Baseball Reflections

It’s Just Boras Being Boras

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BOSTON - DECEMBER 14:  Daisuke Matsuzaka's age...
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Although this shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone in the world of baseball, but if this report is true, super agent Scott Boras hasn’t been returning the Red Sox phone calls concerning free agent catcher Jason Varitek per this article from Boston.com over the weekend.

It was recently thought that the Red Sox and Boras had a pretty good relationship going these days after the overpaying of RF J.D. Drew and the aquisition of Japanese star pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka before the 2007 season, both Scot Boras clients. After those signings, it seemed as if Boston had a newly formed amicable relation with Boras, one that might give them slightly better treatment than their peers in dealing with Boras clients in the future.

Then there was the handling of the Mark Teixeira free agency in this off season that seemed to realign the balance of the team/agent relationship back into its usual uncomfortableness as the Boston ownership group were letting it be known that they were unhappy, once again and as most teams are, with how Boras handled negotiations with Teixeira (1B). It has been suggested that the Red Sox were not given the opportunity to match or top the offer given to Teixeira by the Yankees. Although, neither Boras or Teixeira are obligated to do this, the Red Sox still felt snubbed after their aformentioned better relationship with Boras.

It was the handling of Teixeira, which led to his signing with the Yankees and the Sox brass uneasiness of dealing with Boras, that probably prompted Varitek to reach out to Sox principal owner John Henry for a face to face meeting near Varitek’s Atlanta area home.

TOKYO - MARCH 26:  Catcher Jason Varitek #33 o...
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Now, the question remains, does this move by Varitek mean that he wants to return to Boston and is taking matters into his own hands and will force Boras into ironing out a deal with the Red Sox or is this the begining of the end of the Scott Boras/Jason Varitek relationship? If you remember, shortly after the A-Rod situation, which interrupted the 2007 World Series between Boston and Colorado, another Boras client, SP Kenny Rogers, fired Boras and went with different representation. By the way, A-Rod made a similar move with the Yankees that Varitek has just done with the Red Sox so if history repeats itself, Jason Varitek could once again be seen behind the plate for Boston in 2009. Either Boras is absolutely brilliant and has orchestrated both of these face to face meetings by his clients (A-Rod’s and Varitek’s) after his original plans with both backfired (a sort of insurance plan B) or these two intelligent players just took matters into their own hands to get what they wanted?

What do you think? Let your voice be heard!

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