The Boras Factor
Super agent's grip on June draft under fire from MLB
Posted: Wednesday June 6, 2007 3:33PM; Updated: Wednesday June 6, 2007 7:14PM
Scott Boras has a tremendous stable of young amateur players ready for baseball's 2007 draft, maybe the best group he's had since Jim Abbott, Andy Benes and Steve Avery 19 years ago, maybe even better.
Besides all that talent, Boras has the best rhetoric. The famous super-agent -- or "advisor," the official role he assumes when working with amateurs -- lists a few prospects from his current batch who are "decade players," meaning talents who come along once every 10 years. The man who single-handedly changed the face of baseball's amateur selection process is more than ready to capitalize on this year's draft, which begins Thursday in Orlando, Fla.
Standing in his way will be his decidedly less-famous nemesis, Frank Coonelly, a man who goes by the title of MLB senior VP and general counsel for labor. Coonelly, the league's behind-the-scenes brains for the draft, has countered Boras' aggressive negotiating tactics with a successful "slotting" system, which assigns suggested dollar values for picks. MLB also has introduced some dramatic rules changes designed to drive down signing bonuses that skyrocketed through the 1990s but have leveled off in recent years.
Coonelly and his colleagues at MLB contend that the real reason why Boras and other agents can procure such large bonuses for their college and high school clients isn't always related to the players' talent but rather to the negotiating prowess of the agents, which top MLB officials claim has led to several bad deals for ballclubs. "Meeting exorbitant demands of 18- and 21-year-olds is a risky business," Coonelly says. "Many clubs have been burned by buying into the idea of the 'special' player or the 'player of the decade.'"
Coonelly has data indicating that a good percentage of top picks, regardless of who's advising them, don't make it, and he has effectively shared that information with club executives to help keep bonuses down in recent years. Coonelly provided to SI a list of 18 Boras-only clients who received bonuses between $1 million and $3 million from 1998 to 2003, above the "slot" figure that MLB strongly recommends to teams, and haven't yet returned much on the investment. "There isn't a correlation between overpaying and productivity," Coonelly says. "There is a fairly long track record of clients Scott represented who signed 'above slot' who haven't panned out."
Boras counters that Coonelly's list includes six players who made the majors and omits several from those years who have succeeded, such as Prince Fielder, Jeff Weaver, Gerald Laird and Brad Wilkerson. And Boras points out that many of those players, who he says were not sold as premium players, got injured. And Boras, famous for negotiating Alex Rodriguez's $252 million free-agent contract, Barry Zito's $126 million payday and several other groundbreaking big-league deals, has his own powerful data. While only about half the players from the overall list of 189 picks in the $1-million-to-$3-million bonus range made it to the majors, that list includes bargain stars such as Carl Crawford ($1.24 million signing bonus), Adrian Gonzalez ($3 million), Chase Utley ($1.78 million), Fielder ($2.37 million), Jeff Francoeur ($2.2 million), Nick Swisher ($1.77 million), plus the makings of a superb pitching staff: C.C. Sabathia ($1.3 million), Brad Lidge ($1.05 million), Ben Sheets ($2.45 million), Brett Myers ($2.05 million), Zito ($1.59 million), Chris Young ($1.65 million), Noah Lowry ($1.17 million), Scott Kazmir ($2.15 million) and Matt Cain ($1.37 million).
Boras also points out that among the truly special players from that 1998-03 period (the ones receiving $3 million bonuses), 21 of 22 have reached the big leagues. As for his own top amateur prospects, Boras says that eight of the nine who have received $4 million bonuses or higher since 1998 already have made it to the majors (including Rangers first baseman Mark Teixeira), and the ninth is righthander Luke Hochevar, the No. 1 overall pick last year, who's already at Double-A and knocking on the big-league door for the Royals. "When you're talking about the high-bonus players, they've been 100 percent successful since 1998," Boras says.
But Coonelly, who has had several knock-down, drag-out battles with Boras in major-league arbitration hearings, cites stats suggesting that there's no reason to pay more than the "slot" value that MLB assigns, which starts between $3 million and $4 million for the No. 1 pick and goes down to just below $1 million for the 30th pick of the first round, then down to $100,000 by the end of the fifth round. According to MLB's figures, 40 percent of players who receive 5 percent or more "above slot" from the first three rounds make it to the majors, while a comparable 38 percent who receive "slot money" or below make it to the big leagues.
Boras counters by saying that these slots are "artificial" and not based on a player's true ability or value and that baseball decision makers are putting themselves in peril by adhering to these guidelines. "He's directing them to pass on better players, and thus risking their jobs," Boras says. He offers as example Texas' passing on Jered Weaver and his $5 million request in 2003 and choosing Thomas Diamond for $2 million instead. Weaver got $4 million from Anaheim, which picked after Texas, then won his first nine starts in 2006 and helped Anaheim win the division.
According to Boras, MLB's figures are diluted by including more than the first round, where he says 40 percent of the bonus money goes and where he says most of the premium amateur talent is selected. What's more, Boras points to an impressively long list of players whom he has represented and who received large bonuses and proved their value, including A-Rod, Jason Varitek, Kevin Brown, Alex Fernandez, Charles Johnson, Kurt Stillwell, Tim Belcher, Darren Dreifort, Abbott and Avery. "Any time I had a rough fight with a player, that player proved to be a longstanding major leaguer of value," Boras says.
Declining Bonuses
Bonus Babies
Boras players who signed for at least $4 million since 1998:
Year Player Team Bonus
1998 J.D. Drew STL $8.02 million
2000 Xavier Nady SD $6.005 million
2001 Mark Teixeira TEX $10.58 million
2002 Jeremy Guthrie CLE $4.4 million
2004 Jered Weaver LAA $4.0 million
2004 Stephen Drew AZ $7.0 million
2005 Craig Hansen BOS $4.0 million
2005 Mike Pelfrey NYM $6.4 million
2006 Luke Hochevar KC $5.25 million
Scott Boras' Kids
2007 Top prospects represented by Boras
Jake Arrieta, RHP, Texas Christian U.
Julio Borbon, OF, Tennessee
Andrew Brackman, RHP, NC State
Kantrail Davis, OF, Theodroe (Ala.) HS
Josh Fields, RHP, Georgia
Matt Harvey, RHP, Fitch HS (Groton, Conn.)
Matt LaPorta, 1B, Florida
Mike Moustakas, 1b-3b, Chatsworth (Calif.) HS
Matt Wieters, C, Georgia Tech
Rick Porcello, RHP, Seton Hall (N.J.) Prep
There has been a strenuous tug of war going on for 25 years, ever since Boras got into the amateur advising business with Stillwell and Belcher as clients. Boras' strategies and tactics helped drive the top bonuses from $100,000 for Shawon Dunston in 1982 (oddly enough, the same figure Rick Monday received 16 years earlier) to $2 million or more by the late '90s. However, Boras has become too successful at winning the game for his own good, at least for MLB's tastes.
Management began fighting back, and first-round bonuses dropped 20 percent from 2001 to '02 and have leveled off since. The decrease from a record $2.63 million average first-round bonus in 2001 can be attributed in part to that being an extraordinary year, with Minnesota's No. 1 pick, Joe Mauer, being a rare talent (or "decade player" in Boras parlance) and Mark Prior and Teixeira breaking into eight figures. But the five-year stabilization is even more upsetting to Boras since major league revenues have doubled in that six-year period, from $3 billion to $6 billion. "Franchise values are up, revenues are up and major league salaries are up," Boras says. He thinks it's only logical that signing bonuses should be up, too.
Boras contends that the biggest reason why bonuses have stayed flat for five years -- the average first-round bonus in 2006 was $2.10 million, the same as in '02 -- is not because of MLB's efforts, the slotting process or any league strategy. Instead he claims that uncaring advisers, hired by corporations, more salesperson than representative, are snapping up players for their own financial benefit and without regard to what's right for the players' families, many of whom are in the dark about what goes on behind the scenes and almost all of whom are new to the process.
Boras believes that certain scouts and rogue agents are in cahoots, and that these scouts refer agents to families knowing full well that these particular agents will get their teams below-market deals. "It's a fraud on the player and his family," Boras says. "They think they're getting representation, and they're not ... It's all about getting a client rather than the player being represented."
If anything, though, chances are that signing bonuses will decline this year, maybe precipitously -- despite a strong amateur class, particularly at the high school level. It seems that MLB isn't satisfied with a leveling off of bonuses, and MLB negotiators won two big concessions from union negotiators, who agreed to those in exchange for a significant bump in the major-league minimum (to $380,000 this year, and higher next year), plus enhanced rules for Type B major-league free agents.
One new rule governing Thursday's amateur draft provides teams failing to sign their top draft picks an additional pick in the same position the following year, severely lessening the penalty for failing to sign the pick. Additionally, there is a new Aug. 15 deadline to sign draft picks, as opposed to the nearly year-long deadline in place up to now, which, in the words of MLB people, prevents agents from "stringing it out." This, as Boras puts it, will keep the player from having "the last bite" in negotiations. Boras' "last bite" often means millions.
Even so, MLB is bracing for Boras to circumvent the process. 'He'll find a way," laments one GM. Boras has seemed genuinely distressed by the new rules but asserts that it wouldn't affect the absolute best players, whose talent, he says, will always ultimately rule the day. "I'm charged with representing young men of 17 to 21 who have no right, so I get a little bit impassioned about it," Boras says. "The entry systems in all other leagues are collectively bargained. Without benefit of collective bargaining, the only thing these kids have is their own talent.''
Boras' current stable
Fortunately for Boras, he has a stable full of standouts this year. He calls right-handed pitcher Rick Porcello from Seton Hall Prep (N.J.) "the best high school pitcher since Josh Beckett, third baseman/first baseman Mike Moustakas from Chatsworth (Calif.) High "the best power-hitting infield prospect since A-Rod," right-handed pitcher Andrew Brackman from North Carolina State "the college pitcher with the highest ceiling" and boasts that Georgia Tech switch-hitting catcher Matt Wieters is "way ahead of where Varitek was defensively at signing, with more power."
Boras also has hard-throwing Matt Harvey from Fitch High (Groton, Conn.), power-hitting first baseman Matt LaPorta from the University of Florida, University of Georgia closer Josh Fields, Texas Christian right-hander Jake Arrieta and a pair of speedy outfielders, Julio Borbon from the University of Tennessee and Kantrail Davis from Theodore (Ala.) High.
One major-league scouting director doesn't disagree with Boras on his top three, saying that Porcello, Moustakas and Brackman are special players and ranking Wieters just below that level, adding that he's on the cusp of being major-league ready. But that scouting director also says that Boras sometimes overrates the next-tier players: "The other guys are good.... But are they special?"
A few teams express reticence to draft Boras' biggest clients for fear of high demands. However, as the scouting director says, "It's hard to stay away from his players completely." To do so, particularly this year when Boras has 10 who could go in the first three rounds, would make a team look very dollar-conscious.
The White Sox' Ken Williams, otherwise one of baseball most aggressive GM's, isn't anxious to tangle with Boras. Says Williams, "I respect what he's been able to accomplish and he has had great success. But we have a difference of opinion of the value of players across the board -- whether it be amateur players, free-agent players or players currently on the roster who are about to be free agents -- and I don't anticipate that changing."
Yet, apparently he hasn't ruled it out entirely, as one of Williams' top underlings has been in regular contact with Boras' people about this draft. And while Williams has been ultrasuccessful, winning the 2005 World Series through a series of great trades and big gambles, Boras points out that the White Sox' first-round picks in recent years, going back well before Williams took over, have been generally underwhelming (Jason Dellaero, Kip Wells, Matt Ginter, Royce Ring, Jason Stumm, Joe Borchard, Kris Honel and Brian Anderson are among them). Plus, the last time the White Sox picked and signed a Boras client in the first round was in 1990, when they took future All-Star right-hander Alex Fernandez.
Point, counterpoint
Avg. First-round Signing Bonus
Year Average Signing Bonus
2001 $2.63 million
2002 $2.10 million
2003 $1.88 million
2004 $2.17 million
2005 $2.17 million
2006 $2.10 million
Coonelly will tell you that the leveling off of bonuses for amateur players is the result of the realization on the teams' part that many top picks don't even make it to the big leagues. Of course, Coonnelly is there to provide data every step of the way. His slotting method has stabilized amateur bonuses, though he'd tell you that team GMs are just being more sensible.
Coonelly's figures on the so-so success rate of high picks are striking. According to MLB figures, 50 percent of players taken in the first three rounds between 1993 and 2000 (giving them enough time to make it) reached the majors at all, 36 percent played at least one year in the bigs and only 22 percent lasted at least three years.
Boras' claim is that by using three rounds MLB is diluting the pool. He says it's only in the first round where you'll find the truly projectable talents. "I agree, don't pay money to the third- and fourth-rounders,' Boras says. "Once you get past the first 30, you're taking a huge risk. It's like the NBA draft." Boras says that a lot of the players after the first round should seriously consider college. But he adds, 'They're sending the message not to pay the guys who are good. That's what's wrong."
The worst part of all, Boras says, is that the new rules, coupled with strict NCAA scholarship rules in baseball will "drive African Americans and other inner-city kids out of baseball to football and basketball," where they receive full rides or much higher pro bonuses. (MLB is at a multi-decade low; only 8.8 percent of big-leaguers are black.) "We had a wonderful week honoring Jackie Robinson and MLB promoting its desire to advance African American interest in baseball," Boras says. "The new rules are just another sign by Major League Baseball directing African American players away from baseball.
"We are turning our noses up some of the great athletes. At one time baseball paid and football didn't pay. That's why a great athlete like Jackie Robinson, who was a football player in college, didn't play football. In the '50s, '60s, '70s and '80s baseball paid bonuses far in excess of football and basketball. Now the entry bonuses in the NBA and NFL have surpassed baseball, and the gap will widen with the new rules. I doubt Jackie Robinson would consider these changes inviting."
While agreeing that the NCAA-mandated baseball scholarship limit of 11.7 is a major hindrance to baseball, Coonelly counters, 'I think that's a huge stretch. Our problem is that African-American kids are not playing baseball as young kids. They love Michael Jordan and LeBron James."
Coonelly says the problem isn't about kids comparing bonuses later, and that when there's a choice later, as with Jeff Samardzija, the Notre Dame receiving star who signed as a pitcher with the Cubs for $10 million "the money available in baseball is better, considering the length of the contract."
The heated debates between Boras and top MLB people will only pick up steam with Thursday's draft. Love him or abhor him, Boras is the king adviser of the amateur drafts. Though his name won't be called on draft day, his is the name that will be in the back of everyone's minds.
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sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/jon_heyman/06/06/boras.draft/index.html 
