Boras Blog

The Best Offer

SI is reporting that Varitek has agreed to a two year contract with the Red Sox.

At the end of the day you just have to take the best offer out there.

An Offer He Can Refuse

WEEI.com is now reporting - though our reader Gary in Indiana posted these numbers in our comment section last night - that the Red Sox's offer to Jason Varitek is at $5m in 2009, with a $5m team option versus a $3m player option for 2010... A 2/8 contract that can bump up to 2/10.

There is no more sugar-coating this.  Assuming the absense of a competing bidder, declining arbitration was a sloppy and costly mistake.

An Offer He Can't Refuse

MLB.com and the Boston Globe report that Varitek received an offer from the Red Sox:

A baseball source tells The Boston Globe that the Red Sox have made a contract offer to the veteran catcher and team captain. Without citing specifics, the report states the proposal given to Varitek's agent, Scott Boras, may include a second guaranteed season.

The paper says the Red Sox "could ensure Varitek a second year by guaranteeing it outright or making it attainable through an option."

Either way, after nearly three months, there is movement in the negotiations.

The Globe reports that Varitek could guarantee the second year of a contract through "reachable incentives," such as games played or at-bats. Another scenario could have the player agree to a "dual option." That would give the team first choice to bring Varitek back (at a higher number) for 2010, and also provide the player to either accept or decline a second salary figure (at a lower number).

Meanwhile, KFFL claims that Varitek did, in fact, get a two year deal:

Updating previous reports, the Boston Red Sox have formally presented an offer to agent Scott Boras, who represents free-agent C Jason Varitek, that could include a second guaranteed season for his client, according to a baseball source. The value and length of the proposal was unclear, but the team could ensure a second year by either guaranteeing it outright or making it attainable through an option, according to Tony Massarotti of The Boston Globe.

I cant wait for the numbers... A two year deal anywhere at $14m or above would be a huge win for Boras and Varitek, though I am skeptical that the second year would be guaranteed and not an easily attainable option.

Risk/Reward and Varitek

I really dont get the brouhaha over Scott Boras and Jason Varitek 's potentially costly decision to turn down arbitration in favor of free agency.  Turning down arbitration for free agency is taking a chance.  That chance usually works out, but of course, it has risks.

Every so often, you have a case like Jody Reed.  Reed was a middle infielder with a career line of 270/349/350 and an ops+ of 90 - this guy was the definition of replacement level.  Prior to 1993, Reed was offered a three year $7.8m contract from the Dodgers.  On the advice of his brother-in-law / agent, Reed turned the deal down to test the free agent waters.  He ended up signing for the league minimum with the Brewers.

But for every Jody Reed, there are a hundred success stories.

Scott Boras is not Jody-Reed's-Brother-in-Law.  In a business that quantifies success by performance data, Boras has dominated his class.  His performance - not only for players like A-Rod and Teixeira, but also for guys like Alex Cora and Willie Bloomquist - speaks for itself.  But, nobody can bat 1.000 in baseball.

There is a risk/reward trade off for every decision.  Varitek thought he could squeeze a second year out of the Red Sox.  He will probably end up taking a couple million dollars less than he would have gotten.  Ok - good gamble, bad result.  Like with the stock market, poker, or any other venture that involves taking a chance, you have to judge the decision and not the result.  It is premature to judge - we dont know what contract he will end up with - but the decsion to turn down arbitration can not be judged simply by the result.  You take a chance, you risk losing out.  That is the business.

Varitek & Henry Have a Sit Down

I am a bit late covering the Varitek / Henry meeting.  I think this was a great move by Varitek, especially if my assertations as to the reason the Sox are in a hissy with Boras are correct.  We have no way of knowing if the meeting was Boras' idea or not, but he was not present at the meeting. 

Convenient Scapegoat

You've got to hand it to the Red Sox.  Ownership did an excellent job deferring fan anger away from Sox ownership for not bidding enough on Teixeira and towards Teixeira's agent, Scott Boras.  I am still amazed at some of the reactions coming in, how easily the Sox faithful bought it.

Boras is an especially convenient scapegoat, given that the Red Sox can now use him as an excuse to avoid bringing back Jason Varitek at a cost that likely exceeds his value.  So the Sox ownership doesnt have to spend on Teixeira or Varitek, the fans lose their captain and dont bring in a significant free agent, yet the anger is directed towards those players' representation.  Do the sox fans really believe that Boras' influence led Teixeira towards the Yankees as opposed to the difference in value between the two contracts?

Red Sox Also Cry

Michael Silverman at the Boston Herald reports on the Red Sox relationship with Scott Boras.

Writing about the Red Sox and Mark Teixeira seems so old. Eventually, we all are going to have to move on. But even as the Red Sox do their best to forget the loss of the marquee free agent to the Yankees and get on with their lives, let’s not sweep under the rug the significant damage left behind, because the aftermath affects the future.

We’re not talking about the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry, either. We mean Red Sox-Scott Boras.

Before getting to the wounds the Red Sox are still licking, if we were to address this from the perspective of Boras, Teixeira’s agent, we would likely discover the viewpoint that the Red Sox never had enough nerve to step up and do what it took to convince Teixeira to sign. Teixeira and his wife’s preference for the Yankees was real and it was strong, but we’ve yet to see compelling evidence that it was insurmountable. It is way too simplistic to say that the Red Sox failed to pony up enough cash, but there is a good argument to be made that the Red Sox did not place the proper value on Teixeira and never went for the kill. Maybe they could not get over a history of antagonistic negotiations with Boras. Perhas some portions of the face-to-face negotiations with Teixeira in Dallas could have been handled better, with Teixeira reportedly put off by insinuations from the Red Sox about his agent and other offers.

In the fallout from those talks, which resulted in an e-mail from perturbed Red Sox principal owner John Henry to the media, Boras’ reputation was also besmirched by an editorial on the Boston Globe’s op-ed page on Dec. 20, three days before the negotiations ended. The editorial applauded the Red Sox’ decision to walk away from the “con” perpetuated by the “devious” Boras, who had “rooked” the Red Sox in the past. The piece drew a parallel between the victims of Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme and victims of past Boras negotiations. The editorial failed to mention that the Globe’s owner, the New York Times [NYT] (even though it is trying to sell it) owns 17 percent of the Red Sox, a pertinent disclaimer in this case given the ownership’s direct involvement in the Teixeira talks.

Boras has frequently pointed out that no matter how often he gets vilified by nameless front-office sources for allegedly concocting phantom offers or shopping around concrete offers, the only thing that has been proven is his ability to continue to haul in massive contracts. It is a safe bet that being compared to a swindler like Madoff did not go over well with Boras.

The Sox, meanwhile, are, at least for now, done with Boras. One well-placed source said the club will never deal with him again unless it can be guaranteed that talks are being conducted honestly. We would take that threat a little more seriously if Boras’ clientele list were to shrink dramatically, but since that is not realistic, we will take it as a sign of just how badly the club felt it got stung by lies from Boras. They are in a “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me” mode right now, with the Teixeira talks feeling like the last straw to them.

The storyline here that we are led to believe is that the Sox are upset that Teixeira didnt sign with them, due to some sort of shadiness on Scott Boras' part.  Of course, they did not match the Yankees (or Nationals) offer, and generally did the worst recruiting job, all of which should be besides the point.  No, I think there is something else at play here.

As I wrote here, I have long felt that the Red Sox are trying to find a way to get fan approval to say goodbye to Varitek, so they can make a deal for a younger catcher without alienating their fans who have always loved Varitek.  Suddenly a temper tantrum at Scott Boras is very well timed.

Meanwhile, Matt Snyder at MLB Fanhouse  also hates Scott Boras but still comes to a somewhat rational conclusion:

Look, I hate Boras and his methods as much as the next guy, and I realize -- with the state of the current economy -- how much it angers people to hear about players' gargantuan salaries. What the argument boils down to, however, is who you want to make the money. The money is there. Baseball has a colossal stream of revenue. The players are the ones on the field. They are the product. Would you rather Mark Teixeira get a bigger piece of the money for playing the game, or John Henry keep it all from his cushy sky-box? That's not even a question to me. I will always side with the players over ownership in terms of payroll, because they are the ones actually earning the money.