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Which Agency Had The Biggest Offseason?

By Tim Dierkes [May 9, 2011 at 2:19pm CST]

From the Blue Jays signing Dustin McGowan for $450K to the Red Sox extending Adrian Gonzalez at $154MM, teams committed almost $3 billion in free agent deals, arbitration contracts, and extensions to 314 players during the 2010-11 offseason. I defined the offseason as October 1st, 2010 through April 30th, 2011, so that the April extensions would be recognized.

The goal was to capture guaranteed money from new contracts. Arbitration deals typically are not guaranteed, though those players are rarely cut, so I included them. If you find any errors in the numbers in the attached spreadsheet, please contact us or leave a comment.

Boras Corporation: $444.475MM. Boras is back on top after ranking third last winter. Contracts for Jayson Werth, Adrian Beltre, Carlos Gonzalez, and Rafael Soriano accounted for much of the total.
Legacy Sports Group: $321.375MM. Legacy's huge winter was led by Carl Crawford, Adam Dunn, Rickie Weeks, and Billy Butler. Crawford signed the offseason's biggest free agent contract at $142MM.
CAA Sports: $234.575MM. CAA's total comes mainly from Ryan Braun and Derek Jeter.
John Boggs & Associates: $185.675MM. Extensions for Adrian Gonzalez and Trevor Cahill pushed this company to the fourth spot. Gonzalez signed the biggest contract of any player during the offseason at $154MM.
TWC Sports: $164.0575MM. Rockies players Troy Tulowitzki and Jorge De La Rosa comprise most of this total.
SFX: $152.38MM. SFX had a balanced winter, with only Mariano Rivera and Clay Buchholz in the $30MM range.
Frontline: $126.375MM. This is almost all Cliff Lee.
ACES: $125.85MM. Early contracts for John Buck, Joaquin Benoit, Brandon Inge, and Jhonny Peralta boosted this agency.
Gaylord Sports Management: $102.65MM. Dan Uggla and Bronson Arroyo made up most of this total.
Octagon: $99.885MM. Victor Martinez was the big fish for this agency.
Praver/Shapiro: $95.15MM. This group had four major deals, with Johnny Cueto, Juan Uribe, Carlos Marmol, and Leonys Martin.
Wasserman Media Group: $91.91MM. Like SFX, Wasserman had a balanced winter, with only Wandy Rodriguez topping $15MM.
Sosnick Cobbe Sports: $90.95MM. This firm made their money with extensions, led by Jay Bruce and Ricky Nolasco.
LSW Baseball: $71.725MM. Paul Konerko, Jason Bartlett, and J.J. Putz scored eight-figure deals.
Beverly Hills Sports Council: $66.4685MM. BHSC's biggest deals went to relievers Brian Fuentes and Kevin Gregg, and they were able to beat their former agent Dan Lozano.
Proformance: $65.865MM. This is almost all Jose Bautista's contract.
Dan Lozano: $51.35MM. This agency should do well next offseason with Albert Pujols, Jimmy Rollins, and others. During 2010-11 they were led by Joey Votto's extension.

Those were the 17 agencies to top $50MM brokered during the 2010-11 offseason. Another 47 agencies accounted for the remaining 14% of the offseason total.