Scott Boras and the business of baseball, and young player extensions

[Brock Beauchamp]

This is an excellent, in-depth look at the business of baseball and the impact Scott Boras has on the industry. But is his influence waning in some aspects like drafting and his refusal to sign extensions?

The Power of Scott Boras, Team-Friendly Extensions, & The Changing Dynamics Of Baseball Business - Red Sox - Talk Sox

TALKSOX.COM

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Dubbed “The Most Powerful Sports Agent in the World” by Forbes, long-time agent Scott Boras has a history of negotiating record-breaking contracts for his clients. Has he hit a cold...

 

[jam1975]

6 hours ago, TomtheBombadil said:

It always cracks me up that Boras, and not the like 5 gnatsee families using grandpappy’s genocide money to declare themselves owners of life itself, has been positioned as the big bad in baseball. Fans eat that narrative up, Cubs fans wagging their tails begging for treats having sat thru a decade of rebuilds under a dozen years of new owners. These same owners have rewritten the economics of the sport, including caps at pretty much every single level paired with stricter and higher metric demands, and essentially made it an entirely new sport and game to applause from an audience who has seen pretty much every aspect of life get worse (which they often attribute to stuff like player salaries, immigrants, unions, bc ‘Merica) as their masters tighten the grip. Edit: This article touches nothing on how players’ earning potential has been systematically crushed. The caps, the options, manipulating service time, manipulating playing time, requiring position versatility and then using it to pay less (or docking someone deemed not versatile), the dominance of their narrative and arbitrary nature of being declared Ready (note how Matt Shaw - no earning potential - was deemed Ready to open 2025 but Kris Bryant 2015 absolutely needed to polish up the defense at 3B. It worked too!). I can only assume, given their centering of Boras and talking Bad extensions like Kingery’s 6/24 (nein nein nein effizient!!!), they support what has been done encourage more of it 

I’d say the good news is this will kill MLB, but as we’ve seen with the NFL, military: anything that pushes and enables the state’s corporate/fascist agenda, hierarchy will have funds puuuuuuumped in. Don’t be surprised if MLB, like the NFL, is fully publicly funded soon enough! 

i just knew by the thread title that this was going to trigger a rant from baby’s first outrage. 

[javy knows my name]

Anyone who reads that response has my respect and my pity 

[CubinNY]

Quote

 During the 2024-25 offseason, Boras negotiated contracts that totaled nearly $1.7 billion, a new record for an agent’s haul in a single offseason. 

I think there is some middle ground where a player who is not a superstar (yet) has to decide on security vs risk. It's up to the individual. If I were a player who was really good and didn't have Boars as an agent, I would use him. But If I were a regular player, not an all-star, I don't know that I would use Boras. 

I don't think the point of the article was to say that Boars is bad for baseball, but to point out that the model is evolving. We will see what happens wth the CBA. Tom's post is not wrong, it's merely annoyingly written in his jazz scat way. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

22 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

I don't think the point of the article was to say that Boars is bad for baseball, but to point out that the model is evolving.

That's exactly the point of the article. It's not passing judgment on Boras, it's questioning whether his approach is as effective as it once was, if you look past the super-mega-deals he gets for a handful of his clients.