Baseball mega-agent Scott Boras is not pleased with some recent claims levied by Major League Baseball regarding his business practices.
In an official statement issued on Tuesday, the MLB addressed the frigid free agent market this offseason by accusing agents of overpricing their clients. They also claimed that some still-unsigned free agents had “nine-figure” offers on the table. You can read more about the saga here.
Speaking with Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports several hours later, Boras fired back with a direct rebuttal of the league’s claims. Here is what he had to say:
agent scott boras took issue with mlb revealing in its statement of response to the union that "some" players have "nine figure" offers. boras: "i find it interesting that free agents have nine-figure offers since the CBA mandates that teams not share that sort of information."
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) February 7, 2018
boras continued: "I an also curious how a public statement communicated to all teams about offers on the table and players demanding too much money from a central league office … is any different from the infamous "information bank" in the 1980s."
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) February 7, 2018
boras says his issue isn't the existence or non-existence of these offers, it's that mlb "shouldn't know about the offers." mlb doesn't appreciate the suggestion.
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) February 7, 2018
It sounds like Boras’ main gripe here is that nobody but the individual teams should have information about the terms of any deals offered to players — certainly not the league due to possible concerns of collusion.
Regardless, many elite free agents are still without a team despite the calendar now having flipped to February (like Jake Arrieta, Eric Hosmer, Yu Darvish, and Greg Holland to name a few). That is certainly an anomaly compared to winters past where the cream of the crop would usually put ink to paper by December, and these fighting words from both sides likely aren’t helping any.
