Boras: MLB’s free-agent system does disservice to players like former Royal Moustakas
Former Kansas City Royals third baseman Mike Moustakas’ trials and tribulations on the free-agent market signify problems with Major League Baseball’s system of evaluating players under the current collective bargaining agreement, super-agent Scott Boras said Wednesday.
Speaking to a group of reporters gathered at the Omni Scottsdale Resort & Spa at Montelucia for MLB’s annual general managers’ meetings, Boras described what he views as a “corrupt” system.
“We have got a system that is never evaluating the premium player in the game appropriately,” Boras said. “Now that we’ve had the systems invoked over time, we can really see that we’ve invoked a criteria that is not objective but subjective towards a means to an end of under-evaluation of particularly premium players in the game.”
In making his point, Boras used three clients as examples. He cited the projected values of Washington Nationals third baseman and MVP candidate Anthony Rendon, Houston Astros Cy Young Award finalist Gerrit Cole and Moustakas. All three are free agents this offseason.
Boras said projected Wins Above Replacement (WAR) numbers for Moustakas consistently fall below his actual range (WAR can be calculated in different ways). In 2017, Moustakas’ projected range of 1-2 came up shy of his actual WAR of 2-3. In 2018, his projected range moved to 1-2.5 and his actual WAR was 2.5-3.5. In 2019, his projected range was 2-3 and his actual range was 2.5-3.5.
Moustakas also became a free agent following the 2017 season, the year he set the Royals’ single-season home run record (38), which Jorge Soler broke this season. Moustakas ended up re-signing with the Royals in March 2018 on a one-year deal worth $6.5 million, with up to another $2.2 million in incentives.
The Royals traded Moustakas to the Milwaukee Brewers, who re-signed him after the 2018 season for one year at $10 million with a mutual option for next season. Moustakas did not exercise his option for 2020, which reportedly would’ve garnered $11 million for the season or a $3 million buyout if the Brewers declined.
Moustakas, who played both second base (47 games) and third base (105 games) in 2019, earned a spot on the National League All-Star team. He finished the season with 35 home runs and 87 RBIs and a slash line of .254/.329/.516.
Boras, who runs the highly lucrative Boras Corporation, has established himself as one of the most successful agents in the world of sports. He’s negotiated more than $2.3 billion worth of contracts for current players, and his roster of clients includes stars Bryce Harper, Max Scherzer, Jake Arrieta and Stephen Strasburg.
Boras on Wednesday proclaimed the need for competitive rewards to encourage teams to strive to win as much as they can each season and make tanking less prevalent. He said the current process doesn’t foster competition and instead focuses on clubs’ economic success and rising franchise valuations.
He went on to cite baseball’s luxury tax threshold as an example of “rails” put in place by former commissioner Bud Selig to guard against owners who could not control themselves in the free-agent marketplace. Boras suggested those rails be removed in order to spur action among organizations he described as being reserved.
In making his case, Boras also cited the record number of 100-loss teams this season — four: the Royals (59-103), Detroit Tigers (47-114), Baltimore Orioles (54-108) and Miami Marlins (57-105).
“In many ways the industry is in a competitive hibernation, and the fans are reacting to it,” Boras said. “We’ve got a decline in attendance. We’ve got owners charging more for generations that want to see the game yet while we’re losing a generation of young people that are only interested in competition.”
