As Juan Soto inked a record-setting $725M contract obligating him to change his subway stop from 161st to Willets Point for the next fifteen years, it marked yet another celebration for perhaps the strongest agency portfolio in sports. Scott Boras has multiple winters where he’s negotiated over $1B in deals, has the most salary arbitration victories of any agent in history, negotiated a $9.9M draft compensation for Bryce Harper, and signed multiple deals for Alex Rodriguez in excess of $250M for the Rangers and Yankees. His $324M contract for Gerrit Cole is a record for a pitcher. This offseason alone, recent NL Cy Young recipients Blake Snell and Corbin Burnes combined to earn to just under $400M total from NL West ballclubs thanks in part to the negotiation practices of Boras.
However, that’s just an offseason after Blake Snell had to prove his worth following a season where he won his second Cy Young award before the age of 30. Joining him without a deal heading into Spring Training were JD Martinez, Cody Bellinger, and Snell’s 2024 teammate Matt Chapman. This offseason, JD Martinez found himself joined by Alex Bregman and Pete Alonso among players without an agreement heading into February and only a week away from the start of Spring Training.
It’s not as though these players aren’t strong players. Martinez and Alonso, teammates in 2024 with the Mets, weren’t coming from an organization that shy away from dealing with Boras, considering they just came to terms with Boras on the largest deal in baseball history. Alonso is one of baseballs premiere sluggers, averaging 43 homers for every 162 games played since his 2019 debut. An All-Star four times in his six Major League seasons, Alonso’s 134 OPS+ makes him one of the more productive bats in the league, while his 112 RBI-per-162 makes him a reliable run producer at first base. Alonso has settled for a two-year deal with an opt out worth up to $54M, and this is only two years after turning down a much larger, much more lucrative extension to stay in Flushing Meadows and firing his agent so Boras could maximize his value this past winter. For Martinez, still unsigned as of this writing, the contract is a little trickier at 37 years of age and a down year in 2024, but his track record as one of the most reliable hitters in baseball precedes him while also being only a year removed from five consecutive eligible All-Star selections.
Even then, the batted-ball peripherals suggests that Martinez was a bit unlucky in 2024. His expected batting average was 20 points higher than his actual output. Martinez ranked in the 94th percentile in barrels while still having a hard-hit percentage higher than league-average. This means that while hitting the ball harder than the average player, Martinez was finding the sweet spot that should theoretically lead to more hits. His peripherals were down from 2023, but not to the point of no return that the actual results suggested in 2024.
There’s no question that Scott Boras is an excellent agent who gets his clients more money than they often warrant. Kris Bryant’s deal with the Rockies, for example, is perhaps the most player-friendly deal in baseball. Over the first three years of his seven-year, $182M pact, Bryant has played in less than a full seasons worth of games with a below league-average bat and having to move from his original position. however, those contracts seem few and far between nowadays, especially since his clients seem to have to prove it on a one-year-deals quite often after productively seasons in recent memory.
Ultimately, Alex Bregman is the clearest example of a disconnect between the player and the market the past two years for Boras. Bregman is still only thirty and brings with him strong defensive versatility, a winning pedigree, and a strong bat at a premiere position. It ultimately isn’t that different than the archetype of player that Kris Bryant was when hitting the market. While playing in a hitters park and loaded lineup in Houston will rightfully make potential suitors a bit apprehensive that his offensive statistics may benefit from a bit of smoke and mirrors, there’s no denying he’s been an elite player at the Major League level. Coming off his first Gold Glove, Bregman is a lifetime .272/.366/.483 hitter that averages nearly 30 homers and 100 RBI a year. That’s a potent middle-of-the-order bat. The glaring thing to look at with Bregman, however, is he was a 9-WAR player in 2019, and has peaked at a 5-WAR player since. A 5-WAR player is an All-Star caliber player, but it isn’t an MVP contender that a 9-WAR player is. The 2019 season coincides with Houston’s final year before they were caught stealing signs during ballgames. Bregman from 2017-2019 averaged a .290/.391/.533 slash with 30 homeruns a season and a 147 OPS+. Since, Bregman has averaged a .261/.350/.445 slash, 25 homeruns a season and a 122 OPS+. This is still an excellent player, but it also shows that his elite output primarily came in seasons where the Houston Astros had an unfair advantage competitively. Yet, historically, Boras takes strong peripherals such as Bregman’s elite strikeout rate and a rock-solid square-up rate to convince a team that his best is yet to come. For as much as he squares up the ball, unfortunately for Bregman, his exit velocities and hard-hit percentages were league-average in 2024. Perhaps this is why he’s available, however, teams aren’t lining up to give this hitting profile an eight-year contract north of $200M as the market originally anticipated. Miscalculating the market and forcing ballclubs to set their rosters right before Spring Training, Bregman now seems poised to take a short-term deal below market value.
For every great player that Scott Boras gets a market-setting contract for, he seems to overestimate the market for very good, multi-time All-Stars that aren’t likely to win MVPs. Alex Bregman could improve almost every team in baseball and he’s found himself without a deal. Pete Alonso can improve almost every team in baseball and he signed a below-market deal a week before Spring Training. JD Martinez is still a productive, albeit somewhat one-dimensional at this stage in his career, hitter that can provide much-needed veteran presence to a majority of clubhouses. With a week to go, JD Martinez still doesn’t have a contract.
At what point should a player re-consider Scott Boras as their agent unless they’re in the top 2% of players currently tying up their cleats to swing a bat in the show? That remains to be seen, but what’s clear: Scott Boras is starting to have a pattern of his clients scrambling for roster spots.