to pay stupid amounts of money for aging players based on what they did in previous seasons. Houston & KC proved a rebuild & smart signings can work, you don't need a bunch of guys making 20m+ to win s***.

 

Except is isn't really both ways, yes a few players get massive guaranteed contracts but the compensation is that ALL players are very cheap during their first 6-7 years which is their prime years. Sure it sucks you have to pay 30m to washed up pujols but both ways would mean giving pujols at 35 30 millions and trout or Bryant at age 24 50 millions per year instead of 500k.

 

The overpaying of (a few) veterans was the price owners paid for getting young talent to work for almost free. It worked excellent for the owners, sure there are the pujols deals but overall the players share of mlb revenue dropped a lot in the last 10 years (salaries went up but less so then mlb revenue).

 

If the teams now stop giving big contracts without raising young players pay (or shortening team control) that is simply a big pay cut while mlb makes more revenue than ever.

 

Sure owners need to make some profit and I think the tipping point isn't reached yet but if the players lose any more of the cake the union needs to do something.

 

 

Really the union did a bad job here. They were always selling the young guys but they didn't realize that teams got extra greedy (I.e. more efficient- which they can't be faulted for of course) and leaned more on young and cheap players instead of fulfilling their part of the deal and overpay the veterans. Union missed that trend.

 

I don't blame the GMs for finding a loophole and get more efficient but of course they can't continue to underpay young guys and get more efficient with veterans.

 

Owners need to make a decision which of the two groups they want to pay. Union will never get pay for both groups but no group of course isn't acceptable either.

Edited January 26, 2018 by GermanSock

[Dominikk85]

Of course it makes sense that teams don't want to overpay 30+ year olds as we all know the aging curves now. Any intern or hobby sabermetrist can now calculate aging curves and dollar per war.

 

But you also have to see that 22-28 year old players are massively underpaid. If you want to stop overpaying the veterans you instead need to pay the young guys right.

[Balta1701]

Of course it makes sense that teams don't want to overpay 30+ year olds as we all know the aging curves now. Any intern or hobby sabermetrist can now calculate aging curves and dollar per war.

 

But you also have to see that 22-28 year old players are massively underpaid. If you want to stop overpaying the veterans you instead need to pay the young guys right.

I can't recall who it was a few weeks ago (instincts saying Shack but I could be wrong, if it was someone else please remind me) who suggested that one way to help with this would be to bring the minimum salary up to $1 million or so rather than $500k. Raises the cost for going with the Marlins-style lineup and probably puts some veterans who would otherwise be out of work back on the table. That's the kind of thing I could see Boras starting to push for to help protect his big clients.

[FT35]

This really comes down to the essence of today's game: 1. How do you get better and 2. how do you win consistently.

 

1. How do you get better--you have a choice. You can trade something away or go out and take a chance on a mediocre Free Agent--that chance will cost you 10's of millions of dollars and like everything else, there are no guarantees.

 

2. How do you win consistently? You have to create a winning culture that is built on both talent and chemistry. You can do that by rolling the dice on free agents all coming together at the right time and having career years at the same time--AND PERFORMING IN THE POST SEASON at the same time, or you can build a core of young talent and work them up to the big leagues together and raise your probability of a 5-7 year period of above normal winning rates. The costs of these choices are tough to compare, because in the rebuilding model, a good chunk of what you're saving in player salary, you're losing in team revenue because no one wants to watch a lame product.

 

In my opinion, it's Boras who has destroyed the game and forced the owners' hands to go cheap. Look how owners handle pending free agents...they trade them! They don't want anything to do with them--they'd rather get some prospects for them then have to deal with the whole risk involved in resigning a star player with equal bust potential as the next guy. Rebuilding is a more practical road to sustaining long-term winning. 100 million dollars goes a long way in the rebuilding model. In the contending model, it buys you 1 player for a few years. Obviously, we are passionate baseball/White Sox fans, but if you were a GM where baseball was your business 1st and passion second, and you were trying to change the course of an organization from a product enhancement standpoint, and you had a relatively short leash on your job to accomplish it, how would you do it?

 

1. Spend a ton of $ over a 10+ year period trying to find the right combinations of Scott Boras' free agents (players who your fans have likely been rooting against for years) year after year and have 1 playoff appearance to show for it (aka the model that had the White Sox dead in the water)?

 

OR...do you wipe the slate clean and rebuild for a period of 3-4 years and set yourself up for a 5-7 year run of winning with a young core of internally developed players that fans have watched grow up and become winners--making them more attached to your product?

 

If Boras would like the game to get back to the way it was, then he needs to make his model seem more practical to owners. Obviously he's set for life and money will NEVER be an issue for him as long as he lives, but MLB owners are HIS clients...he needs to decide whether the mega contracts model brings more revenue than if he would to make free agents more obtainable by lowering the risk for owners building a winning model around them.

Edited January 26, 2018 by FT35

[Kyyle23]

Except is isn't really both ways, yes a few players get massive guaranteed contracts but the compensation is that ALL players are very cheap during their first 6-7 years which is their prime years. Sure it sucks you have to pay 30m to washed up pujols but both ways would mean giving pujols at 35 30 millions and trout or Bryant at age 24 50 millions per year instead of 500k.

 

The overpaying of (a few) veterans was the price owners paid for getting young talent to work for almost free. It worked excellent for the owners, sure there are the pujols deals but overall the players share of mlb revenue dropped a lot in the last 10 years (salaries went up but less so then mlb revenue).

 

If the teams now stop giving big contracts without raising young players pay (or shortening team control) that is simply a big pay cut while mlb makes more revenue than ever.

 

Sure owners need to make some profit and I think the tipping point isn't reached yet but if the players lose any more of the cake the union needs to do something.

 

 

Really the union did a bad job here. They were always selling the young guys but they didn't realize that teams got extra greedy (I.e. more efficient- which they can't be faulted for of course) and leaned more on young and cheap players instead of fulfilling their part of the deal and overpay the veterans. Union missed that trend.

 

I don't blame the GMs for finding a loophole and get more efficient but of course they can't continue to underpay young guys and get more efficient with veterans.

 

Owners need to make a decision which of the two groups they want to pay. Union will never get pay for both groups but no group of course isn't acceptable either.

 

Except it is becoming more and more common for teams to identify and offer their younger players better contracts that take them through their arbitration years. It isnt a perfect system by any stretch, but every young player isnt playing for peanuts

 

[SCCWS]

Like I said in the other thread players contracts are bloated. His players would sign in a NY minute just not based on the bad deals of the past.

 

You can go through these 7-10 year deals they almost never work out. Pujols. Fielder. Ellsbury. Crawford. Owners are tired of setting their money on fire and I don't blame them.

 

Until you can build a competitive team via FA why should rebuilding teams bloat their caps with a bunch of unmovable deals?

 

 

The teams that signed Pujols Fielder Ellsbury etc may be tired of setting their money on fire. But I would ask you how many of those franchises are having financial problems because of it. They may not have gotten player production vs dollars spent but did the signing of those players generate income? Did they sell more tickets?? Did they sell more merchandise? Did their advertising revenue increase. These owners are not dummies. They are making money by the truckloads. When their bottom line gets affected they will watch what they spend on salaries. But if spending X ( even if they don't get their true value) nets them X+ they will continue to spend millions on salaries to make more millions in revenue.

 

 

[Dominikk85]

Except it is becoming more and more common for teams to identify and offer their younger players better contracts that take them through their arbitration years. It isnt a perfect system by any stretch, but every young player isnt playing for peanuts

 

 

Actually those extensions are peanuts, that's why they are called team friendly. Usually it is like 30m for 5 years.

 

That someone signs an extension at market value is pretty rare.

[Kyyle23]

Actually those extensions are peanuts, that's why they are called team friendly. Usually it is like 30m for 5 years.

 

That someone signs an extension at market value is pretty rare.

 

10x minimum salary isn’t peanuts, and it isn’t a certainty that it works out for the team (see Singleton, Jon). Of course teams aren’t going to pay every player their exact market value when they are under team control, that isn’t a realistic expectation in any sport.

[Eminor3rd]

Teams are tanking/rebuilding specifically BECAUSE of mega free agent deals, lol.

[chitownsportsfan]

The teams that signed Pujols Fielder Ellsbury etc may be tired of setting their money on fire. But I would ask you how many of those franchises are having financial problems because of it. They may not have gotten player production vs dollars spent but did the signing of those players generate income? Did they sell more tickets?? Did they sell more merchandise? Did their advertising revenue increase. These owners are not dummies. They are making money by the truckloads. When their bottom line gets affected they will watch what they spend on salaries. But if spending X ( even if they don't get their true value) nets them X+ they will continue to spend millions on salaries to make more millions in revenue.

 

 

If their revenue was affected up or down it's really just a drop in the bucket. As I mentioned up thread because of the national money pouring in from revenue sharing, MLBAM, etc -- winning has never been more decoupled from revenue.

 

Baseball's economics are broken right now. We need a salary floor and to seriously reconsider revenue sharing and the bulls*** "small market" compensation crap. There are no "small markets" in MLB right now -- only profitable markets and more profitable markets.

 

Teams are tanking/rebuilding specifically BECAUSE of mega free agent deals, lol.

 

Not really. I don't think a single franchise has been "crippled" by any FA in the last decade. What teams are doing is in response to the economic incentives currently in place. Those incentives, for the most part, encourage teams not to spend on FA.

Edited January 26, 2018 by chitownsportsfan