he New York Mets signed outfielder Juan Soto to the richest contract in American sports history. Over a 15-year period, they will pay him at least $765m—that’s more than three quarters of a billion dollars.

That’s for just one player.

It comes as no surprise to baseball fans that his agent is the self-serving grifter, Scott Boras. This is a man who doesn’t own a team, but dictate terms to those who do.

And baseball is far worse for it.

oras represents the greatest number of the best players in the sport. Those players flock to him because he will get them the most money—simple as that. And since he’s paid on a percentage of every contract, those agreements have made him extremely wealthy. Total Boras commissions are equal to the totals of his three nearest rival agents combined. Forbes estimates his take on the Soto contract alone at between $35m and $40m.

Well, you might say, “hey, what’s wrong with thatat? He makes big money from bigger money. Isn’t that the way things works in America?” Leaving aside the ills of unchecked capitalism, the problem here is that Boras is killing the goose that has showered him, and his players, with golden eggs.

To be fair, Boras works hard. He and his large staff are diligent researchers, creating actual “books” of statistics to support their outsized contract demands. His pitches to teams always center around one proposition: “well, if my other player X just signed for this amount, and my player Y who you want is statistically 80% as productive as X, then Y deserves nothing less than 80% of X’s contract.”

Which may sound logical on the surface, but Boras himself admits that his demands effectively raise the salary levels for all players, whether his clients or not. And no one is forcing owners to sign those contracts.

But here’s where his methods go from greedy to rapacious. When a team is unwilling or unable to meet his asking price, he will publicly turn on the owner negotiating with him. He will shame him, implying or stating that the owner is a cheapskate. Negotiations remain private—until Boras decides that they’re not. He will typically leak those accusations to compliant baseball writers. Then, predictably, the fans of that team get outraged. Many will turn on the very team they root for. And for good measure, Boras occasionally turns his rhetorical gun on owners as a group.

Consider this quote following the Soto signing, when he was asked whether his say of doing business is creating too much “disparity” between richer and not-as-rich teams:

“Part of a sports league is disparity…there’s always a Goliath and there’s always a David. I don’t care what league it is, and I don’t care if you have salary caps or not, you always see those things happen in sport and it’s always been that way. The one thing that’s common is that every ownership that’s bought (a team) for $100 million, $200 million is now worth two to three billion. The disparity part is just a competitive choice that you choose”.

In other words, all have enough money. It’s just a matter of whether they really care about their fans or not. To use an overworn sports cliche, some just want it more.

et’s consider what he’s trying to do here by crossing the line from negotiation tomanipulation:

Transferring blame: Some fans despise Boras because they realize the impact of what he’s doing. But for each fan who sees his game, there are a dozen more who buy into his blame game. To suss this out, let’s put Boras’ claim to the test.

Stereotyping all owners: People tend not to like it when someone refers to “all women…” or “all Southerners…”, etc. Stereotyping is patently stupid. And thus, it’s just as stupid implying that all owners are financial equals. Here are the statistics:

TEAM VALUE

Boras is wrong to imply that every team is valuated at “two or three billion.” Half are rated lower than that.
Only two team sales in history have met or exceeded the $2 billion total Boras cites. The most recent sale, in 2024, was for $1.75b. You’d think his crack researchers were smart enough to tell him when something is factually wrong.
The “richest” team (New York Yankees) is valued seven times higher than the least wealthy (Miami Marlins). This, then, is demonstrated disparity #1.
In addition, the estimated valuations do NOT take into account any liabilities a team might be carrying on its books. Eight of the thirty teams owe between ten and 40% of their estimated worth. This convenient omision creates disparity #2.
These valuations are entirely theoretical. The real value of anything isn’t defined until someone pays for it. You may think your house is worth $1 million, but if you can only sell it for $350k, then that’s what it’s actually worth. Boras declines to admit this.

OWNER WEATLH Here is a new disparity—one that’s beyond argument.

The net worth of the wealthiest single owner is 40 TIMES that of the least wealthy.
That least wealthy (owner (of the Cincinnati Reds) is not a pauper; he has a net worth of $400 million. (But note, that’s less than half of the Juan Soto contract I mentioned above).
The wealthiest owner, Steve Cohen of the Mets, is the one who ponied up for Soto. Cohen’s net worth is $16 billion. Do you think the Reds had an equal ability to meet Boras’ price for Soto? Were th Reds just cheap? Of course not. But Boras would have Reds fans believe their owner just didn’t want to pay enough. Hence, disparity #3 is blindingly obvious.
Looking at this from one more angle, Soto’s new contract ($765m) is valued at more than the net worth of eight different MLB owners. In other words, if any of those owners liquidated everything he owned—investments, real estate, businesses, jewelry, yachts—they still wouldn’t have enough dollars to guarantee the amount of the Soto deal. Boras fully knows this. He just doesn’t want fans to understand it.

Incidentally, it should come as no surprise that Mets owner Cohen and Boras are described as “BFFs.”

s there a way out of this mess? Well, sort of. And baseball is already kind of testing the waters. First, a little explanation.

The obvious answer is a “salary cap”—meaning every team would be allowed just so much money to spend for all players, no matter how wealthy an owner might be, or how much his franchise is valued at.. Most major sports already have salary caps. (And while those are finagled in certain ways, in general they tend to work. That’s either because leagues like the NFL and NBA realize the value of competitive balance—or because they don’t have Scott Boras to contend with). Boras scornfully shuts down any talk of a cap for baseball—because that would also create a revenue cap fo him..

So, in its place, baseball owners have adopted a “luxury tax”. This mechanism allows any team to spend beyond a certain limit. But if its player payroll exceeds that limit, the team must pay a tax into a league kitty. That pot is then divided among the other owners. The amount of money was relatively small, but it was partially effective for a while. That’s because the richest owners would grouse, “I’ll be damned if someone else is going to use my money to compete against me!”

However, a few owners were so rich they just decided, “screw it, I’m just going to buy the best players I can. So fine—tax me”.

Even then, Scott Boras refuses to let baseball come anywhere near equality. How does he do that? He also, in effect, runs the baseball’s players union—the strongest such union in sports. Of course, there is a figurehead who carries the title of President; but Boras calls the shots.

Players will always vote the way Boras tells them—and why not? Even the lowest paid player in the majors makes a minimum of $800k a year. Nonetheless, Boras constantly lectures them on the rich, uncaring owners taking deserved money out of their pockets.

Thre is one more killing disparity. It concerns local market television rights. There is no such thing as local rights in football; all television deals are negotiated by the NFL, since all games apear only on network TV. And those hefty rights are apportioned equally among all teams.

The rights to televise baseball games are different. Each team contracts to have its games broadcast in its home marketswith a single station or a localized sports network. By demographics, these contracts are necessarily unequal. Many more eyeballs are watching in bigger cities than smaller towns. So logically, commercials in those big markets can be sold for a lot more, and thus the rights deals are a lot larger. Thus, teams in the biggest markets (e.g., NY, LA) can collect ten times more revenue as some small market teams. This is the final fact check to Boras’ lies. Disparity is baked into the revenue pies, but he can’t afford that to be understood by fans.

s there any solution to all this? There is one, but baseball owners refuse to seriously implement it.

The pipeline of baseball talent comes from high schools and colleges, as well as an international free agent pool. Like any other sport, these young players are the the lifeblood of baseball.

Sorry, but back to the luxury tax for a second: there are actually two levels of violations. Penalties for the second (higher) threshold have escalating dollar amounts. Plus, in the most egregious cases, a team can also be forced to forfeit a (rather obscure) draft choice. By making such draft forfeitures crippling, rather than obscure, the owners can equal the playing field…and give all fans hope.

Let me suggest an example. If you exceed the first luxury tax threshold, you don’t get a first and second round draft choice until you’re back in compliance—every year, no matter how many years that takes.

Plus, If you surpass the second level, you give up your first, second, third and fourth choices—as well as any participation in the international player pool.

The richest owners would still have an advantage, because any existing player reaching free agent status could still be sold to the highest bidder. Scott Boras would still get his money.

However, far fewer of the very best young players, from America or overseas, would wind up in the organizations of the free-spending teams. Eventually, that will take its toll. Only a handful of true superstars comes to the free agent market every winter. They are already nearing their peak years of performance, and most are already on the slide. Even teams with superstars require young, emerging talent to realistically compete. Cut off that supply, and owners will quickly fall into line. There doesn’t have to be a hard salary cap; just adopt an equitable system of self-correction that allows all the Davids to truly compete against the few Goliaths.

any people like to say that “baseball is dead". This, despite the fact that every year major league baseball sells more tickets and reaches more eyeballs than any other sport. But without doubt, fans sour when they know their team doesn’t even have a chance.

Those fans are more important than the owners; more important than the players.

For their sake—and for the future of the sport—it’s time to send Scott Boras to the financial disable list.

Issue 30

The Man Who Broke Baseball