This time around, agent Scott Boras couldn’t bend the baseball marketplace to his will.
He is the greatest player representative of all time, but he couldn’t dictate terms during this shopping cycle. His clients are settling for fewer years and far fewer dollars than they set out to gain in free agency.
Slugger Cody Bellinger got just $80 million guaranteed over three years from the Chicago Cubs. Third baseman Matt Chapman settled for what could become $54 million over three years from the San Francisco Giants. Pitcher Blake Snell could collect $62 million for two years from the Giants.
All three have an escape hatch after one season, so the could test the market again next winter.
These signings set the parameters for unsigned hurler Jordan Montgomery, the former Cardinal who hoped to gain a lengthy contract term.
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(The Cardinals could jump in today and get Montgomery for the shorter term they prefer for pitchers by boosting their payroll into the $215 million to $220 million range. But straying from their business model is not the Cardinal Way, even for a year or two, so don’t get hopeful.)
The MLB Players Association is miffed by how the free agency played out once Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Aaron Nola and Jung Hoo Lee went off the board. Activists are pushing MLBPA Executive Director Tony Clark to replace chief negotiator Bruce Meyer with Harry Marino, a hard-liner who achieved long overdue gains for minor league ballplayers.
Baseball’s current collective bargaining agreement is a hodgepodge contract full of clumsy workarounds. It features a soft salary cap via its luxury tax but no meaningful salary floor to prevent franchises from operating on the cheap.
The players have embraced a system that rewards superstars at the expense of young players and working-class veterans. But as even elite players saw this winter, owners have the freedom to spend or not spend.
What happened to the Boras Four? Their free agency came at an inopportune time.
There was no collusion among owners to keep salaries down. A half-dozen free agents have received annual values of $24.6 million or more, including Sonny Gray from the Cardinals, so some guys did cash in.
Agents count on consistently strong spending by the New York and Los Angeles teams and periodic spending sprees from teams in other large metropolitan areas. We’ve seen some crazy overspending in earlier free agent markets, but not this time around.
The Los Angeles Dodgers landed Ohtani and Yamamoto with creative bids and added Tyler Glasnow as well. By contrast, the New York Yankees paid a big luxury tax bill for 2023 and pulled back from this market after adding Marcus Stroman.
Billionaire New York Mets owner Steve Cohen quit spending like a fanboy and let his new baseball czar David Stearns chart a more careful course. The San Diego Padres were also spending willy nilly . . . until owner Peter Seidler died. Now they are cutting back.
Outfielder Mike Trout hoped Los Angeles Angels owner Arte Moreno would spend big this winter after losing Ohtani to the Dodgers, but he didn’t get his wish. The Boston Red Sox redoubled their commitment to a long-haul rebuild despite their last-place finish, to the chagrin of their passionate fan base.
The Texas Rangers went “all in†to win last season, but the franchise held back chips this winter after letting Montgomery walk. The Cubs brought back Bellinger, but owner Tom Ricketts has refused to spend to the luxury tax threshold despite having the revenue to do so.
The Atlanta Braves spent their dollars locking in home-grown players. The Philadelphia Phillies also focused on retention while re-signing Nola and extending Zack Wheeler.
Some of the teams that were spending looked for bargains. The San Francisco Giants spent big on Lee, then waited to make opportunistic signings of Chapman, Snell, Jorge Soler and Jordan Hicks. When the prices for Josh Hader came down, the Houston Astros stepped up to add him to an already strong bullpen.
Additional factors impacted the bidding on pitchers. The emphasis on pitch velocity and spin rate creates more maximum-effort pitching, which can lead to more injuries, which can create more wariness about large pitching contracts.
At the same time, state-of-the-art independent and team-run pitching labs help prospects and middling veterans alike make great strides — thus creating more cost-efficient pitching.
Rather than acquire another starter, the Cardinals are hoping the new-and-improved Matthew Liberatore and Zack Thompson can fill that need. Other teams are making similar calculations.
There’s one more thing: Analytics staffs are producing game management scripts featuring multiple pitching changes to create favorable matchups. Some managers appear to fear that pitchers risk spontaneous combustion while facing a batting order for the third time.
Little by little, the role of the starting pitcher appears to be diminishing. How many true aces are left?
The game evolves and players adapt. The market shifts and agents, even Boras, must adapt too.