A Boras Client ...

The Star’s excellent young baseball writer Sam Mellenger wrote a very good story today on Royals No. 1 draft pick Mike Moustakas, who (by his quotes) seems to want to play professional baseball very much. The story says Moustakas never even thought about being anything other than a baseball player. That’s how much he loves the game. He’s using wood bats now, and he can’t get enough hitting in. A scout told me he plays with the kind of joy and intensity you only see in the very best.

We’re talking about one baseball-loving kid.

Still, I’d say at this point it’s, at best, a 50-50 shot that the baseball-loving kid will sign. The Royals do not seem willing to pay much above slot (slot money for the No. 2 overall pick is $3.1 million). Meanwhile, Moustakas’ agent is Scott Boras – wink-wink, nudge-nudge, say no more. We all know where this is going. There’s no way Boras will voluntarily sign the No. 2 pick in the draft for anything approaching slot money.

(“Slots are things you see in the mail room,” Boras said. I’ve heard him say that before, but it’s still pretty amusing. The guy has style – he’s sort of the Peter Lorre of sports agents).

(Put another way: If Mike Moustakas was willing to sign for slot money – which ain’t chicken feed, by the way – he could have hired anyone. He could have hired ME. I could have gotten him slot money, and I can’t even negotiate a free dessert when a waitress dumps Coke on me by mistake. You don’t hire Scott Boras to get you slot money. You hire Scott Boras when you want to turn the team upside down and shake the loose change from their pockets).

In the article, Moustakas’ father (Mike Sr.) brings up the name Matt Harrington. Everybody does these days – Harrington has become the poster boy for wasted opportunity. You probably know the story: Harrington was the stud pitcher coming out of high school; he was offered something like $4 million by Colorado (it wasn’t a straight $4 million, if I remember correctly. It was a complicated deal and also a very contentious negotiation where nobody even wanted to pick up the dinner check). Harrington turned it down, went back into the next year’s draft, was offered $1.2 million, turned that down, lost his fastball, etc. By the time I talked to Matt he was making like $12 bucks a month for the Fort Worth independent team.

(It should be said that Matt’s original agent was not Scott Boras – Matt signed with Scott later).

Last year, I went down to spend some time with Harrington in Fort Worth. Two things really struck me about Matt.

1. I really liked him; he seemed like a good guy who realizes he made a mistake and, at least outwardly, will not punish himself for the rest of his life.
2. He says that he felt powerless during the negotiations.

The second thing was a real eye opener. I mean, it seems clear from afar that while you hire an agent to handle things, it’s still your career. It’s your life. And there’s no way that you should allow your agent to make the biggest decisions. Right? But while this seems obvious from afar, it’s not quite so obvious for an 18-year-old kid who has 50 people talking at him all at once. Who do you believe? Who do you trust? What do you do? Are people lying to you? Are you worth more?

I can tell you from my own relatively insignificant financial dealings with my literary agent that these are complicated questions. My agent knows the book business – I don’t (as this Soul of Baseball blog that isn't about the book points out). He understands how it all works – I don’t. I trust him implicitly because I think he’s good, because I like him, because he’s been there before, because he seems to have my best interests at heart and, finally, because he’s the guy out there fighting for me. You can only imagine that in baseball, among young players, those feelings are multiplied many times.

In Matt’s case, his agent believed that promises were broken. The agent passed along his anger to the Harrington family, the family began to have bad feelings about the Colorado Rockies, negotiations were poisoned, and things spiraled downward from there. This is not to say that Matt doesn’t bear responsibility. He does. He told me that if he could do it all again he would have told everybody, “Enough! This is more money than I ever dreamed of making. Sign the deal and let me play ball.” But that was a 24-year-old man talking. At that time he was an 18-year-old kid. And he let his financial future be ruined.

Scott Boras adds another ingredient to the mix. He’s an intimidating guy. He’s intimidating because of his big reputation and successful history. And he’s just plain intimidating. When he tells you, “They’re trying to screw you here,” you will believe him. When he tells you that you DESERVE more than they’re offering, you will believe him. When he says that he will get you a lot more money and for a much better team, you have no choice but to believe him – he’s done it over and over and over again.

A few years ago, the Royals offered shortstop Rey Sanchez an unbelievable contract; I mean this word literally – you would not believe how much the Kansas City Royals offered Rey Sanchez. It was something like $11 million for three years. Sanchez had his weaknesses, of course. He has a lifetime .334 slugging percentage, for instance. He never walked. And I don’t know that I ever saw him dive for a ball. But he did have his charms; Rey as a shortstop had amazing, Velcro-like hands, quartz precision accuracy on his throws and in his three years in Kansas City, he was the best I ever saw at turning the double play.

Anyway, the Royals made him this ludicrous offer, and Sanchez/Boras turned it down. The Royals, fed up, traded Jermaine Dye for Neifi Perez (ouch) and dumped Sanchez on Atlanta. The next year Sanchez became a free agent, nobody wanted him, and he signed a measly one-year $700,000 deal with Boston. The next time I saw Sanchez was in Puerto Rico; he was working out. He wore Royals shorts, asked me to put in a good word for him with Kansas City management and cursed Scott Boras’ name.

(Boras would later say he encouraged Sanchez to sign with the Royals, but Rey wanted to test the free agent waters. Knowing Rey’s disposition, this is not entirely implausible. But the balance of history points to Boras being the culprit here).

Point is, Rey Sanchez wouldn’t stand up to Scott Boras and he was more or less an adult. What chance does an 18-year-old kid have of going against Boras’ will? Luke Hochevar briefly walked away from Boras last year when negotiations with the Dodgers stalled. He hired another agent who worked out a deal. But in the end, Hochevar went back to Boras. And in the end (as is most often the case) Hochevar made a lot more money.

So what will Mike Moustakas do? I don’t know. I suspect he will follow Boras' lead, and if the Royals don't pony up then he will go to USC for three years (or perhaps go to a community college and re-enter next year's draft). There's nothing wrong with this path -- this is America. Look: Scott Boras is the best in the business. An agent’s job is to get his clients the best deal, and that’s what Boras does. I don’t blame anyone for signing with Boras. I don’t blame anyone for getting as much money as they possibly can get.

BUT, I do believe this: When you sign with Boras, it seems to me that you relinquish the right to play the “I love baseball, and I would play it for free,” card. I don’t have any doubt that Mike Moustakas lives to play baseball, just as Sam’s article says. But, plainly, he doesn’t love it enough to play it for anything like $3.1 million. That’s why he hired Scott Boras.