Every generation thinks something is ruining baseball; ours seems to agree its Scott Boras. The greedy, grasping, snake oil salesman of an uber-agent controls the contracts of dozens of MLB players and is notoriously hard nosed in negotiations, to the point that some teams won't even deal with him. Plus he lives in Newport Beach, so you know he's a scumbag. But is he ruining baseball?
A lot of people would argue he's responsible for driving up salaries to ridiculous levels and preventing small market teams from getting top talent. Those people are probably right. But you could also argue that he's simply taking advantage of the free agent system. He is a symptom, not the disease. Plus, the players could agree to lesser contracts. They all watch Sports Center, they know what's being offered to them. Not all of them are as dumb as they look. And if a team doesn't want to man up and talk to the guy, aren't they doing just as much of a disservice to their fans?
Personally, I'm in the "Scott Boras is a scumbag and definitely bad for baseball" camp, but even I have to admit he's not necessarily ruining baseball. Not single-handedly at least. What are your thoughts?
1 comment:
The biggest problem I have with Boras is he convinces teams to pay players more than they are worth. $125 million for Zito who is 9-11 this season?!?!?! Are you kidding me? This drives all players to expect more than they deserve and they all end up on a handful of teams (I'm looking at you Yankees and Red Sox) who will pay them ridiculous amounts of money. And how can you expect team loyalty when everyone is just searching for the highest bidder? THAT is what really ruins baseball!
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