Controversial, high-powered baseball agent Dan Lozano recently suffered three important agent defections, leading to the loss of several promising young players, sources say.

Up-and-coming agents Scott Lonergan, Jeff Randazzo and Brian Mejia all bolted Lozano’s Century City MVP agency, and with the departures also lost to MVP are top outfield prospect Oscar Taveras and hard-throwing young righthander Carlos Martinez, both of the Cardinals, among other young players.

Word is, Taveras and Martinez are leaving MVP with Mejia, a South Florida agent expected to move to a different big agency. Randazzo, previously an agent with TWC, and Lonergan, a former Cubs executive, are likely to join together to work in a new venture. They are also said to represent some very good young players who are expected to go with them, though it isn’t known yet who those players are. Randazzo and Lonergan worked at the relatively new MVP about two years.

Lozano, who is recalled for surprising his three longtime partners and leaving the even more high-powered Beverly Hills Sports Council and taking superstars Albert Pujols, Joey Votto and other prominent major leaguers with him to start MVP a few years ago, is said to have tried to keep the three young agents but was unsuccessful in doing so. Lozano had a partnership agreement with BHSC when he left that top agency, but negotiated the $240-million Pujols deal and $225-million Votto deal after striking out on his own.

Lozano has shocked folks in the industry by continuing to recruit fairly successfully despite a reputation that was sullied by this Deadspin article, which was titled "King of Sleaze Mountain," and pointed out BHSC had to settle an expensive sexual harassment claim against him, and also that he didn’t actually obtain the USC degree he previously claimed to have, among other embarrassing revelations. Lozano’s lawyers threatened to sue the writers and the folks who supposedly provided the information used in this article but never did so.

Lozano’s spokesman at MVP Josh Goldberg didn’t respond to a message.