Late Innings

Too much caffeine has me up late this evening. Any ways Jack Marshall has a piece up on THT, notably about super agent Scott Boras. It’s definitely a piece worth reading. Any ways I wanted to chime in about two of his clients, Carlos Beltran and Bernie Williams:

Scott Boras has over 60 major league clients, and most of them are not free agents. But unwaivable conflicts can arise with these as well. Several years ago, Boras client Bernie Williams was trying to hold on to his job as the New York Yankee center fielder, and Boras free agent client Carlos Beltran was eager to play center field in New York. He ended up signing with the Mets. Boras was ready to negotiate with the Yankees as well, evidently—ethically, he had to be, or he would not be serving Beltran’s interests. But if he was successful bargaining with the Yankees on behalf of Beltran, he would have been simultaneously sabotaging Williams, negotiating him out of a job. One way or the other, he was conflicted.

Keep in mind that this was back at the end of the 2004 season. Beltran was coming of a mammoth walk-year, hitting 38 bombs with the Royals and the Astros. His postseason was also torrid, as the team took their NLCS against the Cardinals to Game 7 (they later made the World Series the following year.) In either case, Beltran was a free agent and the Yankees were on the verge of signing him (ridiculously close), to a contract worth 96MM. However as Marshall pointed out, the Yankees already had a declining center fielder under a seven year, 87MM deal. This little conflict of interest played itself out a little longer. In the process, Boras was able to net his client another 20MM from the Mets (I’m sure George Steinbrenner wishes that he had Beltran in the outfield right now regardless.)

Granted Williams’ stats were clearly on the decline at that time, however Boras played the strong economy to his favor and got Beltran more money thereafter. Now obviously the economic climate has changed, and it’s interesting to think if Boras could be able to pull a hat trick like this again, or anytime soon… it’s interesting to note that Williams is mulling a comeback, as mentioned a couple of days ago on mlb.com.