Scott Boras doesn’t actually expect free agent J.D. Martinez to sign for $200 million. He might say he’s looking for “something in the $200 million range,” but that’s how he works.
Scott Boras is just reminding you how negotiations work
Thursday’s Say Hey, Baseball looks at free agent negotiations, Shohei Ohtani and posting, and more remembrances of Roy Halladay.
Photo by Scott Halleran/Getty Images
That figure is the starting point in negotiations: teams will likely balk at the idea of giving Martinez that much money over the amount of years it will require, but they now understand that only the serious suitors have a real chance at signing Boras’ client. Then Boras and Martinez can focus on those clubs with the understanding that it will definitely take nine figures to get him — where exactly on the nine-figure scale is the question to be answered.
If Boras came in with a “realistic” number from the start, teams would refuse to budge from their already low idea of a reasonable offer, or knock a zero off of what they had in mind from the start. Boras goes out and loudly exclaims what he believes his players are worth, fans get upset at the number, and then teams quietly negotiate toward that figure.
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The way it should happen is that we get to hear what lowball offers teams have in mind as counterpoints to Boras’ figures and see it all play out that way, but that’s a rarity: we only get to experience that when, say, Jon Lester’s camp shares with the world an insulting starting offer the Red Sox gave him before he hit free agency. And that’s because teams aren’t about to volunteer information that would make them look cheap: it would undermine their efforts to say, “We tried!” and also give more insight into the fight against ownership baseball’s players are perpetually in.
No, what teams want is for you to think the players are being greedy and unreasonable, and that J.D. Martinez is asking for money that teams just don’t have. The reactions to Boras’ annual demands are evidence the teams generally get what they want in those situations.
It doesn’t help that fans have been conditioned to root for bargains because it helps their team, rather than for their favorite players to get they pay they deserve for all the money their play creates for the sport and their team, but that’s a different story for a different day.
- Roy Halladay was with the Phillies for just a few years after a decade in Toronto, but he left an impression on Philadelphia that Tyler Tynes explains in this feature.
- Shohei Ohtani has an agent and a meeting set up with the MLBPA, which means he’s moving that much closer to coming to MLB.
- However, it’s worth pointing out that nothing is resolved just yet, even if MLB and Nippon Professional Baseball agreed to grandfather the previous posting system for a year.
- Bluebird Banter remembers Halladay.
- Here’s why John Stolnis at The Good Phight will always remember Halladay’s postseason no-hitter.
- And here’s another TGP feature on the excellence of Halladay.
- Last one: this is on respect for Halladay.
- The new MLB schedule should help players be a little less exhausted come the end of the year.
- The Giants aren’t going to trade for Jason Heyward, even if that rumor is out there.
- Viva El BIrdos wonders if Yu Darvish really did cost himself money with his dreadful World Series’ performance.
- The Yankees will have more Masahiro Tanaka after he eschewed his opt-out, so what can they expect from the rest of that deal?
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