Scott Boras Heroically Commits To Paying All Of His Released Minor League Players Their Salaries For The Rest Of 2020
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First off, I realize there are things way more important than baseball right now and if you want to read my thoughts on the George Floyd situation I did my best here. We should all be taking this situation as serious as possible while we listen and learn from the other side.
While this is going on I thought I'd be remiss to not point out what Scott Boras is doing for his players in the baseball world.
As you may know, teams all across Major League Baseball are cutting minor leaguers with some refusing to pay their current guys any sort of money moving forward. It's fucked up and a lot of these guys are screwed without a job. If you're on the Oakland A's you are currently stuck on the team, unable to look for another organization or collect unemployment while receiving no financial help from the Athletics. It should be illegal what John Fisher is doing. The Nationals were ready to do the same thing until the players and fans caused them to change their mind by speaking up. Teams like the Dodgers, Yankees, and Red Sox have made cuts despite being the richest teams in the league. The Yankees cuts were aligned with the numbers they would have made after spring training and around the MLB Draft in a normal year, but it does not excuse them in this instance. It's an outright shitty move to cut a guy right now when your team is worth that much money. Inexcusable. Saved them like a couple hundred thousand dollars. Give me a break man. If the Royals can avoid cutting a single player then every team can.
Now to the good part, enter super agent Scott Boras. He just announced he's going to cover the 2020 salary for any of his clients who are minor leaguers and have been released by their club. Just an incredible move. Dude is such a baller. You may think he just has the rich contracts like Gerrit Cole and Bryce Harper on his client list, but in total he represents around 175 guys from all levels.
This move is equally of good will and incredible PR. I think Boras gets a bad rap by fans because he's always looking out for his players, but that's misguided. If your team is trying to sign one of his big name clients you're naturally going to get frustrated since he's going to try and get top dollar no matter what. Negotiations with a Boras client can get dragged out and seem never ending. I could see Nats fans hating Boras with Harper and Rendon leaving for more money elsewhere. In that situation they'd build up this hatred for Boras and dub him as greedy, but he's only doing his job which is repping his clients and looking out for them. At the end of the day he's as pro-player as it gets. That's why I was so confused when Trevor Bauer called him out for having his own agendas in the recent negotiations with the players and owners. There's no one you want more on your side in this fight than Scott Boras.
The PR move here is obvious and brilliant. You show players that you're willing to go to bat for them like this and 1) they'll never leave you or 2) if they're not part of your team right now, they'll have all the motivation to come join. I'm not sure exactly how many of his guys have been released and that's he's got to cover, but that shouldn't take away from the gesture.
A+ move from Boras all around. Fuck the owners.