Scott Boras and the Miami Marlins are already at odds over the Marlins clear manipulation of Ozuna’s service time this past season. To be clear, it’s totally legal service time manipulation. The Marlins can do what they want with their players, after all. But it’s also the case that the club was transparently putting an inferior product on the field in order to save some money on player salaries down the road. Boras, who clearly has a personal interest in Ozuna reaching arbitration and free agency as fast as he can, understandably took issue.
These little disputes happen a lot, but they’re usually not public. And they’re usually not super heated. The team may want to save money where it can, but it has no real interest in antagonizing its players unnecessarily. The agent, for his part, has a strong interest in making sure the player is in a happy place as well as in maximizing the number of clubs who can bid on his client once he does reach free agency. So these things tend to simmer, they don’t tend to boil.
Yesterday the Marlins-Boras dispute boiled. Boras criticized the Marlins over Ozuna’s handling once again and Marlins president David Samson shot back:
Samson went on, talking about Jose Fernandez, who had Tommy John surgery in 2014, and who, like Matt Harvey, has Scott Boras for a client. Boras was involved in the Mets’ decision making process over Harvey’s workload. Will he have input regarding the Marlins use of Fernandez?
So that relationship is going well. Good luck in keeping Fernandez around for even a nanosecond after he reaches free agency in 2018, Miami.
