The Most Powerful Man In Baseball

If I had to give you a few guesses on who the most powerful man in Baseball is, you would likely guess a top player, manager, or executive. But uberagent Scott Boras has changed the economic landscape of the sport, and will continue to get his star players outlandishly lavish contracts. Just the name Scott Boras makes Baseball General Managers cringe like the year “1918” used to make Red Sox fans squirm, and his domination of player contracts range from the top in Alex Rodriguez, all the way down to the annual amateur draft.
Scott Boras is the agent to numerous baseball stars, and has obtained gigantic contracts for Baseball’s best and for the ridiculously overrated. Any man that can get nine million dollars for Jeff Weaver and 70 million bucks for oft-injured JD Drew has to be supremely powerful. Boras clients have received the largest contracts in Major League history, from getting 10 years and 252 million for Alex Rodriguez in 2001 to the pitching record 7 year, 126 million dollar deal Barry Zito got at the end of 2006. Boras also hauled in the first 100 million dollar contract when top starter Kevin Brown signed a 7 year 105 million dollar deal with the Dodgers after the 1998 season. His exploitation of all 30 Major League teams for maximum deals for his players has caused numerous teams to increase payroll and ticket prices, and the hatred of officials and fans alike.
Another facet of Boras’ power is that the teams that sign his players usually win, and win big. Soon after the Tigers signed Boras clients Magglio Ordonez, Pudge Rodriguez, and Kenny Rogers they reached the World Series in 2006. And this year’s champions the Boston Red Sox have six clients on their roster including Drew, reliever Eric Gagne, Japanese star hurler Daisuke Matsuzaka, and team captain Jason Varitek. The Mets earned instant success after inking Carlos Beltran and trading for Carlos Delgado; both star players had their deals negotiated by Boras. The list of All-Star players represented by Boras is almost endless, and he’ll continue to get huge contracts for his players, and teams will constantly be at his mercy for the foreseeable future.
But Boras’ powerful scope goes all the way down to the top amateur players looking for top dollar. It started in 1984 when he got top prospect Tim Belcher an unthinkable 150 thousand dollar signing bonus, and continues today when he got a record 7.28 million dollar bonus for pitcher Rick Porcello, who had just graduated High School. Boras has had such an impact on the draft, that M.L.B. instituted a recommended draft pick bonus slotting system so that Boras wouldn’t be able to control where young players go. In the past, teams that owned the top selection would not be able to draft the best player, because Boras would get more money out of that player than that team could afford. And despite the institution of the slotting system, Boras still exploited all the teams for top dollar as Porcello and Andrew Brackman went lower in the draft to richer teams because the top clubs couldn’t pay their large bonuses.
Most of the free world despises Scott Boras, but his clients absolutely swear by him. In a 2004 article in SI, JD Drew admitted that many people will badmouth his agent, but Drew admires Boras because he has to work through all that adversity.
"You hear, 'Hey, this guy is this and that.' But Scott understands that he's going to have to be the bad guy sometimes, and he takes a lot of the heat.''
Scott Boras also prepares for his negotiations like noone else. In preparation for his upcoming negotiations with A-Rod, Boras wrote a book on how Rodriguez is the greatest player in baseball history who not only could shatter Hank Aaron’s all time home run record, but also break Pete Rose’s mark for career hits. Boras wrote a similar 80 page book on Rodriguez that netted him his 252 million dollar contract, and he wrote a book for prospective teams on Barry Zito that allowed the former Oakland lefty to sign a 126 million dollar contract with the Giants. He has always said that preparation is key in negotiations for his dozens of superstars, and he gets cash for his clients like no other agent in the history of sports.Boras was villified last week by hundreds of media outlets for announcing Alex Rodriguez’s free agency just as Boston was about to capture the World Series, but I believe that the announcement made was one of Boras’ best moves he ever made. Boras knew that he would take a big hit with the announcement, but he was able to upstage the climax of the Major League season to get attention for his clients, which is exactly what he wanted. From the World Series, to baseball’s overall economy, all the way down to his domination of the amatuer draft, Boras dominates and conquers all that he sees and does and is undoubtedly the most powerful man in Baseball