Sports Media Review by Jonathan Weiler

Wednesday, December 13, 2006
10:58:00 AM EST

With the clock ticking on the Matsuzaka deadline, there’s been growing commentary on who’s at fault in the faltering negotiations. I still think this deal is going to get done, but it’s certainly going down to the wire.

Nick Cifardo of the Boston Globe thinks Matsuzaka’s agent, the dreaded Scott Boras is being unreasonable:

“One hundred million dollars? Is that what Boras is asking for?

For a pitcher who has never thrown a baseball in a major league uniform? For a pitcher with tremendous ability, according to just about any coach, manager, and scout who has seen him, but who asked the Seibu Lions to post him so he could live his dream as a big league ballplayer? Doesn't he want to be a big league ballplayer first and PROVE he's worth $100 million? Or does he just want a team to hand him the money before he proves anything?”

Cifardo suggests that the “market value” for Matsuzaka is clear:

“The New York Mets and New York Yankees were of the same mindset as the Sox when they made their bids in the posting process -- that Matsuzaka was worth in the vicinity of $8 million per year, $10 million tops.

The Yankees can get as crazy as anyone with money, but even they understand the risk.

Matsuzaka is worth more than Roy Oswalt or Roy Halladay or Jason Schmidt? How has that value been determined? By pitching for the Seibu Lions of the Japanese Pacific League? You mean to say that Matsuzaka should be paid more than Josh Beckett, who has won at Yankee Stadium to clinch a World Series? He should be paid more than Curt Schilling?”

One point to make here before I proceed –Cifardo’s forgetting the basic economics of the game in making these comparisons. At the heart of the disagreement between the Sox and Boras is whether Matsuzaka has a right to make demands as if he’s an unfettered free agent. From the Sox point of view, the answer is clear: no. They didn’t pay $51 million to then have to treat Matsuzaka as if he could sell himself to the highest bidder. They paid the posting fee in order to purchase a legal monopoly on the right to negotiate with him. But, just as unsurprisingly, Boras doesn’t think his client ought to be penalized for a posting fee that he will not see a dime of.

So, that’s a central part of the dispute. But, Cifardo is saying something different. Cifardo is saying that Matsuzaka’s value as a baseball player, according to established standards is lower than those of the players he’s named above – Oswalt, Beckett, Schilling, etc. And, the underlying premise of that claim is that Matsuzaka ought to be slotted in on the basis of his established credentials relative to those guys.

But, that’s not how this thing works. For example, Carlos Lee just signed a six year, $100 million contract, an average annual value of $16.66 million. Do you know how much Vlad Guerrero’s making in his current contract? Five years and $70 million. Guerrero’s an incomparably greater player than Lee – younger and better in every way, both at bat and in the field. Albert Pujols is, indisputably, the best offensive player in baseball today. He’s making less per year than Lee. David Ortiz is making less money per year than Lee and they’re not in the same stratosphere in terms of their value. If Cifardo’s complaining about the “most recent guy on the market” way that baseball, and all sports, do business, he can write a column about that. And, he could argue that  no player should make that much money without having pitched in the bigs. But, a fact of life of free agency is that free agents are regularly signing for money that dwarfs the present contracts of superior players. If you want to argue about whether Boras has a right to think of his client as a free agent, that’s a different story

But Cifardo’s comparisons miss thereality of free agency itself. 

Cifardo closes by questioning whether Boras has Matsuzaka’s best interests in mind:

“This was supposed to be the story of a fine young Japanese pitcher getting his chance in the big leagues for a big market team with a passionate fan base that is second to none.

Does that matter anymore? Or has Matsuzaka been Boras-ized to the point where he'll be used as a test case of the posting system? A protest? Where only the bottom line matters?”

Buster Olney also wonders about Boras’ representation:

“When Boras negotiates, club executives sometimes wonder whether all the facts -- whether every piece of every offer -- gets through to the player. They never know, and it scares the hell out of them; Boras is the funnel through which all the information is channeled. This is why Theo Epstein and Larry Lucchino flew to California late, why they rode on John Henry's private plane, why they've become so open and outspoken about their negotiations.

They don't know for sure whether Daisuke Matsuzaka knows what they've offered; they don't have a sense of whether Matsuzaka understands that the clock is ticking, that this negotiation might all be playing out like a filibuster. They don't know whether Matsuzaka is on board with everything that is happening, or if this is a Scott Boras production, a possible Curt Flood-like challenge to the posting system between Major League Baseball and the teams in Japan.

The gist of what Boras has been saying about the inequity of the posting system is right. He could get more money for Matsuzaka if he plays this out. Matsuzaka could go back to Japan, back to Seibu, and hit the posting system again nextyear. Maybe the Mets and Yankees would offer $70 million the next time around, and maybe Matsuzaka would get offered another 10 percent, another 15 percent. Maybe the pitcher could wait until after the 2008 season, when he would become a pure free agent and -- if he stays healthy, if his performance doesn't decline -- he might get $120 million. Or more. There could always be another nickel to squeeze, more money to collect.

Here's another option for Matsuzaka: Accept Boston's solid offer, whatever that is, and just go out and realize his dream of pitching in the major leagues.

Boras is extraordinary at what he does, at extracting a volume of dollars from places that you never would've imagined. He is like a chess master, and every negotiation is a match to be won. But in this era, when players are now making more money than they can ever spend in their lifetimes, it's debatable whether the extra cash actually improves the quality of life of his players, and whether all this angst pays off, in the big picture.

Only the players would know that, for sure. Only they can tell you whether making that extra $1.5 million per year makes a huge difference in their lives when they're making $12 million already, and have $50 million in the bank.”

Tony Massarotti of the Boston Herald thinks the Sox should just tell Boras to take or leave their offer: after all, they could always turn around and offer Roger Clemens $20 million to pitch for them in 2007, and save the $51 million posting fee:

“Given some of the cultural and transitional issues Matsuzaka will likely face during his first year in the major leagues, his performance might suffer some, anyway. In 2007, there is every chance Clemens would be just as good, if not better. The Sox could subsequently bid on Matsuzaka again next fall and still make him part of their long-term core with Jonathan Papelbon, Josh Beckett and maybe even Jon Lester.

By then, too, a disgruntled Matsuzaka might have a new agent.

At this stage, there remains every probability that the Red Sox and Boras will get a deal done by Thursday. After all, we live in a deadline-driven world where people do things only when they have to. But the simple truth is that the Red Sox have been far more reasonable in this negotiation than Boras has, and Clemens would be a nice alternative if there is no deal with Matsuzaka.”

It’s noteworthy that Massarotti accepts as a given that the Sox have been more reasonable than Boras, because Boras is asking for something like $15 million a year, and the Sox are (or were) offering in the range of 8-10 million. (Update: according to ESPN.com this morning, Boras is asking for $11 million over six years, while the Sox are offering $8 million per over six years). But, neither the Sox, or Massarotti, or Cifardo has really justified why they think their figure is more reasonable than Boras’. Mind you, I am not saying it isn’t and, when we’re talking such unfathomable sums of money, it all starts to seem surreal anyway. 

But, Nate Silver, at Baseball Prospectus has worked out a projection for Matsuzaka’s performance over the next five years and a corresponding market value figure.

Here’s what Silver (who obviously has no stake in the negotiations) concludes: 

“…$69 million in market value over the next five years. If you wanted to throw in a sixth year, to account for Matsuzaka’s full contingent of pre-free agency major league service time, the total would come out in the neighborhood of $77-$78 million.”

Gammons gives a hearing to Boras’ view on the subject of value, in the light of Ichiro’s experience: 

“Now Matsuzaka, Boras, Jeff Musselman, et al all ask the same resounding question: Why should Japanese players be treated differently than American players? "Ichiro [Suzuki] came over, was MVP in his first season," says Boras, "and got paid one-third of what he's worth."

It has always struck me as odd that Boras gets painted as the bogeyman of Major League Baseball. (and, more generally, that agents are seen as holding the professional leagues hostage). Pick any owner in the major leagues and ask yourself: how did he (or she) become so wealthy? The answer: they let virtually nothing stand in the way of their pursuit of the bottom line. Anybody who’s accumulated that kind of wealth did so by making money a supreme value and organizing principle in their lives. Surely, some were more ethically challenged than others along the way. But, every owner is on the extreme end of a spectrum of humanity in terms of their aggressive pursuit of wealth. Consequently, they must recognize themselves in Boras – a guy who knows how to exploit any advantage for maximum gain.

Now, if the argument is that Boras, if he blows this contract, undermines his own interests – or those of his client - that’s a legitimate source of complaint. But, that’s ultimately an argument about the soundness of the business strategy here. It’s not a meaningful qualitative judgment about whether he’s playing a different game than the owners. Because, he’s not. What Boras has done, quite cleverly, is to have succeeded in finding leverage for his client when he ought to have none, given the bizarre system at play here. Boras’ leverage isn’t that he can negotiate with other teams, but that he can refuse to negotiate at all. And, if the deal falls through, Boras doesn’t care if he’s vilified. In fact, I am quite sure he feels that only enhances his reputation as the ultimate hardball player. By contrast, the Red Sox front office will take a lot of grief for a failed negotiation, and they are surely more sensitive to public opinion than Boras – if for no other reason that they have a public to satisfy, and Boras doesn’t. 

There’s no insight to be gained by judging Boras, or agents, in moral terms, relative to the people the agents are sitting across the table from. No one in pro sports is running a charitable organization.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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