Recently, I reported on the pending arbitration cases of a pair of St. Louis Cardinals outfielders, Rick Ankiel and Ryan Ludwick. In reply, a reader asked if I feared the prospect of the Cardinals having to face Scott Boras, Ankiel’s agent. After all, the ex-Cardinals minor leaguer carries the reputation as the game’s most powerful agent and a tenacious negotiator.
I took answering the question from the perspective of the club. My somewhat curt reply was that I am not concerned about Boras in arbitration, but do fear him in an even more important role – the one he will be playing for Ankiel after the 2009 season – as the representative of a free agent.
In that act, Boras can play clubs off against each other by inflating the value of offers and the number of suitors pursuing his client and if necessary, even burn some bridges to get the best possible deal. While there are rules governing the free agent process, the freedom is there to decide where to go, how much to ask and how many years to demand.
And if the situation warrants, the criteria can change at a moment’s notice. Just ask Boston owner John Henry how he feels about the recent Mark Teixeira negotiations. From the Boston Herald last month:
“The Sox, meanwhile, are, at least for now, done with Boras. One well-placed source said the club will never deal with him again unless it can be guaranteed that talks are being conducted honestly. We would take that threat a little more seriously if Boras’ clientele list were to shrink dramatically, but since that is not realistic, we will take it as a sign of just how badly the club felt it got stung by lies from Boras. They are in a “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me” mode right now, with the Teixeira talks feeling like the last straw to them.”
On the other hand, the original question asked me was not about free agency, where Boras’ force is unquestioned. After all, like it or not, barely one month later, these same Red Sox are reportedly close to a two-year deal for their captain, Jason Varitek. Guess who represents the catcher?
Back to the point. The thinking behind my original reply was that the arbitration process has a very defined set of rules that limit the amount of “creativity” possible, even for an agent as notorious as Boras. The two salary amounts for the arbiters to consider – player and club – have already been set. The one-year term is also fixed.
All that remains are the cases the respective agent and club can make in support of their position at the hearing. Boras can come into the room with his famous binders stuffed full of persuasive information, but many clubs are skilled in presenting arbitration cases, too.
As an aside, remember that player and club can come to terms on any deal of any duration before the February arbitration hearing. In fact, that is what usually happens.
Only 12% of all filed cases actually make it to a hearing and many more situations are resolved prior to the filing date. For example, just eight of 110 players who filed last year went to a hearing, while all the other eligible players came to terms ahead of time. The Cardinals haven’t participated in a hearing in ten years.
On Monday morning, I read this article about Tal Smith Enterprises, where the owner, also a long-time Houston Astros executive, discussed his role representing clubs in arbitration hearings. Smith said with an apparent straight face that he doesn’t keep score (yeah, right!), but knows that over the years he is batting over .500.
That renewed my interest in this article. As such, I decided I should analyze the data and determine if my original knee-jerk answer in not fearing Boras in arbitration is supportable. With hearing results from The Biz of Baseball website coupled with player-agent information already in hand, I looked at the last six years of arbitration hearings in terms of winners and losers.
| 2003-08 | Total cases | Club win | Player win | Player % |
| 38 | 25 | 13 | 34.2% |
Over the most recent six years, players have won just over one third, 34%, of the hearings. I guess, just like a good hitter, an average of .333 has to be considered pretty respectable.
I then split out the non-Scott Boras clients from the Boras ones. Over the six years, Boras had eight of the 38 hearings. First, here are the year-to-year results for the non-Boras clients.
| Excluding Boras | Cases | Club win | Player win | Player % |
| 2008 | 6 | 5 | 1 | 17% |
| 2007 | 7 | 4 | 3 | 43% |
| 2006 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 25% |
| 2005 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0% |
| 2004 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 50% |
| 2003 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 40% |
| Total | 30 | 20 | 10 | 33.3% |
The players won exactly one-third of the time, 10 of the 30 hearings held from 2003 through 2008.
Now, looking at the Boras subset, we see that his record is slightly better on behalf of his clients compared to the other agents at 37.5 percent, but remember that we are talking about a population of just eight cases. Just more one win turned to loss or vice-versa would swing the result wildly, from 25% to 50%.
| Boras | Cases | Club win | Player win | Player % | ||
| 2008 | 2 | 1 | Felipe Lopez | 1 | Oliver Perez | 50% |
| 2007 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0% | ||
| 2006 | 2 | 1 | Sunny Kim | 1 | Kyle Lohse | 50% |
| 2005 | 1 | 0 | 1 | Kyle Lohse | 100% | |
| 2004 | 1 | 1 | Eric Gagne | 0 | 0% | |
| 2003 | 2 | 2 | Carlos Beltran | 0 | 0% | |
| Bruce Chen | ||||||
| Total | 8 | 5 | 3 | 37.5% |
In summary
Based on the data from the last six years at least, the arbitration success rate of Scott Boras compared to other agents is negligible.
To gauge whether Ankiel and Boras can beat the odds and defeat the Cardinals in a hearing, a better assessment could be made on the basis of analyzing the two salary amounts submitted.
In my earlier work, I took an approach similar to the arbitration process, looking at players with comparable experience and statistics – as best as possible considering the true uniqueness of Ankiel’s late-blooming career change in becoming an outfielder.
Subsequent to that, here is how the submissions fell, with the two sides coming in almost a million dollars apart:
Ankiel: $3.3 million
Cardinals: $2.35 million
Midpoint: $2.825 million
My earlier estimate: $3.25 million (which will almost certainly end up too high if they settle pre-hearing)
At least based on this work, Boras would seem to be in a strong position. Though not relevant to Ankiel’s case in an actual hearing, the comparable salaries were set in a different economic environment, a factor that could be the slogan of this already-stormy Cardinals’ off-season.
Brian, do you have any figures to show if Boras is more likely or less likely to actually go to trial, rather than agree to a contract before the trial, than other agents? I know the Cardinals are more likely to avoid arbitration. I expect arbitration to be avoided for both Ankiel and Ludwick.
Oqie, it is a most logical question and one I of course considered. I would love to have that information. However, as far as I can tell, the data would have to be built manually. I am unaware of any public database where even the relatively-few cases that went to hearing are coupled with the agent’s names. I even checked with a friend who actually works on arbitration cases to no avail.
What we do know is that over the entire population, 88% of the cases settle pre-hearing. I doubt Boras is going to be a big outlier. Proving that would take a lot of work, though.
Taking last year as an example, 110 players filed. To extend that to even the last six years means I would have to match going on 700 players up with agents. Given enough time, it would be doable, but I decided it is not worth my investment. Also, the farther you go back in time, you run into players that changed agents, complicating matters.
Sorry to risk boring you with the details, but just to assemble what is presented here took me quite awhile to get to the point I was comfortable in publishing it. CariocaCardinal (gently) encouraged me to look at this a week or so ago. First, I pushed back because I knew it would be a time-grabber. Intrigued though, I finally charged into it, got a bit discouraged and set it aside, then re-energized yesterday after reading the Tal Smith article mentioned above.
Besides, if I waited too much longer to run this, Boras and the Cards could settle, making the article and all the research a moot point for another year!
Now, to the most important question – will the two sides actually settle prior to a hearing?
Normally, I would say “yes”. On the other hand, the magnitude of the difference is considerable and the dynamics are a bit different from recent years. The Cardinals are clearly in cost-cutting mode and Boras is never shy in standing up for what he believes.
This gap is over 40% and remember that just 12 months ago, Boras took the Nats to hearing on Felipe Lopez over a minuscule 6% or $300K difference ($5.2M vs. $4.9M). Did he and the player truly need that extra pocket change, was it a testosterone-based challenge to Jim Bowden (the GM in DC), was Boras sending a signal to all of baseball or some combination of all three? No way of knowing for sure.
Like I said before, I think Boras has a good case with Ankiel. One of the subjects that is out of bounds in a hearing is the club’s financial picture. That means any projections of declining revenue projections by the Cardinals cannot be considered by the arbiters.
As noted in the Tal Smith article, the supposed contentiousness of these hearings are badly overblown by outsiders not allowed in the closed room. As an organization, if the Cardinals were ever to adjust their unstated “no hearing” policy, this would seem to be the time and player in which to test it. Even if they lose, it is not like $3.3 million is going to break them.
If the Cardinals do not come to an agreement with both players before hearings, I will consider it a major indicator of the depth of their commitment to expense control. I don’t want to put too much emphasis on these arbitration cases, but I do think this is one place where we can use action to help assess the strength of conviction and depth being placed behind the “keeping the powder dry” comments we’ve been hearing much of the winter.
I apologize for the length of this reply, but it is clear I didn’t bring the initial article to its logical conclusion. Thanks for helping me getting more of my thoughts down in print!
My guess is that they settle in the middle + incentives for PA by Ankiel that would bring him close to the Boras number if Ankiel stays healthy.
CC, that seems very reasonable, yet here we are a few days from February and there is still no deal in place. Last year, Boras settled for Ankiel on January 18, so one has to assume things aren’t going as smoothly this time.
Of course my guess is that Boras has a few more unsigned FA´s to worry about this year than he did at this time last year.
Reportedly, Boras has over 70 employees, so I doubt lack of visible progress is due to lack of attention of his firm’s part. My guess is the Cardinals may be taking a tougher stance than in the past. Remember that every one of the three Cardinals’ arbitration-eligible deals that were done quickly were for relatively low prices – Wellemeyer, Thompson and Duncan (none are Boras clients, as you probably know).
Nice thread Brian and CC. You guys are right around all the points. CC’s feeling that we may see a median with incentives is very likely. Reason being is that it resolves conflict, while delaying many uncomfortable confrontations,(for DB) until he makes a decision. Boras never fears Arbitration. He is a gun fighter with no fear. Besides, its mostly his clients money. He knows that Ankiel does not have value right now, and that his real chance of becoming valuable may well be through Cardinal mentoring.
Boras’ handling of Lopez is a huge tell. It show that he knows the market, where it was heading, and that the Cardinals were not a factor to be counted on for an auction. All these variable should alert his adversaries as to what his abilities are. He has be brilliant this year, right down to knowing when to shut up. Don’t fret the Manny situation. Half a dozen teams will cough up 25 million for one year, which because of its brevity, is almost guaranteed to be a productive one for Manny.
I’ve given up on trying to support my thinking when there are this many variables and instabilities. My predictions.
They settle with Akiel with some nice incentives……..knowing that they won’t have to pay them. He will never go past July 31, regardless of performance. He could, and probably will be traded before April. Variables that only BD knows of course which gives him leverage.
Ludwick has an easy win with 112 RBIs. He has an attitude also from being on the trading block. They might go better than the median here. Could have a 2 years smooze deal,(2.75/ 5.5) that they would trade any way, once again protecting managements ego.
The element of unpredictability that is existent now in all transactions is the Chairman. Whether you recognize it or not, we have a decider on our hands now. His ego and desire to stay with the parameters of his plans can only be measured at this point by our own personal and intellectual resources.
I get much of where you are coming from WC other than the management ego thing. I will say that there is no way Ludwick would take $2.75 now or $5.5 for two years, since he came in at $4.25 for one year alone while the Cards offered $2.8.
My bad. I was thinking of Ankiels numbers for some reason. It would be more like 3.50/ 5.75.
Boras has bombed with the Varitek deal. He should end up looking absurdly foolish.
Nor could Scot command a monster contract for Lohse last winter, any more than he could command a monster contract for Millwood, before Millwood had to settle on a one year deal with the Indians.
It takes a team to decide to give a massive deal like the one to Barry Zito. Teams alone are responsible for Boras contracts, 100 percent.
Boras may like a reputation as a big-time force, because this reputation helps land him players to represent. But a public image does not reliably establish that it is true. If an analyst crunched a great deal of data on player performances and salaries for Boras versus other agents representing comparable players, it seems possible that there would be no genuine Boras-earnings premium. I would not want to assume that other agents are less avaricious than Boras, when it comes to veterans during free agency. If they are, they should be outcompeted by other agents.
I would be wiling to assume Boras has had an influence in battling teams about amateur signing bonuses. Boras has been bold in having players withdraw from college athletics and play semi-pro ball, waiting for the next year’s draft. I am not sure other agents have been quite as ruthless trying to drive up bonuses for elite amateurs.
I agree teams (plural) are responsible for Boras’ contracts. Free agency allows him to play them off against each other, or in the case of A-Rod in Texas, get the owner to bid against himself to drive the price up. He can’t pull off those kinds of shenanigans in arbitration, hence my initial premise for the article.
He got Tex 180 million from the team he wanted to play with, and they didn’t even know it till the ink was dry on the contract. He got a load for an aging sinker ball pitcher because Atlanta needed a name for ticket sales…………… He will get Perez his money, even in a bad market. Brian, each team has a half hour to state a case in arbitration. About half that to refute. His team is absolutely the best at doing that. He picks his numbers to do battle. His median picks are deadly. What you call shenanigans often amount to a mass hypnosis. The guy thinks only of himself. It is meaningless to criticize him because in the end, when the revenues are counted, he will be the point man in the union collusion case. I believe studies show that people come to the park when times are bad. When the owners make insignificant ticket price reductions, they will hang with their own rope.
Brian, I didn’t mean for you to do that much work. I just hoped you had some data. Thanks for the extended reply.
wcbw, in your comment #9 you said “It would be more like 3.50/ 5.75″ should that be 3.5/7?
I don’t think Ludwick will get a multi-year deal. I believe (and hope) Ludwick is confident enough in himself that he thinks there is a good chance he will have at least as good of a season next year. If that happens his value would increase significantly having two successful season rather than just one.