Last week’s free-agent bonanza made clear who the most valuable player in Major League Baseball is.
Scott Boras.
Reigning American League MVP Mike Trout will have more impact once the season begins, but another local often spotted in Angel Stadium—and likely to be there more after a recent mega-deal—is the super-agent who heads Newport Beach’s Boras Corp.
Within 48 hours last week Boras lined up more than $800 million in long-term, guaranteed contracts for a trio of his biggest clients: pitchers Stephen Strasburg and Gerrit Cole, and new Los Angeles Angels third baseman Anthony Rendon.
Sports publications say it’s the biggest haul ever for a sports agent in that compressed period.
Since baseball agents typically earn 3% to 5% of their clients’ salary, last week’s dealmaking likely earned Boras and his firm close to $30 million, if not more.
With deals already inked in the offseason and a few more free-agent clients expected to complete contracts in coming weeks, Boras’ firm could complete $1 billion worth of MLB agreements by year’s end.
Other OC execs with ties to the sports world aren’t surprised by the record-setting haul.
“Scott is as good an agent as there is in MLB,” said Newport Beach’s Jeff Moorad, a former sports agent at Steinberg & Moorad who went on to serve as general partner and CEO of the Arizona Diamondbacks and vice-chair and CEO of the San Diego Padres.
“He consistently signs the best young players in the game and produces cutting-edge results for them when they’re mature big leaguers.”
Gym Membership
The record-setting week adds to an already loaded résumé for the agent Forbes previously dubbed “most successful athlete advocate” ever, and who as of earlier this year was reported to have some $2 billion in current contracts.
Boras Corp. already was “at the head of the class for representing the most MLB players and the size of their contracts,” said a report in the Fall 2019 edition of the Baseball Research Journal, which noted that the 219 contracts that the firm negotiated between 2015 and 2018 had a total value approaching $3.5 billion, and brought in commissions (factored to be 4%) of $139.5 million, about 36% higher than the No. 2 agency.
The three new mega-deals were kicked off last Monday by Strasburg’s seven-year, $245 million return to the reigning World Series champs, the Washington Nationals.
It comes with a unique perk: the Washington Post reported one of Strasburg’s stipulations was for Nationals Park and the team’s on-site gym to stay open every day during the off-season.
Boras confirmed the account to NBC Sports. The ace “wanted to make sure [Nationals Park] was open every day in the offseason so that he can go there and work out.”
Next up was Tuesday’s news that fellow pitcher Cole—a high school hurler at OC’s Orange Lutheran High, back in the day—would join the New York Yankees for nine years and $324 million.
That’s $1 million less than the price given for Angels owner Arte Moreno (whose team also was a bidder for Cole) to buy Angel Stadium and a surrounding 153 acres from the city of Anaheim.
The Angels ended up splashing cash on a different Boras client: Rendon, who agreed to a seven-year, $245 million deal with the team last Wednesday.
Moreno Meetings
Signs of a potential Moreno-Boras deal for at least one notable client began circulating last month: the L.A. Times in November reported on improving interactions between the duo, after years of a what was perceived as a “frosty” relationship.
The animus allegedly stemmed from the Angels’ inability to retain Boras’ client Mark Teixeira, now retired, more than a decade ago.
“It’s so distant, I don’t remember” the feud, Boras told the Times.
“I sit down with [Moreno] every year. I see him all the time. We have a common restaurant that we run into one another.”
Flexed muscle and sore feelings are part of the territory when dealing with Boras on contracts, said Moorad, who is chair of the global sports division for law firm Morgan Lewis and a partner at MSP Sports Capital, a new sports fund that’s bought a pair of European soccer clubs this year.
“He’s a force that has to be reckoned with if you’re in the high-end player business.”
