Agent Scott Boras, who brought you the term “swellopt,” has now concocted a phrase to describe team-friendly extensions young major leaguers sign, per Andy McCullough of the Los Angeles Times. “Great young players are getting what I call ‘snuff contracts,’” Boras told McCullough. “And a snuff contract is that they’re trying to snuff out the market. They know the player is a great player, and he’s exhibited very little performance. So they’re coming to him at 20 and 21, and I’m going to snuff out your ability to move, to go anywhere, to do anything, and your value. And I’m going to pay you maybe 40 cents on the dollar to do it. What’s my risk?” In Boras’ estimation, the eight-year, $100MM guarantee Braves star Ronald Acuna Jr., 21, signed this week is “the king of the snuff contracts,” as it hampers the outfielder’s career earning power while giving Atlanta what looks like a sweetheart deal for a franchise player in the making.
Acuna’s accord is one of a whopping 27 multiyear extensions doled out across the majors since Jan. 21, though the Dodgers haven’t joined the party, McCullough observes. Extensions have been almost nonexistent in Los Angeles under president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, who has only given out one (Clayton Kershaw’s three-year, $93MM deal after last season) since taking the reins in 2014. But Friedman told McCullough he “wouldn’t be surprised if within the next 12 months we do some.” McCullough points to Cody Bellinger, Walker Buehler, Corey Seager, Enrique Hernandez, Max Muncy, Joc Pederson and Chris Taylor as potential extension candidates for Friedman & Co.
- Speaking of Kershaw, the ace left-hander appears to be nearing his 2019 debut. Kershaw will make a minor league rehab start Tuesday, which could set him up for a Dodgers return Sunday, Jorge Castillo of the LA Times tweets. The three-time NL Cy Young winner, 31, has been shelved on account of shoulder troubles since late February. Consequently, this will be the fourth straight injury-shortened campaign for Kershaw, whose 162 innings-per-season average from 2016-18 fell well shy of the 215-frame mean he put up over the previous seven years.
- First baseman Albert Pujols dominated headlines in 2011 when he elected to leave St. Louis, where he spent the first 11 seasons of his Hall of Fame career, for the Angels’ 10-year, $254MM offer. Pujols’ decision came after the Cardinals and Marlins also proposed decade-long contracts worth upward of $200MM. Now 39 years old and with $87MM remaining on his deal, Pujols recently reflected on his choice to leave the Cardinals, telling Graham Bensinger (via ESPN.com): “I felt that the approach that they took wasn’t showing me that they wanted me to be a longtime Cardinal. I believe I made the right decision.” If his rapid deterioration in Anaheim is any indication, St. Louis dodged a bullet in losing Pujols, even though he won three NL MVPs and two World Series as a Cardinal. Pujols slashed an incredible .328/.420/.617, averaged more than seven fWAR per year and never appeared in fewer than 143 games in a season while with the Redbirds. On the other hand, the Anaheim version’s a .260/.315/.452 hitter who has been worth one win above replacement a year and has twice missed at least 45 games in a season.
- As is often the case with minor league contracts, catcher Stephen Vogt’s agreement with the Giants includes a June 1 opt-out chance, Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle tweets. The Giants already have three backstops – Buster Posey, Erik Kratz and Aramis Garcia – occupying 40-man roster spots, which seems to decrease the 34-year-old Vogt’s odds of earning a promotion from Triple-A Sacramento. However, San Francisco’s a fan of the two-time All-Star’s bat and could summon him at some point, Schulman suggests. The former Ray, Athletic and Brewer hasn’t appeared in the majors since 2017, having missed all of last season because of shoulder surgery.
Boras=tool, i.e., you’re not great for baseball. Snuff this.
He really does act like has been sniffing exhaust fumes too much sometimes in his media speeches quite often. probably best for his health he cease doing that and just shut up.
Short bus for old,grumpy, biased men will be arriving shortly to take you to senior center for people working through their irrational anger.
I must have missed it; what did he say that was wrong actually?
Boras is not wrong. The Braves screwed Acuna worse than they did Cobb County on the stadium deal.
If anyone screwed Acuna it was himself. It’s not like the Braves put a gun to his head. He chose the security of the guaranteed $ now.
It was a calculated risk for both parties. If Acuna tanks, he, not the Braves, will be the big winner. We won’t really know who “screwed“ whom for years, so Boras’ assessment is pretty biased.
Borass has an enormous conflict of interest in this discussion and has no credibility. For every player taken advantage of through extensions there are (have been) an equal number of teams that were fleeced by Borass and his colleagues in long term deals in which teams were/are currently left holding dead contracts. The financial waste from those dead contracts have taught teams lessons that have been applied over the past three off seasons. Guys like Borass are unhappy for obvious reasons: their existing clients are not getting paid in the way FAs have been paid in the past AND, most importantly, quality young players are being taken out of the market.
Ask Mike Moustakas if anyone would be better off taking advice from Boras. Boras cares about himself, and that’s it. He doesn’t care one bit about the players.
If Acuna is happy with the deal, then he is not screwed.
I hate bringing this up, but by signing that deal Acuña secured more money for his family than talents like Oscar Taveras and Jose Fernandez who left us and their families before being able to cash in on the money they surely would have ,add.
Acuna may not feel like a winner if he doesn’t live up. At 21yo now $100 million over 8 yrs may seem like leaving $ on the table.
Well Boras is a man with what we might call “selective ethics.” That’s the term we can use moving forward. If only his lame terminology and his description of it painted a fair and accurate picture of all this. They don’t. Acuna is given great financial security over the next eight years—a fact he found most appealing. Glad the two sides worked out something they each deem, in the words of Milton Friedman, “mutually beneficial.”
I could really careless about Boras’ “ethics” but this guy is negotiating contracts that are “mutually beneficial.” Click the link for “swellopts” up there. That is a mutually beneficial contract. His names for those things are stupid but the structure of those contracts isn’t. It gives the team and player incentives. That is a mutually beneficial deal to me.
Sorry you “could really careless” about ethics. What I can tell you, however, that I’m grateful for us is that this morally compromised man and the Union don’t get to define what is mutually beneficial. Seems like one Ronald Acuna managed to do just fine with defining that for himself.
So you do “careless” about Boras’ ethics.
Ryan, lets not die on the grammar cross.
Exactly.
Jbigz12: Sometimes grammar does REALLY matter. “Careless” is a PERFECT example. The missing space between the 2 words changes the entire meaning. If an article
or opinion means enough to respond to, take the time to type what you want to say. It was really a CARELESS mistake. It was nothing more & nothing less than that.
Let’s?
Lol
Pretty great that a person who defends an organization tooth and nail about not signing Latin American prospects is talking about morals or ethics.
Thanks for the grammar and spelling lesson, Captain Obvious. Who cares? We all understood what the poster meant to say.
You lost me on that one but feel free to elaborate.
No, that’s not how it works. Just because you don’t care doesn’t make it unimportant. It definitely matters and people should absolutely care about proper grammar and vocabulary.
Yeah and I’d add that caring about ethics probably carries an inkling of worth too (at least to most).
He’s a lawyer get over yourself. Why do so many people worry about how Boras conducts his business. It doesn’t effect these people complaining either financially or ethically.
What are his “selective ethics”? His a contract lawyer, his job is to get the best contract—i.e., the most money—for his client. That does not require him to be honest (with those he’s negotiating with, or the media), or to work in the “best interest” of baseball or some individual team; his job is to work in the best interest of his client.
Boras is right, the owners are the ones you need to be calling tools.
Couldn’t help but comment on a thread that you were in could you Scott Boring. Sorry ment Boras.
Boras is also a tool, though. He’s only looking at the extension from one side. What if Acuna falls off a cliff and washes out of the majors in a year or two? The Braves will be out $100 million with nothing to show for it. That’s the other side of the coin. The players and owners are taking risks. The owners aren’t forcing players to sign these contracts.
Exactly. Acuna said in his interview that there is no guarantee for tomorrow. Boras is just mad that players like Acuna aren’t trying to break the bank like Mookie Betts is going to. How’s Kuechel and Kimbrel coming along Scott?
That is one of the points I was making above. He made off very well—for him and his needs, if not for the agenda of Scott Boras.
RCT is on point. Boras isn’t upset at the deal, he’s upset at the value it projects on future Acuna. Everyone expects Acuna to appreciate to a value greater than this contract, but like a few of you have mentioned what happens if a straw man argument occurs and he never appreciates further?
Hedging at its finest. Too bad Boras does not hedge.
A hedge is more so what a guy like Eloy Jimenez took. Acuna signed away his chance at a gigantic fortune. Which if that’s what he wanted is fine but he capped his earnings for the next decade. Similar young players taking extensions have managed to secure a large guarantee with the chance of a bite at the FA apple well before they’re 30.
rtc, did someone say Jordan Zimmerman?
Speaking of snuff contracts, I think that should be the term for what he got Dallas Keuchel this offseason.
That’s funny.
Boras = Satan
Pujols comment makes no sense. The Cardinals also proposed a decade long contract worth upwards of $200M, but he feels they did not approach him as if they wanted him a longtime Cardinal? How does he figure that?
club options
No, Albert, they didn’t want you to be a lifelong Cardinal without some protection from … well … EXACTLY what’s happened with the Angels.
Of course. Just another delusional MLB player complaining that he was disrespected when the team he played for offered him hundreds of millions of dollars.
first, was 6 year for peanuts. then when the cards realized angels were offering him 10/254, cards upped ante to 1o/240.by then, pujols felt slighted by the red biirdie.
That isn’t what happened, at all.
1. Pujols was giving over $100M after only 3 years in the league
2. Cards never offered that much, and didn’t up their ante after the Angels got involved.
get your fact checked!
Facts….He did receive 7/$100 after 3 years. Cards first offer after that expired was 5/$130 ( espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/7346376/albert-pujols-wife… ). “The Cardinals’ last offer to Pujols was for 10 years and $210 million, with $30 million deferred.”
Aww! Poor Albert. Such a victim.
Even after 7 years Pujols still equates money as respect. King Angel can go fly a kite. Idk if anyone remembers, but in ST of 2011 King Angels camp floated 10/300 as the number to get a deal done.
Here we are 7 years later and only 3 players have topped that number. Every one of 27 years old or younger who play premium defensive positions outside of Harper.
Best thing Cardinals ever did was not get emotional and overspend on an aging declining player.
King Angel had every right to seek highest salary he could get, his proclamations of intent to stay in STL were BS. id rather he been honest and professional from the start.
Screw that gold digging wife of his going on radio and complaining about the team after her hubby signing for 240 million.
They both can piss off..
Not only did the Cardinals dodge a bullet with Bert flying the coup but they did themselves a favor by trying to verify his true age. From the time he showed up dominating in Legion ball there were questions about how old he was. Given he hasn’t aged gracefully I would say he could be older than he says he is.There have always been rumors he’s up to 6 years older than what he says he is
Or he just aged like players are supposed to without PEDs
I honestly wonder if Alberts situation, and the way it all played out, had any impact on Trouts recent signing.
I’m an Angels fan, and let’s be honest, Albert has never come close to living up to the hype. Probably because of his “real age” factor, but regardless.
Someone somewhere recently was discussing how stars who leave their primary teams mid-career never quite get the love and respect they had in their old haunts.
It had to do with currency. Albert, in St Louis, was a pure beast. The numbers and the moments he put up in that town made him a hero, and that currency and goodwill would have afforded him his decline while still having that love and respect for what he’d done there.
Fast forward to Anaheim, and he’s never going to be a cornerstone franchise name. Even among the other Angel greats not named Mike Trout, Albert’s basically been awful and not worth 1/4 of the deal he’s got. Simultaneously, the fan base doesn’t have that “yeah, but remember when he…” history to lean on in his decline.
Trout now has that career currency, in one place, for the duration.
Not that his ego would ever let him admit it, but I’d bet Albert wishes he’d stayed in St Louis. That he’s still griping about it 7 years later and feels disrespected basically proves that out.
To your point, I think when a team resigns a star player, fans can rationalize if the player doesn’t live up to the contract as being repaid for years when they were most likely underpaid and the team is paying for past performance. When you go to a new team, that team has gained nothing from your previous performance and they are paying for future performance only.
It’s not accurate. The Cardinals smartly trailed the Angels in the negotiations for Pulols the entire way. They didn’t want to sign Pujols for what he was willing to accept to stay a Cardinal.
Snuff contracts?
That’s just sick…..
Yea, It’s still a gamble thou… Why not take a nice guarantee with a future to still earn more. A lot of pressure to perform every year and you’ll have wayy more opportunities if you’re struggling.
I think he is referring to the other definition of snuff, as in snuff films.
Uh, yea, and when you follow Boras advice and the big money doesn’t come through, does he make up the difference?
HA HA, NO!
He’s not wrong at all on Acuna. If you’re truly an elite player there’s no one else I’d want reppping me more than him.
Who owns the risk in the Acuna contract? The Player or the Team? Who decides who is elite? 2/3 of one season is all it takes to be declared “elite”??? wow I wonder Borass did real well getting Harper that 500 mill contract he was touting…..Machado is make more than Harper….and Trout BLEW everyone out of the water….. Bet ya Will Meyers and Bobby Crosby would have killed to to get a 100 mil extension after their ROY seasons….
You’re really doing me a favor mentioning will Myers who secured himself a nice guarantee years later after never posting numbers like Acuna did. Acuna is a special player. All contracts have inherent risks but the Braves just got a huge win. I’m sorry that upsets you so much but it’s the truth. Acuna potentially cost himself 100+ million dollars in upside. Other guys signed deals to lock in their financial future and didn’t get clobbered like Acuna’s reps did. No other player took an exentsion so team friendly.
Wil Myers signed an 82 million dollar extension and hasn’t posted a season anywhere near Acuna’s ROY. Ronald Acuna is also 21 years of age. To throw out comps like Bobby Crosby is truly laughable. As if winning the ROY is how we compare players.
Harper got the better deal cause machado won’t make 30 million more at the end of his deal
Why so much negativity for Boras? Do you have even a proportional disdain for someone like Jeffrey Loria?
People are too busy siding with ownership.
The masses are going to come at you for making that comment. The apologists don’t like getting called out.
I’m actually not sure I’ve seen anyone here “siding” with ownership.
You are correct. Those of us who are not Jimmy Hoffa are actually siding with team builders/decision-makers, and applauding the wisdom they’re showing. As a baseball fan, with a great deal of baseball history at my finger-tips, I want MY team(s) to be excellent year after year after year, and to do so, without WASTING resources, while retaining as much of the home-grown talent for as long as possible, with fairness and good-will on both sides.
I would NEVER have ponied up 300M for hired-guns Machado & Harper.
I WOULD be happy to keep Trout at 400M plus.
if I could down vote your comment, I would
Kershaw’s extension was a huge mistake.
Book it Vegas!
Until his ERA is above 3 that narrative is nonsense
For that price I want more than 160 innings, sorry.
For that price the Dodgers cement his legacy as a team lifer. Im sure they just hate the fact an 8-2 team has Clayton Kershaw coming in to help. Really sucks
And no one is sorry that you don’t own a franchise worth close to 1$ billion.
Oh yeah Kershaw is totally worth the extension….right until the month of October comes around…..then suddenly he looks more like Sonny Grey in yankee stadium than Sandy Koufax….
With the way the dodgers are constructed they don’t really need Kershaw in April or May. If he’s healthy and throwing the ball like he typically does from June on that’s enough to cover his contract. Dodgers have plenty of scratch to play with. Anything that wasn’t long term with Kershaw was a win.
Pujols is getting embarrassing.
He needs to retire now before his career average falls
below .300 and his dignity all but disappears…..
Yes, and the Pujols career makes Boras and his insistence on a player’s multi-year worth all the more irrational.
Boras acts like the teams are paying these players minimum wage. They’re multi-millionaires and seeking financial security for their family’s next two generations is not damaging to the industry, its only damaging to Boras’ paycheck. He’s such a slimeball.
Every time I hear this argument it just makes me laugh. Is the money the owners not spending on these players going to minimum wage employees? No, it’s going back to the billionaire owners. That’s just not a great way to look at things.
Why not?
Why do players all to often have “career” years in walk seasons? Then right after signing that big contract have a bust season??? As with any business the “owners” or investors have all the risk….it is their money that is being spent…. why should they pay more than they are willing too given the ROI models??
I blame for example Acuna’s reps more than anyone in this deal. He’s a 20 year old kid, he’s been in ATL for one season. Do you believe he knows that he loves it there so much he wants to give up that much earnings power and freedom to leave? Guys like Eloy Jimenez signed a better deal to secure their financial security and get to FA at a prime age and he hadn’t taken a swing in the big leagues. He got absolutely clobbered. That’s not good for the game.
Boras isn’t wrong there. You can hate him all day and night but he’s not wrong about that kind of deal being brutal for the players.
clobbered according to who?? The guy that cares more about his wallet than what his player wants (see Andruw Jones)….or the player that was offered an extension and agreed to it?? Fans INCORRECTLY think the owners are somehow banking tens or hundreds of millions of dollars every season…. when the financials of every team is public information…. in most cases it is just not true….. Borass has long be linked to dirty negotiations and making up mystery teams and fake offers to attempt to drive the market beyond what it can support… and that is why he has a bad name in Baseball and with fans…. it is not because he fights to get his players every dollar…it is because he has routinely done it dirty….
The financials of teams are not public information. The Braves would be the only exception to that rule. I have no issue with owners taking in profits either. They absolutely should. That doesn’t make his extension any less team friendly.
I’m sure if I asked Acuna whether it was brutal he would say, no, I actually appreciate immensely what I’ve just gotten.
Let’s not act like 100 million dollars isn’t a crazy amount of coin for a 21 year old.. Any way you cut it, there’s some ppl out there that are just fine with that type of security and don’t need the accolades of (highest AAV, biggest contract, setting $$ record at age 21, etc..) it’s getting a bit ridiculous trying to outdo the previous record setter from yesterday.
Why is Boras’ opinion more right than Acuna’s? No one forced Acuna to agree. If he’s happy, no one else’s opinion means anything. Agreement by definition says this is mutually beneficial. Everyone needs to stop making this into something else.
Exactly. People are ignoring that in Acuna’s case he hasn’t banked any considerable earnings. He signed for $100k as a teenager so he had no multi-million dollar cushion like a first round pick or high end foreign signing. Before signing his extension he was playing for the league minimum. Say he suffered a catastrophic injury this year or next but without the extension. He’d be screwed. If a 1st rounder with $4 million in the bank wants to bet on himself, that’s different than a kid like Acuna wanting some security to prepare for the worst case scenario.
Agreement by definition means this is mutually beneficial? As is any contract in Major League Baseball then if that’s your barometer.
That is correct. You’re starting to get it a little bit (though after yesterday I won’t be holding my breath).
I wonder if Gordon Beckham would have like to have had an offer like this after his first partial season, when he looked like a future star?
Beckham who was 6% above league average at the plate in his rookie season was no Ronald Acuna. Ronald Acuna’s bat checked in 44% above league average and he has the prospect billing behind him. Lets stop the name player X game, especially when you’re not doing that very well.
I’m not against the premise of an extension. Security isn’t a bad thing to have. Signing away 10 prime years isn’t anywhere near a typical extension.
Why do you care so much what Acuna does? It’s his career, his life and his money. Even if you believe signing that extension is damaging, it’s only damaging to himself and his agent. You act so invested in this and I can’t figure out why. Are you Acuna’s agent and you’re upset he signed away some of your paycheck? If not, then why all the fuss?
And yours is a perpetually simplistic one. Are you really suggesting that the owners are somehow morally obligated to give a percentage of their earnings to the players?
My opinion may be a lot of things but it isn’t simplistic. Saying “ Thank you Liberty Media for giving me this contract” is an extremely simplistic view that takes into account absolutely nothing though.
As for the owners, by no means are they obligated to give a % of their earnings back. If a player is dumb enough to sign away 10 years of his prime, then more power to him. But I, and Boras and everyone else who wants to criticize certainly can. Especially when you have guys who never took a swing in the big leagues getting a life changing guarantee and the ability to go into FA 2 years before Acuna.
Oh you’re free to criticize—but it’s helpful if your criticism contains some semblance of reason. At present it unfortunately does not. If all you want to do is complain that a player isn’t getting paid what you think he should and the mean old owners are lining their pockets for their own personal gain— well, you’re working from a socialistic cliche that’s really rather silly. Now, if you have something more meaningful to contribute (and for a long time
on this matter you’ve actually not) then I’m all ears.
The market right now is figuring things out. That is going to run its course a bit til the next CBA negotiations. The real challenge for the Players however is going to be building a case for why they should be getting paid more. Right now they’re having a very hard time coming up with a remotely convincing argument.
Socialism? I’m all for free markets. I’m not sure how you’re gathering socialism from my views here. I don’t have any desire for teams to pay out a certain % of their profits or any nonsense like that. Acuna’s deal has nothing to do with that. The OP criticized millionaire ball players and I simply brought up the billionaire owners. If that’s socialism, I’m not sure what to tell you.
It is.
So Acuna getting $100 million in guaranteed money when he had no considerable earnings to this point in his career is dumb now?
Very few of the owners are billionaires.
In fact, most star players are worth more then most owners.
Understand that even the Steinbrenner’s have to have minority investors in order to run their teams. Those investors expect dividends each year, as the average American does with companies and mutual funds he/she owns in their IRA’s.
Sorry, but Revenues minus Players Salaries does not equal “money in the owners pocket”. To think so is childish
At least half the free agent contracts given this off-season will prove to be bad investments.
You either misstated or you showed how clearly stupid you are. All MLB owners (or owner groups) are billionaires and are required to be in order to have the financial ability to pay their team’s bills.
Where do you come to the conclusion that most owners aren’t billionaires? The court of personal opinion? It’d be more difficult to find one who is not.
According to a Money Inc article from 11 months ago , Stuart Sternberg, owner of the Tampa Bay Rays, is worth $800 million and comes in as the 19th richest MLB owner.
(moneyinc.com/the-20-richest-mlb-owners-in-the-worl…)
“You either misstated or you showed how clearly stupid you are. All MLB owners (or owner groups) are billionaires and are required to be in order to have the financial ability to pay their team’s bills.”
RBI;
Now that is flat out hilarious!
Let me see if I have this right…..
MLB owners are all billionaires. They have to be in order to buy a franchise.
The reason they need to be billionaires is because they need to “pay their team’s bills”.
OK.
But reading comments here I’m told that teams are taking in so much revenue, that the profits are going straight into the owner pocket.
So why does an owner need to be a billionaire? If after “paying the teams bills” he/she has nothing but profits. Heck, you and I should buy a team! We’ll be taking in so much revenue, that we can pay the bills, and still pocket so much money we won’t have the time to fold it all.
I’d buy a team tomorrow – but unfortunately, I’m “clearly stupid”.
lol
“Where do you come to the conclusion that most owners aren’t billionaires? The court of personal opinion? It’d be more difficult to find one who is not.”
jbigz1;
It appears that HubcapDiamondStarHalo has found one source that states that 11 of the 30 heads of their franchises are not billionaires…..
And historically most of those sites inflate peoples net worth.
lol
11/30 isn’t exactly a majority but it was more than I had originally expected at this point in time. Granted, those “800 millionaires” typically own about 50% of the team as well so the rest of the group has more than enough to be a worth well over that Billion dollar threshold. But I don’t have any problem with owners taking profits. They’re in business to make a profit, no issues there.Your comment that said most star players are worth more than their owners is the more laughable part of what you said. That is ridiculously made up.
Sternberg owns 48% of the Rays. Simple math then takes the ownership to over 1.66 billion, which is low since Vince Naimoli owns 15% and another group of Limited Partners own the remaining 37%. Don’t come to the table with half-vast (or is that half-assed) data, if you want to prove a stupid point with only partial data. MLB requires owners or ownership groups to have deep pockets. The ownership of each MLB team is well over a billion dollars.
Now that you’re done insulting me…..
You seem to confuse ownership of a team with net worth.
Sternberg may own 48% of the Rays. That does not mean he paid cash for that stake. Don’t know of any owners that do. He obviously took out loans, and very probably has other investors in his investment group. You have no idea what the debt payments and financial obligations to all the other owners are, as the Rays are not a public company.
Who cares how they paid for the team? I was refuting your idiotic assertion that all owners / ownership groups are not billionaires. No wonder you say such stupid things —- you can’t keep track of what you’re saying or what people say to you. Attention span of a mat, and maybe the brain size, too.
Make that nat not mat, dang spellcheck
lol
If you’re proved my “idiotic assertion that all owners / ownership groups are not billionaires”….you’ll have to explain where. We’ve already established that the Rays owner and at least 10 others are not.
Of that 800m and each and every other owner, just like with the current US president.. MUCH of that hard cash is spread out and just can’t be used. In bonds, stocks, buildings and various investments and not “ready” cash it seems many here simply don’t understand, or don’t want to understand.
It takes capitol to keep these companies and industrial complexes going. Where do you think it comes from? Thin air?
Any of you “it all goes into the owner’s pockets” ever advance, mentally beyond economics 101 where some moronic teacher believes the country doesn’t need actual business leaders?
Please, forget everything Paul Krugman ever said, or continues to blabber. Been there (owner/manager), done that. Companies need capitol to survive.
There are more costs involved in running a franchise than just payroll you know?
With Posey playing every other game, the Giants should bring Vogt up asap if he can hit at all (homered for the River Cats today). Ten games in, their offense is on pace to be historically awful.
Vogt, the Savior, LOL!!!
Boras is an idiot.
He is butthurt that teams are not spending stupid money like they used to.
He expects every guy to get paid like Harper or Machado.
Acuna could hit FA at 28….if his game gets consistent and it matches his potential…..he will get the Trout type money….or more.
In many ways part of Scott Boras’s legacy will be the way in which he deligitimized player salary demands. He is the essence of bad business in the eyes of many a spender.
I don’t think you understand the extension Acuna just signed. If he’s anywhere near a star player he won’t be a FA until he’s 31 years old. What you just said is simply not true at all
Oh I guess he will just have to survive on $350 million for his career instead of $450 million for his career. How on Earth will he ever make it through retirement with such a pittance. I hope Gofundme is still around when he retires. If not, we might just have to reboot the Labor Day telethon for him. I’m just getting emotional now, I have to stop and go listen to Sarah McLachlan songs and cry myself to sleep.
Ha ha ha. Ha ha. Good one. Does nothing to negate my point because there isn’t anything substantial you can say to do so. He signed a completely team friendly deal and Boras is correct. Boras may be an assss but he is correct. This deal is much more mutual beneficial to ATL. A “swellopt” (ridiculously stupid name btw) would’ve allowed Acuna much more upside in this deal.
How can a deal be mutually beneficial to one entity. Slow down a bit dude.
Dmitiros you kill me, man. The team opts into the “swell-opt”if you would’ve taken any time to review what it actually was you’d know that. If the team agrees to the option wouldn’t it be beneficial for them? I’m guessing you didn’t bother to go that far though. I also listed other extensions signed by players that don’t give away additional prime seasons via club options.
Which is actually criticism with substance behind it. But, I’ve called out some of the things you’ve said on here previously so I’m not surprised you’d attempt to poke holes at what I said.
I have yet to hear anything convincing from you on this matter, so yes I can see how that “kills” you. And you still haven’t answered my question above. I’m beginning to sense you don’t even understand half the words you use. Try making some time for “mutually beneficial” and (your words) “could careless”; spend a little less time on Boras propaganda like “swell-opts.”
Criticizing someone for grammar is the lowest of the low hanging fruit. But I’ll let that go..
A “swellopt” is the closest thing we have in baseball to a mutually beneficial deal. if the player performs the club agrees to pay him X, if he doesn’t live up to their standards the player chooses to receive salary Y. That’s the framing of a “swellopt” and it’s very smart. It helps combat huge albatrosses a la Davis (The one your buddy in Baltimore signed btw) and gives the player upside to actually be paid somewhere closer to what they’re actually worth if it works out.
Yes I understand swellopt. Thanks for the presentation. And FYI, I’m criticizing the haste with which you’ve spoken—apparently a lot. Pretty low lying fruit for sure, on a tree you planted.
Still, you’ve spent a lot of column inches hastily writing what? I’m still not sure actually. You like Scott Boras, you don’t care about his ethics (or lack thereof) and you think it’s just plain wrong what Acuna got. If you have a point other than the one I already addressed above, like I said, I’m all ears.
My question is where has this been from you? You’re usually babbling something positive about the orioles. I’ve never seen you have another position or attempt to hold your ground with any validity. So kudos to you for that I suppose. Did I need to make any other points? What is this article about? We could get into how 6-7 years of club control depresses players earnings and mobility if you’d like? Or we could just end this here.
I think we can end it there. You’ve failed to communicate much of anything tonight. But man you’ve bloviated.
And, sure a larger conversation re years of club control seems like a good discussion. I anticipate, or hope, you’ll bring some actual substance next time.
Man hat’s off to you jbigz for keeping this going. It’s amazing to me that a person who never uses any actual facts or truth to back up what they say has so much to say to you.
lol
What “facts” have you presented?
Anyone can take selected numbers and arguments and make them what they want. What makes one persons “facts” more creditable then another’s?
In cases like this – diversion…..pea under the cup…..red herring…pitting one group against another – one must follow the money. Who’s really getting something they haven’t invested in or earned?
The irony of your own statement here is utterly but predictably lost on you.
JD is so right!
Example:
JD supports players making a lot of money and dislikes billionaire owners.
JD’s favorite team, Toronto Blue Jays, owned by multi, multi billionaire(s).
JD’s favorite team does not spend to win, care to win and will continue to raise prices in and out of the ballpark, pocketing cash.
JD supports ownerships stance to pocket the money.
Facts and truth. You’re welcome.
If Acuna gets hurt and it affects his game, he’s covered. The team isn’t covered, he is. He could do a Jason Heyward, and he’s covered. The team isn’t covered and he is. You have to be wearing quite the blinders to think the team is taking no risk, and that an extension of this size is team friendly. Every year being a team option is team friendly. If Boras gets a client to sign a contract that allows a team to opt for a lower salary, and his client to opt out if they do, that would be a team friendly deal.
Yes, what he did in essence is sacrificed some of his prime free agent years (a risk as he might not make it til then) for guaranteed financial security up front. A sensible business decision for some; for others not so much. It’s a basic business decision.
That is a completely simplistic view on acuna’s contract. Eloy Jimenez locked in financial security and gets to parlay into FA 2 years earlier. You cannot possibly tell me that Acuna had less leverage?
Did I say anything—anywhere—about Acuna and leverage? Please tell me, in case I missed it. He made a business decision. And please don’t conflate simplistic with accurate. What’s stated above re Acuna is accurate.
It may be tha Atlanta has more leverage than the White Sox.
I used to defend Boras but he’s clearly been straying into damaging territory for players and the game in recent years.
How many cents on the dollar is Keuchel going to make Scott?
Bet Keuchel wishes he would’ve signed a “snuff contract” rather than take Boras’ advice and be unemployed.
Still having a hard time getting over that stunt Boras pulled with Carter Stewart. Like what exactly was the point of that?
Kinda like this comment, Ryan.
The point of my comment was to foster discussion about Boras’ previous scummy behavior. The point of your comment was to try and troll.
yeah, if your kid is a baseball player, you’d tell him to take the least amount team offers! always!
Acuna is headed towards the Heyward overhype train. He is already changing stances the same way Heyward did back when.
Boras is totally correct; these are snuff contracts. Acuna’s contract – 13m/year for ten years, after which he’ll be over 30 and unable to receive that giant FA contract – is absurdly under market value. But Acuna signed off on it and the agent works for the player, not the other way around. Acuna leaving probably 100+ million on the table seems odd, but none of us know where his head is at. Agents advise, but can’t coerce.
But also, all these “oh man, I wish I could get paid millions to play a game” comments are just silly. When we get a job we are paid a wage based on our surplus value to the company. If we work at Wal-Mart or Target, we might get paid ten bucks an hour, because the company finds the worth of our work to be that amount; they find surplus value in what we generate to justify paying us that wage. Like it or not, baseball is a business, and an incredibly lucrative one. For every million dollars a team pays a player, the team is generating well over a million dollars in value from that player. It’s not unreasonable to argue that the people who do the work should make the lion’s share of the money.
Can you give Acuna a fair market value on a 10 year extension at this point though? You cannot guarantee a guy with a year in the big leagues 250 million dollars. I think Boras’ “swellopt” structure was the only way for Acuna to get anywhere close to a fair value on a 10 year extension. This certainly isn’t it.
Awaiting moderation?
lol
Gone again.
Backing this, you are one of the ones who get it davidcoonce74 – don’t let these brainwashed by anti-Boras team owner propaganda decide your viewpoint on the guy — at the end of the day he gets almost all his players the best deal, and its far better to be pro-player than pro-owner, period.
“I dont want the players to sniff any of the profits they make” – type posters make me sick to my stomach and make these threads unreadable. Like, come on man, how dumb are you to swallow propaganda like this? Boras has done nothing wrong, its his job to do this. Owners hate him. Owners control the media because they are billionaires, owners get writers to write “bad for the game” and numbskulls everywhere swallow it hook line and sinker.
Pay the players what they are worth. Pay them based on the profits they make. Period.
From Boras perspective, if he is representing 10 Acuna’s, he figures 5 of them make far more going year to year until free agency, 4 make something similar to the extension, and one makes far less. So, sure, you advise to go year to year. Overall, that gets him the better commission.
But if you are the player, you know there is that 1 in 10 chance that you will have left a 100 million dollars on the table that you will never earn. I’d sign it too.
Only in America will people who may barely be middle class argue about $100 million not being enough for a 20 year old to play a game. It is their business and their livelihood, I believe they’re quite capable of determination what’s good for themselves.
Again, it’s not about the “money to play a game.” Baseball is a hugely profitable business that is driven by its employees. It’s not really the dollar amount; it’s the principle of the thing. Acuna took a below-market extension for reasons we’ll never know. He’ll be extraordinarily wealthy forever, and good for him. But it’s fair to point out that he left a lot of money on the table to do his job, and most of us have the ability to leave our current job if we can make more money elsewhere, and Acuna now doesn’t have that ability. Acuna likes his situation and he almost certainly ignored his agent’s advice in signing the extension, but that’s why the agent works for the player and not the other way around.
But it’s not quite fair to say baseball players just “play a game” and should be happy for whatever they make to do it. Baseball is their career, and it’s an incredibly volatile and short-lived career. If you were told your office job would be over by the time you were 40 years old wouldn’t you try to make as as much money as you could before then?
When JP Morgan was asked how he’d gotten so rich in the stock market, he said it was because he took his profits early and “left some for the other guy”.
Agents are about greed. Getting every single penny while the getting’s good. If they suck the sport dry, they’ll head for another pile of money…..they have no investment in it.
At some point fans realize it’s not a sport anymore, and it’s not affordable. People like me – one of the few of my circle that still follows MLB – are hitting a point where it’s fine to attend a game…..if we get free tickets. These salaries not only make games (and merchandise) available only to the upper class or young people with few responsibilities and expendable income. As the players power increases, they decide what manager/coaches are acceptable, what rules are acceptable, what they’ll do and what they won’t. We’ve seen players take over the NBA and NFL – they dictate where they play, how they play, with whom, and for whom. MLB is headed there. I’ve stopped following MLB for years at a time, then come back. From the play I’ve seen on the field this year, I feel embarrassed watching those players. The question is how far into the season do I get before leaving for good (have not followed the NFL for over 20 years, and the NBA for over 10….most of my friends have lost interest as well…..as have their children and grandchildren).
Sorry, but I’m shedding no tears for a 21 year-old kid with one year in his profession that is guaranteed over $100m till he’s 31…whether he’s a HOF’er, washes out, or gets injured.
Most office careers ARE over by age 40 today……and very few take home even $100k in salary a year.
The Times They Continue A’Changin,
Exactly. Your response embodies my point in the last sentences and adds to it excellently. I’ll add to it that a level headed human being understands they can live exceedingly comfortably on the contract Acuña signed. EVEN AS AN ATHLETE WITH THE POSSIBILITY OF A SHORT CAREER. Maybe Acuña is smart enough to realize this and less greedy than most folks commenting here. Idk, just speculating.
JP Morgan also exploited child labor in a way that is reprehensible, Because he could.
Some very sensible points above. I’d only add to your office job analogy that the job could be over well before 40, which makes the incentive, for some, of locking up those dollars sooner rather than later all the more appealing and, in some cases, urgent.
An offer was made, the player and agent accepted. The end.
Best take in this entire thread
Yep.
That is so lame.
A guy like Michael Fulmer wishes he signed a “snuff contract”.
We wish you had signed a snuff contract…It is rather disgusting that you don’t know what you are talking about.
Lolwat
Who is “we”? Do you have a mouse in your pocket?
$100 million in the bank is worth $450 million in Boras’s…day…dreams.
Boras doesn’t care how many individual lives he ruins because as long as he plays the percentages, he (Boras) will go from filthy rich to slimy rich.
But, let’s say that Acuna was a Boras client who rejected that deal and then lost a leg in a car accident the next day, Acuna would end his career with less than $1 million in earnings. Would Boras pay him the other $99 million? Would Boras feed Acuna’s family for generations? I doubt it.
Sort of agree….
But why does anyone have to “feed Acuna’s family for generations”? When members of his family come of age, why can’t they feed themselves?
There are Boras clients who said no to lucrative contracts and ended up with a lot less than 40 cents on the dollar.
His tactics don’t work anymore (because teams got bitten over and over again, and are no longer falling for his act), and players would be wise to stay away from him…or they’ll end up like Stephen Drew, Moustakas, or his latest victim Keuchel.
I just sharted
We figured that out the first time you posted. Changing your diapers is still rather boring. Get a life.
If Boras spent as much energy keeping up with the market as he does thinking up goofy terms, he may be ahead of this trend instead of whining about it.
BOR – ASS IS ONLY WORRIED ABOUT HIS SMALLER COMMISSION…….
Boras is right, the owners are the ones ripping off the players here, not him.
The wealthy owners control the media, who write anti-Boras hit pieces, which numbskulls read and then think “gahh Boras is bad for the game” – its so transparent, yet it plays on the average fans idiocy. Open your damn eyes.
Right, because people don’t have the ability to draw conclusions themselves.
Actually Boras has done a great deal to hurt the legitimacy of player demands in the eyes of owners.
Exactly who forced Acuna and the others that received extensions to sign those contracts? The players all had options not to sign them. Boras needs to complain about the players and their agents and not just the teams here.
Did we expect Bora$$ to say anything different? It is his job to get his clients as much money as possible, and he is very good at that. True, he is a slime ball, but that is beneficial in his line of work.
This extension mania is in response to the current free agent market. Good to great players make a lot more money much earlier in their careers in other sports. Kyler Murray’s first NFL contract will blow away what he was getting from the A’s. Baseball players make squat in the minors, and are under team control for 6 years once they come to the majors. And for 2-3 of those years, they basically have to take what the owners give them. So once they reach free agency, they get one shot at scoring a contract that will set them up for life. Many got it until the past 2 off seasons when the billionaires running the sport decided to stop, theoretically on their own individually. so what is a young player to do? They get a ton of money offered to them, more than they would have been paid otherwise early in their career. The only thing they give up is a year or two of free agency, which has not been the windfall it has been in the past, unless your name is Harper or Machado.
And honestly that is the best response to the current free agency situation, get the players paid more earlier in their career. Better minor league pay, much higher minimum salary.
What an as s clown. Players sign these contracts to gain security over injury and/or inability to maintain performance. Boras you have to give up something to get something.
Boras has generally been excellent at delivering top dollar to many of his clients. He’s also had a few disasters when he misjudged demand. But the issue isn’t one 20 year old signing for less than he might potentially be worth or even 25 of them–it’s a poorly-negotiated CBA that permits the teams this much leverage over those players. And that CBA came, in part, because the Union worried too much about Boras’ opinions, and not enough about younger players and the rank and file. The CBA will come up for negotiation again, and perhaps the Union will do better, and below-market extensions will fade. With a younger player locked into service time manipulation, MLB minimums, and fairly low early arb awards, I’m not sure they aren’t right to strongly consider an offer that will make them far more money than any of the rest of us could possibly earn in a lifetime.
Boras just showed why agents are horrible for baseball, well, and sports in general. They don’t give 2 squirts of piss about the players. They only want to pad their bank accounts while doing nothing but BSing executives. Sports agents are right up their with lawyers.
I’m not sure what Albert was thinking about when he went public with his disappointment, but seeing as how he’s a millstone to his current team, I might have been more discrete.
I don’t understand why people think these early extensions are such a bad thing or ripping off a player. It’s just a balance of risk/reward, pretty simple to understand if you aren’t blinded by the irrational hatred for rich people the labor forces have foisted upon the populace.
In your second year in the league, you get 130MM. If you wait until you’re 26, you might be a generational player and get twice (or more) that. Or, you might be a sensible person and recognize that there’s a reason they call it “generational” talent, there’s a pretty small chance you will get there. A bird in hand is worth two in the bush. Just ask Tommy Pham whether that saying is true.
Pujols. Wow. That is a pretty big level of entitlement for a guy that has pretty much proven Cardinals management to be right in their assessment (actually, they were still pretty overzealous). I just can’t believe the entitlement. He won’t be, because Cardinal fans have more class than that, but I sincerely hope these comments get circulated and he is booed out of town. I certainly won’t be cheering for him that weekend, if he even cracks the lineup.
Boras and Bill James — two of the worst things to happen to the game of baseball.
Killed the sport…..
Tickets are literally unaffordable for the average person; the play on the field is a joke.
Home Run, Strikeout, or Walk; with defenses kicking the ball around. MLB has turned into 8-9 year-old Little League.
The ticket price has nothing to do with Boras. They can’t just raise prices to afford a payroll if no one goes to the game.
In the 7th grade I took a basic business class. One week we discussed pricing a product…..
To simplify, you add together your costs/expenses, add in a hoped for profit margin, and then price the product.
Say you go to the grocery store and you’re looking at the price of vegetables. You see they’ve gone up in the winter. Why? Because with less crops being grown, it costs the grocery store more money to buy veges from the wholesaler, who in turn has to pay more money to the supplier because it’s “the law of supply and demand”.
But what it there was an agreement between grocers, producers, and workers that stated that once the price of veges rose in the winter, the wholesale price (i.e. costs) had to be paid in the summer as well – even though there was now plenty of supply available? What does the grocer then do? Why, he raises the cost of his product so that he can still make a profit…..because without a profit, he’s out of business.
What I’m getting at is simple – when large market teams give out 10-20% raises to FA’s each offseason, that 10-20% trickles down to like players in small and medium markets. Those owners costs go up. In turn they have to raise the price of their product, or cut costs in order to stay in business.
Since players salaries are a major expense of a professional sports franchise – if not THE major expense – then if that cost goes up then the price of the product will go up as well.
To compare the cost of a ticket (or an advertising spot) in MLB to 10-20-30-40 years ago in real dollars is simply a shock. Those prices have risen far, far above inflation (until recently, US workers had not had a real pay raise in 23 years).
All agents know the big markets set the price.
Ticket prices have nothing to do with payroll at all. They’re just basic supply and demand.
“Defenses kicking the ball around” is a hilarious way to describe modern baseball. Baseball’s fielding percentage, as a league, is higher than it has ever been. It continually goes up. Look at some numbers from the 30’s or 50s sometime (we’ll skip the ’40s because a lot of non-major leaguers were playing). You’ll find third basemen with 30+ errors routinely. If you go back further it’s even worse.. Defense is one of those things that consistently improves. Babe Ruth, who some might argue is the best player of all time, had seasons in the outfield in which he made 19, 14, and 13 errors. Can you imagine an outfielder in 2019 making 19 errors in a season, and how quickly he would be moved somewhere else?
Ned Williamson, an early baseball pioneer that many people think should be a Hall of Famer, once made 87 errors in a season at third base.
If ticket prices were “supply and demand” owners in markets that draw few people would lower the cost of the price of the tickets.
Defensive statistics are a joke. Of course fielding stats are up – with shifts players have less ground to cover. Half the time they’re bunched together in an area and simply have to field hit a ball hit to them. Bigger gloves. Players don’t make an error if they don’t try for the ball.
Where you and I differ is in how we interpret statistics.
You look at statistics as the answer to everything. I spent my life working with, and generating numbers. Those numbers come from variables in a formula – many of them subjective.
When the mound is raised or lowered, fences are moved in, managers want a team that plays a certain style – those variables affect what a player does on the field.
Have you worked anywhere? Do you always do things the same way no matter who you report to or which company you work for? Always produce the same for the same amount of effort? Do you think most people are not affected by their companies policies – or most business owners are not affected by the marketplace and government laws?
Do you think the Mets today are playing the same brand of baseball that they did a year ago? That their players individual responsibilities are the same?
Anyone can look at numbers and draw conclusions. Ignoring the landscape at the time, the variables in place, and comparing them equally to another paradigm with different characteristics is an exercise in futility.
Vandals with the win. Last two posts nailed it. Well done.
Ned Williamson is still not in the Hall of Fame so we can all breathe a sigh of relief.
Nothing like some anti-owners dictating how teams allocate money. Yeah, imagine playing games in an empty stadium for 162 games. Bet you TV viewership will drop over the course of an entire season if not a single ticket is sold. Hopefully this game never comes to that.
I ,love when a guy with at least three handles agrees with one of his other handles. Samuel, you always impress me with how much I get into your head.
Duke’s basketball team played North Carolina’s basketball team this year. The average ticket price was 2500 dollars. Explain again how ticket prices correlate to salaries.
Sorry Starbucks, the adults in the room were having a conversation. Feel free to ask MLBTR if I have more than 1 handle. Then again, I started calling you Starbucks waaaaaay before you falsely accused me of having burner accounts.
So who’s really in who’s head? 🙂
Most teams have dynamic pricing these days. As long as you’re willing to go on a weekday or night, most fans can afford $5 (plus a few bucks more in fees) tickets.
What’s the risk?
I will refer you to one of your clients Mr. Boras, one Baltimore Oriole named Christopher Lyn Davis.
There is also the chance that the player never pans out or even worse, gets a career ending injury or an injury that robs him of a year or two of playing. Since baseball contracts are fully guaranteed, that player is getting paid whether he plays or not.
I would love to hear the argument from the players that they are not getting paid when in this off season alone we saw three deals break records for the most expensive in history and since the season began there have been mega deal extensions.
Big money, long term contracts do not pan out for the teams that make those deals. It has been proven over and over again. Yet somehow these kinds of deals still get done.
Scott Boras… with currently having a Lefthanded former Cy Young winner in Keuchel and on of the best closers in the game under his wing still unsigned a month into the regular season, his comments on young players signing long extensions is a joke!! Those young players are currently under contract for millions and have been playing through Spring Training and a month into the season. He has ruined Keuchel‘ sand Kimbrell’s whole 2019 season and possibly their career’s by stating astronomical salary and length of years that it would take to sign these 2 pitchers. Even if they were signed today, it would take these 2 another 3-4 weeks (Spring Training workouts), before they would be ready to pitch. Thus missing the first 2 months of the regular season. Plus, it’s a proven fact, even All-Star quality pitchers, when not signed before Spring Training, are a shadow of themselves. Perfect example is Derrick Holland. He, nor Miller can even throw strikes any more. When they do, it’s a home run. Boras is behind the times. His pitcher clients are paying the price year after year.
Scott boras doesn’t rep Craig Kimbrel. You’d have to contact his small time agent to complain for him
We’re still waiting for the real Alex Cobb to report to the Orioles.
I don’t get all the whining about Boras. When his clients want him to get them an extension with his current team, he does – look no further than Xander Bogaerts, who would’ve been a free agent at the end of the year and signed a 6-year extension last week. When his client wants the longest, largest contract he can get, Boras goes for that. Seems like the one thing he’s blown is that he hasn’t adjusted to the market changes fast enough for some of his B and C-level clients to get decent deals. Overall, the guy’s got a hell of a track record.
He hasn’t adjusted because he believes all of his players are winners. He believes all the money from baseball should go to the players and not the community or to owners or there park. He believes that a player should get paid for past performance. Your not getting paid for what you did 4 years ago on a past team before your knees gave out. No value means no value. No offense to Scott Boras but he only wants money and is willing to bankrupt clubs to get it for his players then he crys and complains when the team that he fleeced doesn’t have any money to add players around them. Boras with be the death of MLB if teams cave to his every desire. He is a cancer on the back of the MLB.
Agree. If I was a Mike Trout and wanted max money, there is no one else I would rather have as my agent. However, if I were Tanner Roark next year, I am not so sure I would feel confident in Boras ability to get me a good deal. Boras seems to be great at the opposite ends of the spectrum, getting insane money for the insane talents, and also getting deals for guys not many thought would get deals. Its the middle of the spectrum that I think Boras is losing it on.
Completely agree with you ATL. He’s certainly missing something for the middle of the market guys. Those guys are replaceable. Trout, Harper etc are different beasts. His “swellopt” contract do make sense for middle of the market guys. We’ll see moving forward if he comes to agreements on those kind of deals
@Bert17. People don’t Boras because of his public persona. He rips baseball and not the other agents and players for negotiating extensions. Fails to bring up that he negotiated extensions for his own clients similar to those that he rips. People are just tired of hearing his mouth all of the time.
Boras can get top dollar when his client is elite and “wait out the market” is a viable approach. The majority of his other clients don’t get any better deals than other agencies. Some end up languishing in purgatory because he’s increasingly only able to play the “wait and talk a lot” game which backfires on non-elite players. And there are a few contracts the teams fell for that have turned out to be massive duds which he trumpeted at the time but have directly contributed to this new environment of not shelling out 10yr/100s of millions deals. And now he gripes about it.
I mean if you want to see what happens when players get paid what Boras declares they are “worth” compared to teams that sign contacts like Acuna got than compare the ticket prices between Yankee stadium and say Atlanta or Denver or any other mid market team that is careful about how much they spend on a player. Pay $60 for the cheap seats at Yankee stadium, or $240 just for a family of 4 to get through the gates. Meanwhile I’ll go see almost 6 games for the same price at Coors field. The Boras model doesn’t end up sticking it to the owners it ends up sticking it to the underprivileged 12 year old that just wants to see his favorite player in person and maybe get an autograph.
There’s significantly more factors besides payroll that go into your ticket price. There’s significantly more money in NY then there is in KC. That’s media deals, your average fans income. Supply and demand etc etc. The Yankees don’t charge $60 a ticket because they have Giancarlo Stanton and Jacoby Ellsbury signed . That’s a logical fallacy to think that way.
No they charge $60 a ticket because they have overpaid players for the last 3 decades and NYC has an outrageous tax structure. I mean yeah the median income level in NYC is higher than Denver but it’s not over 5 times higher. Also media contracts work to lower fan ticket prices not raise them as the team is the beneficiary of the contract not the media company. Good try though 😉
Acuna is currently hitting .129 with an ops of .612. What if he ends up hitting .240 with a sub .700 ops this year? What if he does it next year too? People are making the assumption that Acuna is what he did over the second half of last season, but what if he is not?
10 games is not a sample size that anyone should take seriously
I completely agree with you. What I was saying however, is what if he is not what he did over 80 games last year? There have been far more red-hot Chris Shelton type runs than there have been superstar players.
You’re comparing Acuna to Chris Shelton? Acuna was a top prospect, had an incredible rookie year. Shelton…..not so much.
How about Andy Marte? who I believe was one of the top 10 best prospects in the game for a year or two but never even remotely panned out. I was not really comparing Acuna and Shelton, I was more stating what could happen. More than likely the Braves are getting a really good deal. However, players of the same prospect caliber as Acuna have burnt out before cashing in their first massive payday. I do not fault Acuna for taking this at all. That is all I was saying.
I agree with you @atlbtaves 2010. Yes 10 games is not a big sample to say that Acuna will bust. 80 games is also not that big of a sample size to proclaim him to be a perennial star player. That is why he got the type of deal that he got from the Braves. Braves are risking a lot of money betting that he will turn out to at least earn the value of the contract. Got himself a guarantee in cast he gets injured
There’s no way Erik “has one hit and drops popups” Kratz should be on the roster over Garcia or Vogt. If the Giants think they don’t need all the offensive help they can get, they are crazy.
Boras is the perfect example people just don’t understand what is going on in today’s market place.
These “snuff contracts” are different then what people have grown used to. Different, but different doesn’t always mean worse.
Organizations have shown that they are much more willing to offer guys 30+ contracts that are either 3+ years with a low aav, or less then 3 years with an inflated aav.
In the past players have been told to pay their dues, take your 1 year deals and try to increase your yearly earnings through arbitration or sign 1 year deals to avoid arb. After you get your 6 years then you can try and get a deal to set you up for life.
For Boras this is the norm and he’s not willing to adapt.
For players like Acuna he sees this and not only adapted but he’s set himself up to make significantly more money then he would of with the old system.
Now that Acuna has already made himself enough money to be set for life he can afford to gamble on himself in the future.
A lot of guys hitting FA for the 1st time don’t have that option bc they still haven’t gotten a long deal and may not be as financially stable.
Acuna at 30 years old will already have $100mil in the bank, so I’m his age 31-35 seasons he can afford to consistently sign low year high aav deals. If Bryce Harper would of done this he could of just signed a deal with the Dodgers for 3-5 years at $40mil+ per year.
When you consider this and add it to the fact that he’s also guaranteed himself this $100mil even if his career doesn’t go as planned it’s hard to say this isn’t the best deal.
This is an excellent way for a player to maximize his earning potential and also protect himself from disaster. It’s also a great way for an organization to spread out money and save themselves increased payroll during contending years.
The only person or people who these types of deals really take money away from is super agents, bc now instead of a guy going through all his arb years with his 1st agent then signing someone like Boras to get him his 1 big FA deal he’s much more likely to stick with his original agent for the remainder of his career. There is no need for him to hire a super agent.
People need to realize Boras isn’t saying this bc he feels bad for players. boras feels bad for his own future earnings.
What if the braves just fix the bullpen?
Just think if that 23 million would have been used to shore up the bullpen and camargo was kicking butt over at 3rd…
Ill gladly eat crow any day JODO….rooting for you and once you decide to start hitting the lineup is definitely longer and scarier! Take some pressure off yourself man, this isn’t new York or philadelphia.
Of course Boras is over the top. He represents players’ ability to achieve absolute maximum earnings (so he also gets maximum earnings.) I don’t have a big problem with Acuna’s contract. Acuna gave too much up in my opinion, but the Braves assume a massive amount of risk.
Acuna wins the deal if he performs at or below a 4.0 WAR level or if he sustains a major injury before arbitration ends.
Braves win the deal if he performs at or above a 5.0 WAR level.
People have anointed Acuna an MVP apparent, but there’s nothing to suggest he’s going to challenge anybody for that level of production. Acuna put up 3.7 fWAR and 4.1 bWAR last year. That’s not an elite production level. In fact, it’s not anywhere close to elite and he’ll need to take a massive step forward in order to be elite. He’s only 21 so there’s a lot of hope he can, but there are a ton of players out there who have stumbled into sophomore slumps and never back up their rookie campaign.
How do you figure that Acuna wins if he puts up an average of 4.0 fWAR? There’s no figures that would back that statement in the slightest. If you put the value of one win at 7MM. (which is a very favorable estimate for your argument assuming that the price of a Win doesn’t go up in the next decade). 10 years of 4 WAR production would have a total value of 280MM. Acuna just signed for a maximum of 144. He was also arbitration eligible starting next offseason. The way this deal works out for Acuna is if he’s hurt or he’s a dead average baseball player. Certainly not if he’s an annual 4 win player.
Sure.
Reasonable Arbitration/Free Agent vs. Contract
21 = $0.5M vs. $1.0M
22 = $0.5M vs. $1.0M
23 = $6.0M vs. $5.0M
24 = $10.0M vs. $15.0M
25 = $14.0M vs. $17.0M
26 = $18.0M vs. $17.0M (free agent, fringe all star = 4yrs $80M)
27 = $18.0M vs. $17.0M
28 = $18.0M vs. $17.0M
29 = $18.0M vs. $17.0M
30 = $15.0M vs. $17.0M (free agent, fringe all star, in decline = 4yrs $60M)
31+ Everything is now the same
Acuna, as a borderline All Star, might expect something like this. Of course, he could make more as Hosmer landed that ridiculous contract from the Padres, but I wouldn’t expect another outlier contract like that one, and there wouldn’t be much more annual compensation, just a couple extra years. I don’t think that happens in the current environment, though.
Acuna would’ve been arb eligible at age 22 so he certainly wouldn’t have been making 500K. More like 3 MM which he would then get a raise on bumping his salary much higher than what you have here. Those figures are all comically low especially the FA ones. You essentially gave him AJ pollock money 6 years down the line. Acuna would’ve been 4 years younger than pollock. You can throw low numbers out there and make it look significantly closer but that’s not what 27 4 WAR OFers get paid in the slightest.
jbigz12, you’re living in a pipe dream world where 4 win players earn elite money in arbitration. The arbitration values were based on Eugenio Suarez.
You’re “comically” out of touch with the current free agent market. 4.0 WAR maximum value.
By the way, if you’re arguing value per win, use $4.5M. That’s what a win costs teams. Total Salary / Total WAR = $4.5M/WAR
If you’re assuming what teams will pay for a win, you might want to assume something like $6.0M per WAR.
If you’re using fangraphs’ metric, they’re taking all free agent contracts salary / those players’ WAR contributions for the year. Players like Chris Davis completely destroy that statistic’s value.
I’d like to snuff Boras.
It’s awfully easy to sit here and talk about what a 21-year-old who has just acquired riches beyond his wildest dreams should do. If Acuna winds up being grossly underpaid he can force the team’s hand with a holdout or trade demand.
On the subject of Albert Pujols’ statement. He is correct in what he stated. After his 2 MVP seasons is when the Cardinals front office should have offered him a long term contract. However, the Cardinals front office and owners chose to pass. After 11 years, they figured his best years were behind him. They were right. Therefore, the Cardinals chose to make an offer under the Angles to try to make themselves look good to Cardinal Nation at the end of the 2011 season. Most all fans read through the Cardinals second place offer. The Cardinals actually had no intention on signing Pujols from a business point of view of future years. So……In reality, the knew up front they wouldn’t have to have Pujols $22 million a year by their last offer. What a smoke screen that John Mozeliak put up during that time of negotiating. Just to save his and the owners butts from public scrutiny.
The Cardinals’ offers were perfectly competitive for what he was worth at 31, soon to be 32 years old. The AAV was significantly more than $22M per year when they offered him a shorter term deal, and naturally the team is going to want the AAV to drop significantly if the player insists on a deal that goes past age 36 or 37 or so (see: Bryce Harper). Everyone knew even at the time that the Angels were greatly overpaying him (especially with that ridiculous backloaded structure) even if Pujols didn’t wind up aging as badly as he did.
Also, Pujols won 3 MVPs with the Cardinals, and they did try to negotiate a year before he hit free agency to no avail.
Besides, Pujols and his wife had no right to complain about not initially being offered essentially a lifetime deal, as one last large contract is almost never how that happens in the first place! Normally, after the early career extension, you give the guy top dollar until around age 36 or so, and then you extend him on lesser contracts after that when his declining play no longer deserves top dollar. Occasionally, a player will remain mostly elite into his mid-30’s, at which point he may be able to still get a very high AAV (although for a shorter term) on his next deal after that like Ozzie Smith and Yadier Molina got.
Spoken line a man outmaneuvered by the market.
It’s interesting that every year the greedy free agents who usually stiff in terms of contracts are Scot Boras clients. Boras sits around with them and blows such false expectations up their butts that they overreach and get greedy. Sometimes their season is messed up, sometimes their career. There are a lot of people in MLB management that can’t stand Boras and his egotistical approach
You want to know the ironic thing about this…….
Years ago Boras claimed he had become an agent because he’d played minor league ball. He said he’d seen players get hurt, subsequently cut by their teams to fend for themselves (like most Americans). Said he wanted to help players gain financial security.
In this case a player locks in long term security, and Boras is criticizing the contract.
If Boras is so sure, he should offer his own compensation if one of his many players fails. Then we will see how confident he is.
Anyone who is saying that the Atlanta Braves are robbing Ronald Acuna clearly don’t know anything about calculated risks and that 100 million dollar contract when he was under control til 2024 without any big money what so ever was in play already. Yes he is a great player and won rookie of the year but your missing one thing. He just turned 21 and that was a very small sample size. Anyone watch what kind of start he is off to this year in a small sample size? He’s batting 129 with 31 at bats. It’s a risk for both parties. Also 100 million dollar contract from someone who has proved he is great for one Year is a lot of freaking money. Braves are not a big market team and therefore they put a lot of money for that organization to lock down someone they believe in. Not every team can spend 300 plus million on players. Ronald is an adult he secured his future as a very rich man no matter how he pans out. He wanted to stay in Atlanta with his buddy Ozzie Albies anyways. Scott Boras gets his players tons of money good for him that’s his job. Stay out of other players business if it doesn’t involve your client.
Maybe Acuna wanted to get paid to do what he’s wanted to do since he was a child instead of being “one of the highest paid” to do it; there ‘s clearly a distinction being overlooked/taken for granted.
I wonder if Boras thinks Baltimore gave Chris Davis a “snuff contract”?
Does anyone doubt that Boras, if he could, would talk Kyler Murray into playing baseball for $4.5 million so that he could get his cut, even if it cost Murray $200 million and NFL stardom?
Acuna maybe lowering his earning potential significantly. But some of these extensions that have been signed as of late aren’t that far off free agent market value. I think some of them even are right about on it but allows the team some security of knowing they can plan around having a certain star in place for years to come. Some of these are massive extensions
Oh and Acuña signed that snuff contract AFTER the Braves manipulated his service time. Further proving my point that holding Tatis down for the first 15 days of this season wouldn’t have stopped the Padres from extending him.
Pujols and his wife disrespected the Cardinals, Cardinal fans and St. Louis when they left St. Louis… Angels made a big mistake taking on his salary…
Scott Boras cares deeply about Scott Boras and his cut’s from mega contracts his clients ink. End of story, cut and dry. I remember when Furcal left the Brave management vowed to never deal with Boras again.
All you republicans are such babies every time an athlete or agent dares to stick up for labor. You’re all cowards. Give me your personal home address so I can fight you. Thanks.