Why I Chose My Agency: Jay Bruce

Reds right fielder Jay Bruce is a longtime client of Sosnick Cobbe Sports.  I spoke with Jay Monday night about his agency choice.

How he first came into contact with Sosnick Cobbe Sports:

I spoke with some guys from around Beaumont, Jason Tyner and Kevin Millar, they told me I should start speaking with advisors [prior to the 2005 draft]. First guy on that list was Toby Trotter from Sosnick Cobbe Sports. And this was before all the hoopla started, all the big games and national scouting combines. They were one of the first groups to come in. I was a little bit under the radar. I met with Toby, and everything about him pretty much added up to me to a guy I wanted to work with.

On being advised by the Boras Corporation prior to Sosnick Cobbe:

I also interviewed ACES and the Boras Corporation. Everyone knows who Scott Boras is. Boras is known for having the biggest players in the game, the most heralded players in the game. Being a 17 or 18-year-old naive high school student, I went with the name.  A couple of months before the draft, a lot of scouts came up to me at the Texas Scouting Association game, and told me, "We just want to let you know that you are probably cutting out a third to half of the teams in baseball by choosing Scott Boras." I started thinking about it, and I went home, talked to my parents, and they said, "You have to go with your gut. If baseball is what you really want to pursue out of high school, then you probably need to re-evaluate your choice." I thought about it, and I'm still kind of ashamed to this day, my mom called Jim Pizzolatto [his contact at the Boras Corporation] and let him know that I was going to switch agencies. I still see Jim sometimes and we're very cordial, and I don't think there's any hard feelings.

On why Boras didn't work for him:

This is no slight on Scott at all or anything that they did, because they are one of if not the best at doing their job for their players.  It wasn't anything necessarily that they did wrong, but I wanted to take a different approach to the way I "marketed" myself, because they didn't want me hitting for any scouts, they didn't want me filling out any information, they were really really pushing me to go to college. Some guys, that works great for. But I wanted to give myself the chance to be drafted as highly as I could, and they didn't need to push me to go to college, because had I not gotten drafted in the first round out of high school, I was going to college. I signed a letter of intent to go to Tulane University, and I was going to honor that. I had no problem going to college.

It was just not as open of a relationship as I would have liked. They just didn't seem like the way that I wanted to represent myself, they didn't sit well with me. I like talking to people, I like really giving people the impression of myself, from myself. I like people to know what they're getting. They want to keep the distance with high schoolers, I think, between the scouts and the player. Which for a lot of guys, it works, but I just wanted to give myself the opportunity to make the best impression I could on all these people.   They never did anything wrong to me, but I just decided to go back to Sosnick Cobbe. They made the best impression, and they were straightforward. It became a relationship that kind of transcended business a little bit. A lot of people don't like to mix business with friendship, but if I can trust someone that I consider a friend, I can trust them to do business.

On how Matt Sosnick retained Jay's business after Toby Trotter left the agency:

After the draft, I was in the airport going to instructional league. Toby and Matt called me up. Toby said "Hey Jay, I just want to let you know that I'm leaving the agency." He had prayed a lot about it and decided he wanted to do something else. Matt said, "I want to let you know that I am going to be the guy you deal with now." If it wasn't for Matt being on the phone, I probably would have switched agencies and been done with it.

He made me feel like I was a priority. Matt was on the phone and made it an easy decision for me, and that was the true start of what I consider a great relationship both on and off the field. That showed how Matt is as a person. That means a lot to me. He takes a genuine interest in my family and really goes beyond the job description. That's important to me, but it's not important to some people and I completely respect that. I really value my relationship with Matt, and he's also done a great job, so it works out. I definitely understand that if he didn't do a great job for me and we were friends, it would be a little tougher to move on or even have that conversation. I consider him a friend, but he does an unbelievable job with contract negotiations.

On the six-year, $51MM extension Bruce signed with the Reds in 2010:

I was interested in getting something worked out. It kind of became more of a trend, teams locking guys up. I talked to Matt, and he had pretty amicable talks with the Reds. Matt has a very good understanding as far as the numbers and comps and stuff like that. He did a good job and communicated with the Reds well and was really up front with them and let them know I wanted to get something done. The Reds were accommodating as well. Matt relayed what I wanted to them and we got the deal done.

I signed the contract extension with the Reds, and Matt provided the information that allowed me to make a decision that I felt was right.  Matt does a good job of providing information that allows you to make a decision on your own, and that's something that I really like.

On Jay's relationship with Matt and the agency:

The personal side of it is as important to me as the business. I enjoy working with him as a person and I enjoy our relationship as friends, too. Anyone who has talked to Matt knows, he's an incredibly bright human being. He provides me a lot of perspective on things that otherwise I might not even really know about. I think over the years we've created a relationship with a very open line of communication. Over the years he's been an open book and so have I. There's no beating around the bush.

I wasn't just a number, and that was huge to me. That's how I conduct my life. It's an extension of yourself. If people deal with Sosnick Cobbe Sports, and they know that I deal with them, I want them to say, "Oh, that's Jay Bruce's agency. I can see why.

On big vs. small agencies:

A lot of times, the agent and the player don't have much of a relationship outside the business part of it. And if you don't have a contract, there's really not a ton the agent does. They facilitate endorsement deals, but as far as the day-to-day stuff, there's really not a ton to talk about. I never talked to Scott Boras when I had them. If you take the baseball part out of it and think about small companies vs. big corporations, there's more personal service at a small company. I think quality at the smaller agencies has probably gotten much better over the years because the information available to them now is a lot more than it was.

It's hard to go away from the big agencies. It's hard to not go with the proven names of the industry. I'm glad that I gave Matt and those guys a chance and I'm glad that they sought me out as well. I couldn't have asked for anything more.

Check out our first entry in the Why I Chose My Agency series, where Matt Holliday discussed his relationship with Boras.