How Stupid are Sports Agents?

by johnjahafanclub on Jan 26, 2009 12:23 PM PST Comment 35 comments

Judging by the quotes from the anonymous agent in Tim Brown's latest column, pretty freaking stupid:

“It’s beyond odd,” said one high-profile agent who’s been crying collusion for two months. “You can put together a pretty impressive team with the guys who are still out there.”

Sure. Collusion. That has to be it. It has NOTHING to do with the economy. Apparently sports agents don't read the news. If they did, they would know that a bunch of major companies announced tens of thousands of new layoffs today on top of all the other hundreds of thousands of layoffs over the last few months. They would know the stock market has lost 40% of its value over the last 6 months.

“Teams are trying to create a system where players are fearful of free agency,” the agent said. “They’re trying to get players to take the bad deal early.”

Sure. It's all a big conspiracy by the teams. It has nothing to do with the economy. Additionally, the conspiracies behind the fake moon landing, Roswell, the JFK assassination, and the inside job behind 9/11 are also somehow interconnected to this. Am I forgetting anything? Oh yeah and the fluoride in our drinking water conspiracy to poison us all. That is also connected.

**Update: GDP fell by 5.5% last quarter, worst quarter since 1982.

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All of a sudden?

Wouldn’t they have started this collusion when guys like Mike Hampton and Denny Neagle were getting insane contracts?

Oh, and didn’t the Yankees spend enough money to buy a small country this offseason?

by thejd44 on Jan 26, 2009 12:37 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

Don't forget about contrails....

"RIP: UserID: 553"

by Masaryk on Jan 26, 2009 1:26 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

Pretty smart

they manage to make wheelbarrows of money at a non-particularly-difficult job.

With stout hearts, and with enthusiasm for the contest, let us go forward to victory. ----Hero Defector Montgomery

by mikeA on Jan 26, 2009 1:36 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

Not to mention yelling collusion is another way of asking for more big contracts

Which is (wait for it) their freaking job.

"There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want" -Bill Watterson

by nevermoor on Jan 26, 2009 8:41 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Considering that owners have colluded before, it's a question at least worth asking.

My conspir-o-meter tells me it’s not collusion, but I wouldn’t put it past the owners’ cabal.

Children, until we have taught them better, will be perfectly happy with a seasonal round of games in which conkers succeeds hopscotch.

by salb918 on Jan 26, 2009 1:50 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

I'm still interested as to why Bonds wasn't signed by SOMEBODY last year

"I'm on hold for now"- Bobby Crosby

by DyeLongJustice on Jan 26, 2009 2:15 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Make the following assumption:

Bonds couldn’t play the outfield any more. It’s a pretty reasonable assumption. In 2007, Barry Bonds played 110 games in left field, and he was worth -4.7 runs according to UZR. He was another year and another knee surgery older, and when the rumors around here were that he was going to be signed by Oakland, it was assumed that Cust would be the one playing in left. Between that and the positional adjustment, it’s entirely possible Bonds’ fielding alone could have been between 2 and 3 negative wins. In short, he’s not an outfielder anymore.

Here’s just about every team that was either competitive or was expected to compete in the American League in 2008, and who they had for DH going into the season:

Yankees: Matsui/Giambi
Red Sox: Ortiz
Blue Jays: Thomas
Rays: Floyd
White Sox: Thome
Indians: Hafner
Tigers: Sheffield
Twins: Kubel
Angels: Guerrero/Anderson
Rangers: Bradley
A’s: Cust

Bonds might’ve been better than some of those guys, but none of them had a clear need for an upgrade at DH, and given the headaches a Bonds signing would entail, to say nothing of the cost, it doesn’t at all surprise me that no one signed him. The only place there might’ve been a clear upside with a reduced downside is Oakland, because the Bay Area media and fandom are…let’s just say they were as positively inclined towards him as he was going to find. Looking back at 2008, I think it’s fair to say that Beane and the A’s front office never really expected to contend, hot start aside, so there just wasn’t a compelling reason to sign him.

by Nate on Jan 26, 2009 4:33 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

I agree with most everything buttttt

you say we didn’t sign bonds because the FO didn’t think we were going to be competitive, right? Thats more than fair enough, but when we WERE deemed to be competitive part way through the season, who did we sign? Frank Thomas, not Barry Bonds. I know that Frankie T. did an awesome job in Oakland the first time around, but I’m pretty sure there wasn’t even a whisper of consideration regarding Bonds.

I will be honest, if I was a GM in 2008, I probably wouldn’t have signed Bonds. He’s an old, falling apart, notorious, bigheaded, self-absorbed, locker room cancer, but one who had the possibility of still providing pop. I think a bigger selling point to the A’s organization would be that he would help put some more buts in the seats, but probably at the price of our youngsters’ comfortability in the media. I guess it just sounds weird to me that the best slugger of all time (with the *asterisk) couldn’t find work after a year in which he put up solid numbers.

"I'm on hold for now"- Bobby Crosby

by DyeLongJustice on Jan 26, 2009 8:03 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

We got Thomas for the minimum.

Whatever minor leaguer or cheapie free agent we could have added would have cost just as much as Thomas. Also, he was signed on April 24, when we’d played all of 22 games and our team ERA was around 3. We might have looked competitive at the time, but I can’t believe Beane was fooled by the pitching staff’s hot start.

by Nate on Jan 26, 2009 11:55 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

FYI: GDP fell by 5.5% in the last 3 months of 2008, one of the biggest single quarter drops in post-WW2 history.

Economy has worst quarter since 1982:

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Economy-free-fall-fourth-quarter/story.aspx?guid={D87827B0-F739-42A7-A123-AEB36F40D99B}

Cust is the new Jaha.

by johnjahafanclub on Jan 26, 2009 2:32 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Economy-free-fall-fourth-quarter/story.aspx?guid={D87827B0-F739-42A7A123-AEB36F40D99B}

Cust is the new Jaha.

by johnjahafanclub on Jan 26, 2009 2:32 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Agreed

I’m not sure why people are so quick to dismiss it. The best time to behave illegally is when your actions have very plausible deniability.

Many years from now, when his name's recalled
Everyone will say, "He should have passed the ball"
-- Al Stewart, "Football Hero"

by PaulThomas on Jan 26, 2009 6:01 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Not only is it plausible based on history and credible in the current situation

it’s also in the agents’ best interest to proclaim it, whether or not they believe it.

It’s a bad free agent market, and prominent agents seem to have misjudged it. even if there is no collusion (and, while I think it’s plausible, I doubt it’s true), it gives the agents something other than themselves to point the finger of blame at.

For those who still want to call agents stupid, you have to account for the following as well:

1) how is it that scott boras ALWAYS manages to make himself look like the greedy weasel, while his clients almost never never look bad and almost always get paid ridiculously? could it be that he’s simply great at his job?

2) do you want to see investing in the future? look at what groups like IMG, Scott Boras’s group, and even smaller outfits like Doyle Baseball do to identify and train talent. there’s a lot of substance behind what they do. they help make the product they sell.

3) if you’ve ever been the middleman in contract negotiations between two insanely rich people or groups of people, you’re laughing at the people who think an agent’s job is easy.

4) they make a heck of a lot more money than probably any of us, and, near as I can tell, enjoy their work

For fans, there should be a world drinking classic. Oh, wait, that's AN Day.

by eastcoasta'sfan on Jan 26, 2009 7:52 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

+1

A B -3X = Swedish girls like chocolate @('.')@

by monkeyball on Jan 26, 2009 8:27 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

You're Main Line of Reason Doesn't Make Sense

If the agents are looking for something to blame for their clients’ low salaries, they can blame what it really is – the economy. That’s not the agent’s fault. They don’t have to make up this phantom boogie man of collusion.

As for your 1-4: I have no problem with boras being good at his job, being sleezy, and getting the most money. This was not meant as a generic anti-agent post. I generally have no problems with agents and with agents doing their jobs. I just think this whole act they have this off-season of ignore-the-economy and pretend-like-it’s-2007 is ridiculous and so transparent.

Cust is the new Jaha.

by johnjahafanclub on Jan 26, 2009 11:31 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Agents are playing to their audience - the players

Agents don’t care what we think.

Many baseball players haven’t really figured out that the economy stinks. Not that they’re dumb or ignorant – far from it. But most are on contracts that you and I only dream of and are pretty immune from this, at least for the time being.

However, it’s common thinking among players, based on history and player’s association meetings, that owners 1) did collude 2) are probably still doing so and 3) would do so if they could.

If you’re a self-interested agent and concerned about deflecting criticism . . .

WHY WOULDN’T YOU SCREAM COLLUSION AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS?

For fans, there should be a world drinking classic. Oh, wait, that's AN Day.

by eastcoasta'sfan on Jan 27, 2009 7:38 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

The ONLY piece of evidence for collusion...

…is the bad FA market. Yet there’s also a wide variety of other factors and evidence that could be the cause, hence basically no exclusive evidence for collusion.

The unnamed agent’s claim is spin and posturing, no more, no less. And yes, that’s part of his job.

"If I've got baggage, he's got a whole set of Louis Vuitton." ~ Milton Bradley on Barry Bonds

by UncleLeo on Jan 27, 2009 10:47 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

I agree

My whole point is that this is evidence that agents are intelligent, and it’s consistent with the rest of the evidence that says that the best agents are in fact brilliant businesspeople.

For fans, there should be a world drinking classic. Oh, wait, that's AN Day.

by eastcoasta'sfan on Jan 27, 2009 1:02 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Excellent businesspeople, absolutely.

Someone suggested that they consciously take the heat for their clients, and I’m not so sure that’s necessarily true or not, but if so then Scott Boras has done it so well that it is starting to backfire on him.

Now, when a player chooses Boras, people automatically think (fairly or unfairly), “Oh, he just wants the biggest payday.”. To be honest, that was my first thought when Zito dumped his agent and hired Boras right before he declared FA. As far as I was concerned everything Zito had said up to that point was rendered moot (including how he wanted to play for a contender)… he just wanted the money.

That’s only one example, of course.

"If I've got baggage, he's got a whole set of Louis Vuitton." ~ Milton Bradley on Barry Bonds

by UncleLeo on Jan 27, 2009 3:17 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

I think Boras has stumbled the last couple years

Not only has he gotten the market wrong in a few spectacular cases, he is now starting to drag his clients’ images down; the Teflon is no longer working.

My guess is that he’ll be fine and his clients will resume getting huge paydays. But Boras is, in the worst case, a victim of his own success.

Interestingly, a friend who’s met him on a few occasions says he’s a very warm, open, friendly person who’s a lot of fun to be around . . . like any good salesperson.

For fans, there should be a world drinking classic. Oh, wait, that's AN Day.

by eastcoasta'sfan on Jan 27, 2009 3:35 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Ya know, I believe that.

The warm and friendly part.

"If I've got baggage, he's got a whole set of Louis Vuitton." ~ Milton Bradley on Barry Bonds

by UncleLeo on Jan 28, 2009 7:56 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

For that matter

You couldn’t put together an impressive team with the guys who are still out there. It would be a mixture of a) big hitters who are defensive catastrophes, b) over the hill veterans, c) pitchers who are injury risks, and d) bums. The very few who don’t fit rigidly into those categories are mostly a) Type A free agents, many of whom also b) want to get paid like it’s January 2008 instead of January 2009.

by jdr on Jan 26, 2009 3:56 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

Here's what looks like about the best team you could put together.

I’ll make it an NL team so there’s one less starting hitter to try and fit in.

C1: Gregg Zaun. He’s over-the-hill, mediocre defensively and his hitting is about what you’d expect of a 37 year-old catcher, and he’s the best on this list.
C2: Mike Redmond. Seriously, try to find someone good on the list of free agent catchers.
1B: Adam Dunn. Hits well enough for this position. Defensive liability even at first.
2B: Orlando Hudson. Meh
SS: Orlando Cabrera. Meh x2. Both the Orlandos are “there’s nobody else” choices.
3B: Ty Wigginton. Because it’s him or Pedro Feliz.
INF1 & INF2: It’s going to be someone terrible. You’ve got your Cristian Guzmans, Juan Uribes, and D’Angelo Jimenezes left. You will end up with a pitcher-class hitter with a good glove or a Crosby-esque hitter with a Custian glove.
LF: Manny Ramirez. Defensive liability, but he’s easily the best option.
CF: Jim Edmonds. You sign up because you think he can still play center and maybe keep up whatever it was that he had that allowed him to hit .256/.369/.568 with Chicago last year. You will be wrong on both counts.
RF: Bobby Abreu. You’ll pay too much for too little.
Backup OFs
Rotation: Your options consist of good or once-good pitchers with injury histories that qualify them for FEMA relief like Sheets, Pedro Martinez and Curt Schilling, or mediocrities like Oliver Perez, Jon Garland and Randy Wolf that will cost you an arm and a leg (which is fine because the pitchers in those first categories will probably be having some limbs that will no longer function properly).
Bullpen: There’s some decent options out there for middle relief, although your closer situation is not going to be particularly good.

Yeah, I’m going to go ahead and say that that’s not a pretty impressive team.

by Nate on Jan 26, 2009 4:56 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

BtB or Fangraphs (I don't recall which one)

did a post a little while ago looking at the projected wins with a team comprised entirely of the remaining free agents. What did they find? This team in question would produce slightly below .500 winning pct. So yeah, no good team can be made of the remaining FA’s.

"I'm on hold for now"- Bobby Crosby

by DyeLongJustice on Jan 26, 2009 8:04 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

well

no, they’re not stupid, but they’re trying to see if anyone out there is stupid enough to eat their sh2#$t.

I mean, what else are they going to do when they can’t do their day jobs? Might as well create some publicity for themselves or play lawsuit lotto and see if they hit jackpot.

And they need some excuse to make when players tell them next year that they didn’t do crap this year. “IT WAS COLLUSION, ITS NOT BECAUSE I SUCK”

And some probably have Blagojevich disease, where rather than face facts, like they suck or are criminals, ITS NOT MY FAULT DAMMIT

Let's have our Piazza and eat the Cust too - SPWC

by closetasfan on Jan 26, 2009 5:00 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

but it's not because they suck

it’s the economy. they don’t have to make up collusion stuff to justify the salaries.

in fact, by claiming collusion, they make it less likely their clients will forgive them b/c they are telling their clients that 2007 salaries are still possible, when they are not.

Cust is the new Jaha.

by johnjahafanclub on Jan 26, 2009 11:33 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

Blaming the economy

Doesn’t suit their goal. It accepts that the lower offers are the best that can be had. Claiming collusion removes the blame of the economy and acceptance of lower offers. They are posturing as they should.

by jeffro on Jan 27, 2009 2:54 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

i think the zito contract was so bad

it led to the demise of the entire national economy

"I think people in this state like BOTH teams," proclaims Nick Aliotti, the Ducks' defensive coordinator. "Except for our hard-core fans, I don't think most Duck fans would have been terribly upset to see Oregon State going to the Rose Bowl."

Another reason he needs to go.

by diehardoaklandfan22 on Jan 26, 2009 11:35 PM PST reply actions 1 recs