Scott Boras, baseball's best and most powerful agent, made his annual appearance at the GM meetings in Orlando on Wednesday. And, as always, he talked up his free-agent clients like Eric Hosmer. To wit:
Boras on Eric Hosmer: “He’s Playoff-ville, Federal Express.” Scott is in prime form this year.
— Jerry Crasnick (@jcrasnick) November 15, 2017
Boras also took a moment to make sure everyone knew his thoughts on the Marlins and their current predicament. The Marlins, who were officially sold to the Bruce Sherman/Derek Jeter led ownership group a few weeks, are looking to slash payroll, and have been shopping superstar slugger Giancarlo Stanton in an effort to make it happen. Boras doesn't like that.
Here's what Boras told reporters, including Bob Nightengale of USA Today:
"When you're looking at building a market and you have an All-Star outfield with all he dynamics,'' Boras said, "and you have a club being purchased at $1.2 billion, what happens is that you got a marketplace saying the new owners are coming in here and saying they're making the franchise better. We're excited. And then where we are now creating a plan where we are not going to win five or six years.
"We're going to basically reduce our payroll. We're going to rid our team of our substantial stars. We're going to set up this five, six year plan. We basically have a system in baseball where we have sales of franchises, and we have a reduction.
"Basically the idea is to reduce the debt service to pay for the franchise by reducing all major league payroll, not being competitive, basically using the argument that we're going to build a successful team through development.
"That has nothing to do with the fans. It has nothing to do with winning. It has nothing to do with anything other than a financial plan that suits ownership without consideration of the impact it has on Major League Baseball.''
...
"When we allow sales of teams,'' Boras said, "there needs to be some sort of legislation. There needs to be some restriction so that the integrity of the game, as it applies to other teams, is considered. So we don't have divisions playing an opponent that's going to win 55 games where other divisions have teams winning 75 to 95 games.''
Boras' comments might be, of course, self-serving. The Marlins cutting payroll means there are fewer dollars in the market for his clients. He can't even use the Marlins as leverage against other teams in talks. That isn't to say Miami would've been in the mix for Hosmer, but Boras as a lot of clients, and several lower-profile players could've been eyeing the Marlins as a potential landing spot.
There is also a kernel of truth to what Boras is saying. The Marlins are cutting payroll to make the team more financially viable, meaning turn a profit for Sherman and Jeter and the other owners. That gets sold as a rebuild and the team talks about the better days ahead. In the short-term though, it really stinks for fans. Really, really stinks -- especially if the Marlins end up taking less of a return in order to save more money, which they might have to do:
Giancarlo Stanton trade development: Sources say multiple teams told #Marlins that Stanton’s contract (10 years, $295 million) is roughly what he’d receive on open market. Thus, #Marlins would need to include cash in order to obtain high-level prospects. @MLB @MLBNetwork
— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) November 15, 2017
Like we said, it really, really stinks for fans.