MLB teams spent over $850MM on free agent contracts during the 2009-10 offseason. 45 different agencies were involved in those 122 Major League signings. Here's a look at the 15 agencies that brokered at least $10MM in free agent contracts:
- Boras Corporation: $165.05MM. That's less than half of the previous year's total, but still the best this winter. About 73% of Boras' total came from Matt Holliday. Boras has Manny Ramirez, Carlos Pena, Adrian Beltre, and Kevin Millwood next winter.
- ACES: $105.325MM. The Levinson brothers' agency had five players sign for over $10MM: Chone Figgins, Placido Polanco, Marlon Byrd, Jason Marquis, and Fernando Rodney. Aubrey Huff and Ross Gload are other clients. Many of ACES' deals this winter seemed to favor the player rather than the team.
- Octagon: $98.55MM. John Lackey's deal makes up about 84% of the total.
- WMG: $89.55MM. The Wasserman Media Group's contracts included Randy Wolf, Joel Pineiro, John Grabow, Rich Harden, Hideki Matsui, Jason Kendall, and Vicente Padilla.
- CAA: $83.575MM. Creative Artists Agency brokered big deals for Jason Bay and Ben Sheets.
- Hendricks Sports: $42MM. Just two deals for the Hendricks brothers: Aroldis Chapman and Andy Pettitte.
- SFX: $36.85MM. Wasserman acquired SFX a few years ago, and if you combine their totals they're #2. SFX brokered deals for Noel Arguelles, Adam LaRoche, Miguel Tejada, Vladimir Guerrero, and Bengie Molina, among others.
- Beverly Hills Sports Council: $30.845MM. They did Jose Valverde's two-year deal, and were also behind a bunch of one-year deals, including Octavio Dotel, Orlando Cabrera, Kevin Gregg, and Russell Branyan.
- Peter Greenberg: $21MM. Marco Scutaro and Rafael Soriano were Greenberg's big fish.
- Legacy Sports: $18.4MM. They brokered deals for Brad Penny, Danys Baez, and Orlando Hudson.
- Barry Meister: $17.875MM. Brandon Lyon's $15MM deal is about 84% of the total.
- LSW Baseball: $17.7MM. Starters Jon Garland and Brett Myers led this agency's deals.
- The Sparta Group: $17.25MM. Basically, Mike Cameron's contract.
- Career Sports: $13.55MM. Mark DeRosa's deal, mainly.
- Representation for next winter's big-name free agents is spread evenly, though Legacy boasts Carl Crawford and Adam Dunn while CAA has Derek Jeter and Derrek Lee.
- Sosnick Cobbe Sports: $12MM. They make the list for Freddy Sanchez's extension.
Should be entertaining to see how Boras tries to bill Millwood as a frontline starter after the season…
Why doesn’t Shapiro Negotiations Institute qualify with Mauer?
This is just for players who were free agents entering the 2009-10 offseason.
Man, nice job ACES. Polanco, Figgins and Huff in particular look like VERY nice deals for the player considering their modest skill sets.
Polanco was a steal for the Phils. That organization is on fire, though. They should not really count.
Polanco was not a steal, 3 years is overpayment, 6MM per is all fine and well, but the Phillies should not have ever offered 3 years.
I agree. I think there was a pretty detailed post and discussion that outlined why the Phills overpaid for Polanco a while ago. The market was not dishing out 3 years 18mm for guys like Polanco. Could very well be a good addition over the next couple years, but they could have gotten him for less.
If they hadn’t offered 3 years, then the average salary per year would have increased. Thus, signing Halladay to an extension would have been tougher, and probably would have diminished all hope of them re-signing Jayson Werth. Also, if they choose to buy out Polanco’s final year, it will be much more affordable than contracts they’ve previously eaten (Thome, Jenkins, Eaton, etc…)
the wasserman group is gonna get a good one next year. Yunel Escobar is gonna get a good extension.