The jokes certainly made the rounds this week. Maybe Scott Boras, arguably the most famous sports agent around, should grab himself a piece of the Nationals. After all, his clients seem to keep landing big deals from the Lerner family.
Some major league teams hate dealing with Boras, as tough a negotiator as you’ll find. Some will avoid drafting his clients, if possible. Washington general manager Mike Rizzo, on the other hand, knows his way around Boras Corp. He struck megadeals for amateur players Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper in each of the last two summers. Those players are his team’s future. Jayson Werth is its present — and he and Boras agreed to a massive seven-year, $126 million contract with the Nats last week that left the rest of the baseball aghast.
“It’s an ownership that I thought did a very, very good job demonstrating that they’re going to step into this and make themselves into a competitive franchise,” Boras said after Werth’s introductory news conference on Wednesday at Nationals Park.
He is not a man known for flinging compliments at sports executives. But Boras had similar glowing reviews for the Nats after the Strasburg negotiations. Yes, cynics, that was just after he rolled out of town with a sack full of cash for his client. But last we checked Boras wasn’t showering the Steinbrenner family with praise, and the Yankees gave Alex Rodriguez the biggest contract in baseball history. When one reporter asked Boras whether Werth would have considered giving the Phillies, his former team, a “hometown discount” if they had come close to matching Washington’s offer, Boras just flashed his shark smile.
“What was that word?” he asked.
Point taken.
This isn’t new, either. The relationship between Boras and the Nats started during the Mark Teixeira negotiations in 2008. And while it is clear now that Teixeira was intent all along on signing with the Yankees, just getting into the game that winter proved to Boras — and by proxy, his current and future clients — that the Nats are a player.
