Scott Boras said he has negotiated more than $7 billion in player contracts in his career, a mind-blowing number.
His reputation has long been that he’s all about the money. In some way, that huge dollar figure says the opposite, he pointed out.
Now 64 years old, Boras could easily walk away. He could have a long time ago. He hasn’t.
“The thing about my job that is most misunderstood, I believe, is I go to a ball park every night,” Boras said on the CSNNE Baseball Show podcast. “I think when you’re a professional baseball player, as I was, and you have a dream to play in the major leagues and do all those things … your thirst for the game never ends. I don’t ever view — I wake up [Wedneday], and I get to go watch you know one of my young clients (Julio) Urias pitch.
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“And I get to watch Corey Seager play at a young level and I have a new client (Cody) Bellinger who’s just starting his career in L.A. And I get to the ball park at 2 o’clock, and we talk to players we talk to managers we talk to coaches. You know I had a great conversation with [Giants manager Bruce Bochy] for an hour about leadership, you continually learn things about the game.
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“But your job is to help players execute to perform, because if they perform they do well in the contract arena. I guess the answer is I’ve negotiated over $7 billion worth of contracts. I think it’s fairly clear now where you don’t have to address what your personal interest is for money. It really comes to light the fact that you love the game, you have a passion for it."
People sit around and wonder what’s next for Theo Epstein, the great curse-breaker. Whether he'd run for political office, and all that jazz that Epstein bats down.
What about Boras, who turns 65 this year? Does the super agent who created super agents ever envision a next step, maybe one where he’s a more centralized figure helping all baseball players — something with the union?
The most recent collective bargaining agreements have not looked great for the players. Asked if he agreed with that assessment, Boras believes there will be a growing clamor from players in coming years to gain a greater share of revenues.
“The relationship between the revenues of the game and what the players receive has to be closely examined. Because that’s been retarded artificially, and I think it’s something that creates a concern for players,” Boras said. “That concern I think has to be something that is illustrated by the players in a collective measurement where they have to direct their union that the equilibrium is reaching a point of imbalance. And that voice has not reached the level [yet].
“I believe as the revenues continue to increase over the next few years, that voice will be very very different. Because obviously the percentages have: the 50-50 dynamic is not something that is in place. And I think a clearer vision of that is going to evolve of that here over the next few years, and I’m sure that the union leadership will be more and more aware of it.”
But don’t expect Boras to jump ship for the Players Association any time soon. Or to any other job other than what he does today: team ownership, for example.
“Time leads you to have relationships with many people in the game, and the idea of expressing opinions and representing the interests of your players is something that, in my job, is a role that I respect and one that in the end I will — I fully intend to work at this job for years to come, and stay within the very role that I have,” Boras said. “Having people knowing that I have no other intentions other than that allows the perspective and the role for individual athletes to be looked at in the right way, and that is the methods and the needs of representing the players you work for. I think really, I can best serve the evolution of the game and the tides that come with that by being very cemented in the role I currently have.”
Teams have come calling in the past.
“I made a decision long ago when I was a practicing lawyer and a number of teams that approached me,” Boras said. “And along the way I’ve had discussions like that with owners, and I’ve always said the same thing. Is that, I don’t sell my clients. I’ve had many people in this business — which for some it’s right, for me it’s wrong — I don’t believe in sitting down with a parent and saying, ‘Look, I’m going to represent you, but I’m going to sell you to a different board of directors.’
“I also don't believe in representing the interests of the player and committing to do so and then turning around and working for the player’s employer and negotiating against the very player that I had a very precise and ethical obligation to them. And I think from the standpoint of my role, the privilege of this game is something that — I don’t know, maybe it’s when you have knee operations and the performance of the game was taken away from you — but you value it so much, and it means so much to you that the role I have in the game has to remain constant, I believe, to best serve the game.”