Michael Silverman of the Boston Herald spoke to agent Scott Boras, who sounded off on long-term extensions for young players. Silverman says only a couple of Boras clients, Jeff Weaver and Carlos Baerga, have been locked up to such deals in recent years. Boras’ take on the deals:
"All teams are instructed to take their premium players and do their best to remove them from the arbitration market. It’s good business for them to receive premium talent for a grossly devalued cost."
Boras believes position players in particular should not be signing these deals, due to the low probability of injury. He also implies certain agents are not acting in their clients’ best interest:
"It’s good business for ballclubs, and they are very aware that these contracts are needed because the majority of young agents have few clients and few reserves to work off of for their future."
I imagine young Boras clients such as Chris Davis, Stephen Drew, Jacoby Ellsbury, Carlos Gomez, Jair Jurrjens, Mike Pelfrey, Max Scherzer, and Jered Weaver will be on the year-to-year plan.
On a related note, Rays third baseman Evan Longoria signed his six-year, $17.5MM deal partially on the advice of then-teammate Eric Hinske according to John Perrotto.
