The Chris Moeller Archives

Matt Holliday and that damn agent

The St. Louis Cardinals are currently engaged in a not-too-subtle public relations battle with super agent Scott Boras. Outfielder Matt Holliday, who played the last two months of the 2009 season with the Cards, is considered the cream of the free agent crop during this off-season, and his agent Boras knows this. Per usual, Boras' tactics are aggressive and blunt. Additionally, he knows the Cardinals are somewhat over the barrel. They traded away quite a bit of minor-league talent to get Holliday this summer in what could wind up being an expensive rental that didn't result in a championship or pennant. The free agent class of sluggers this winter is atypically weak, and the Cardinals face a separate negotiation in the next year and a half to tie up Albert Pujols for the rest of our lives.

The Cardinals and their fans are accustomed to players accepting a discount to play in St. Louis. Mark McGwire was the first and most prominent to do it. The most lucrative player in the team's history gave the club a terrific deal in the late '90s, brought in gobs of dough and attention, then walked away from millions when he felt he could no longer play to his personal high standards. Big Mac had all the right in the world to make his choices, and they were just that-- choices.

Cardinals fans believe we help to create a baseball environment for players and their families that is second to none. Cards rooters are not just passionate-- we're compassionate, warm and friendly, and it doesn't hurt that St. Louis is a one-newspaper town and that the team has had a terrific amount of success over the years and yet not so much as to lose life's perspective.

But there must be other nice places to play baseball too. New York City is structurally-incapable of doing St. Louis better than St. Louis, but I'm sure there would be something to be said for Holliday playing with $160 million worth of teammates in the Bronx and to have his choice of dates among the unattached and media-seeking starlets of Hollywood. (Oh, really, Holliday's married? Well, so was Alex Rodriguez, come to think of it.)

Still, many Cards' fans will have none of it, and Boras just finished playing the card a week ago that many St. Louis sports fans have never wanted to admit exists. He suggested that perhaps the Cardinals are not really a 'mid-market' team or handicapped thusly.

"I don't know what a mid-market franchise is. That's like a midsize aircraft carrier," Boras said. "They all have the potential to have an economic bomb. If you're drawing 3.3 million fans and you're averaging $50 a fan coming in, I just don't know that mid-market term. I'm trying to think if that's part of the laissez-faire system. I don't know."

Fifty dollars times 3.3 million, by my count, produces a profit of $165 million-- this for a team that pays out about $90 million in player salaries. The club has many other expenses to be sure, but also quite a bit of revenue beyond just gate receipts (think: advertisements that blanket the ballpark, internet, the vast merchandising, a consistent stream of playoff cash, a recent All-Star Game, etc.) On the web, Cardinals fans are responding to Boras' comments as if he'd suggested taking a saw to one of the feet of the Gateway Arch. I recorded some of the choice comments I've come across (all sic'd)...

-Wall streets greed has nothing on professional athletes and their agents. Good luck Holiday.

-Ridiculous. Why would Holliday even want an unethical agent like Boras? There are other agents who can get fair pay for their players without lying and cheating to drive up his price. Let's see how much of a man Holliday is. If he is like Boras, good luck and good riddance. He can take his bad fielding to another team.

-It's a shame borass is running the show & cards can't make in offer to Matt in person!... the agents are forming a monopoly on the players... Which in the end hurts baseball & the fans!

-Personally, if I were team ownership/management, I would simply have a standing rule... if Scott Boras is your agent, don't let the door hit you in the @$$ on the way out... I hate to break it to you, but Matt's marketable skill involves hitting a ball of string wrapped in cow skin with a stick. I'm sorry, but that is not a $20 million/year skill.

-Boras should burn in Baseball Hell for his role in ruining the game for millions of "regular" fans.

-"Mr Boras, I can give you our answer right now. Nothing. And I would appreciate it if you would personally pay for the gaming license yourself."

That last one is actually awesome. As a Cardinals fan myself, though, I'd like to thank Scott Boras for bringing the issue of the team's finances finally to light. It's definitely a question worth asking, and nobody's ever asking it in St. Louis. How much is the team actually making? The answer is not publicly known. I love how fans still almost universally believe that the amount they're paying to attend a baseball game has anything at all to do with how much the players are being paid on the field. Evidently, in this parallel universe, a club owner doesn't charge exactly the amount he or she thinks he can get for every product or service (hot dogs to Build-a-Bears) in an effort to maximize profit. So, somehow, a seat in a certain section of the park might command $45, but the owner of the club would only charge $20 for it if there's no more player payroll to have to cover? Even I recognize that this is preposterous economics, and I went to a state school.

How much is Matt Holliday worth to a ballclub? Is he worth $20 million or more per year? Likely to somebody. The key for me, as a fan, is watching how the Cardinals behave in all this, not Boras. Boras' agenda is always clear-cut. If the Cards decide Holliday's worth $20 million plus annually for 6 or 7 years, and that offer winds up getting topped, then I'll remember that the team has that type of coin to spread around elsewhere on the roster. Always remember, nobody's ever organizing bake sales to assist Major League Baseball teams.

Many baseball fans express that they want ballplayers to play for the love of the game, and that the Local 9 should be willing to take the field for meal money, yet there's a surprising lack of public enthusiasm here in the states for the Cuban national team. If Holliday departs, I'll lament that a gamble for investing in his services in July may have failed (we did win the division), but I won't hold the decision to leave against him or against the agent in his employ. At least we'll all be able to read about how much he's getting paid. The same can't be said for the Cardinals.

posted by CM @ 12:31 PM