Well, this is certainly refreshing (via ESPNLosAngeles.com’s Mark Saxon):
Jered Weaver Spurns Free Agency, Agent’s Advice
Jered Weaver admits he had to go against the advice of agent Scott Boras before agreeing to the Los Angeles Angels’ five-year, $85 million contract extension, but he said the lure of staying home outweighed the seduction of greater riches.
“If $85 (million) is not enough to take care of my family and other generations of families then I’m pretty stupid, but how much money do you really need in life?” Weaver said Tuesday. “I’ve never played this game for the money. I played it for the love and the competitive part of it. It just so happens that baseball’s going to be taking care of me for the rest of my life.”
--snip--
“How much more do you need?” Weaver asked about his deal. “Could have got more, whatever. Who cares?”
Just two quick points, the first of them obvious.
You might not be a huge fan of Weaver’s haircut or his mound demeanor, but his attitude about money is awfully refreshing, isn’t it? There seems little doubt that Prince Fielder’s going to follow the money this winter, and I won’t hold it against him. I have, once or twice in my career, made decisions based almost purely on money.
It's a funny thing, though ... It wasn't long before I regretted those decisions. Today I wish I'd been a little more like Jered Weaver, when I was his age.
The second, maybe-not-so-obvious point: Scott Boras does not make decisions for his clients. Oh, maybe he does for some of them. But professional baseball players are intensely competitive, and generally strong of will. If they weren’t, most of them wouldn’t be such phenomenal athletes. Boras probably discourages his players from making less money than they’re worth, but if a player really wants to do that, he can. Boras is a convenient scapegoat when one of his clients goes after the huge bucks, but his clients take the most money they can get because that’s what they want.
Scott Boras drives me crazy sometimes because he says a lot of things for public consumption that probably aren’t actually, you know, true (here’s a great example, if you’re interested in running your own sabermetric study). Also because he actively works to undermine and evade some of baseball’s rules which, I believe, promote competitive balance.
But I don’t blame him for trying to get as much money for his clients as he can. He’s doing exactly what most of us would want our agents to do, were we world-class professional athletes. He just does it particularly well.
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