Baseball players jumping from one agency to another is nothing new. In fact, it seems there are some who will change affiliations more frequently than they change their underwear. When agents and baseball executives talk about an instance of that happening, they often use a phrase that conjures up images of evildoers chasing ivory-rich elephants in sub-Saharan Africa: “player poaching.” That terminology focuses on the unscrupulous agents who make it common practice to steal players out from under their colleagues and while that certainly takes place, not every case is exactly alike and things are never that cut and dry in the agency world. Sometimes, it’s the players who are acting unscrupulously. In the case of some minor leaguers, they’re employing two, three, or four agents at once in an effort to rack up as many gifts and favors as possible.
Plenty of stories have been written about individual cases of players being lured from one agency to another, but there hasn’t been much discussion about players employing several agencies simultaneously. There’s no way to quantify how many minor leaguers are engaging in this practice, but upwards of a dozen agents speaking on the condition of anonymity acknowledged that it’s quite commonplace.
A few years ago, one agent called a club to discuss the terms of his minor league client’s release. The exec, in turn, informed the agent that he had already spoken to the player’s representative just hours ago. The agent was shocked, but not surprised. His client had been stringing him along while actually working with a different agent.
“You see this a lot with guys from the Dominican Republic and in the Latin markets,” the agent said, echoing a sentiment shared by many in the field. “They don’t understand that there are rules and limits as to what an agent can give you. So they’ll employ two or three agents and they all have regular contact with the player. You have one giving them money, one giving them equipment…I’ve seen cases of guys having three or four agents at one time. There’s really no one policing it.”
Lower-caliber minor leaguers can juggle multiple agents without oversight because they do not have to fill out an agent designation form with the MLBPA until they reach the 40-man roster. Nearly every agent that spoke with MLBTR had a story of a player using multiple agents, whether it happened to them, a partner within their agency, or someone else in the field. As one might imagine, the victimized agents tend to find out about these things in strange ways.
One agent visited his client’s minor league clubhouse only to find a Foot Locker stock room’s worth of free shoes crammed into the player’s tiny locker. The abundance of free swag was the baseball equivalent of a woman finding a lipstick stain in an unfamiliar shade of red on her husband’s collar. That agent’s suspicions were confirmed soon after – his client had been taking advantage of multiple player reps.
Another veteran agent told MLBTR’s Steve Adams that he saw a little-known Single-A player who already had representation sign on with another agency because he was given an endorsement deal from Easton. When his original agent asked the player what had happened, the player replied that there was nothing in writing or even a check, just a $10K cash payment. Major equipment companies typically don’t dole out lucrative deals to unheralded minor leaguers and they certainly don’t do it with a burlap sack of money. It’s more than likely that the player’s allegiance was simply paid for by the rival agent.
Nearly every agent that spoke with MLBTR made two generalizations on the topic at hand. First, the players doing this, more often than not, are international prospects. Secondly, even though plenty of savvy veterans have been fooled, the greener agents are more susceptible to getting played.
“I don’t want to say that it’s a B.S. excuse for agents, but I feel that anytime a guy is working you for equipment and other crap, that should send up a red flag for you,” said one experienced agent.
Even though the MLBPA doesn’t oversee the non 40-man players, there are multiple ways that agents can protect themselves. Five veteran agents told MLBTR that they require all of their clients to fill out agent designation forms, regardless of their status. Agents can still submit these forms to the union and if a player is registered with more than one representative, all parties involved are notified. From that point, the union will step in and mediate. Of course, at that point, an agent might not even bother putting up a a fight.
“I believe it takes a certain kind of makeup to succeed. I don’t care how good you are, it just doesn’t matter. I’ve seen all kinds of ridiculous talent in this game but if they’ve got a ten cent head, it’s probably not going to work out,” one agent said. “That doesn’t mean they have to be smart, but with certain kind of guy you can tell he ain’t gonna make it if he’s playing these games and worrying about [gifts].”
Agents say they’ll only engage in business with players that are of high character. The aforementioned player who asks for a pair of spikes and $200 before forming a partnership? He’s probably not a guy you want to be involved with. It could also be a bad sign when you’re talking with handlers rather than the player himself.
“The further you get away from dealing directly with a player by dealing with a chain of people around him, the more likely there is to be abuse,” longtime agent Barry Meister said. “When you’re recruiting a young player, and talking to his family, you have to be sure the person you’re speaking with is the person who is making the decision. I suspect that you’ll have far more luck going directly to the player than talking to a handler or someone in the entourage or the guy’s brother.”
The end game of staffing multiple agents is almost always to rack up as much money and as many gifts as possible. Agents who want to avoid being turned into a walking Amazon wishlist can protect themselves by complying with MLBPA regulations. The union stipulates that an agent cannot spend more than $2K on any single player within a year, a mechanism designed to help cut back on player poaching. Staying inside of that dollar figure also leaves agents less susceptible to getting worked over or, at the very least, lessens some of the sting if their minor leaguer does get into bed with other agents.
Newer player reps would be wise to take that advice because the consensus amongst agents is that the union won’t be cracking down on guys simultaneously rostering multiple agents. While agents appreciate their voices being heard on matters with the MLBPA – something widely attributed to the late Michael Weiner – the union, they say, has bigger fish to fry and probably doesn’t have the resources to police every instance of a minor leaguer acting unethically. Also, in many cases, the players are staffing multiple agents in part because they’re new to playing the game at a professional level and don’t really have a grasp on how a player-agent partnership works. At the end of the day, the importance of pre-screening goes both ways for players and agents who are looking for a productive and honest business relationship.
Very interesting piece. Having dealt with agents in fields other than baseball, I can say that they can often be quite shady themselves. I have little sympathy for them. Most care about nothing but money.
The agent business is cut-throat and when your sole income is off the talent of others, you have to be as unscrupulous and as pushy as possible in order to be successful (Scott Boras).
When I think of unscrupulous agents, Scott Boras is pretty much the last name that pops into my head.
Not in terms of what is referenced above on either side of the spectrum, certainly. I think players would leave their agents for Boras over reputation rather than anything else and in fact I have a certain respect for him. But, he is unscrupulous when it comes to his interpretation of facts policy and the rules of baseball as well as how he criticizes teams for not bending to his will. Despite his declarations to the contrary, everything he says or comments on in relationship to baseball is self-serving and directed towards getting his own way
Every little edge counts and the nature of this business incentives unscrupulous, shady, underhanded dealings by agents. This is further evidenced in continued and expansive regulation of the International Free Agent Market.
Everything Scott Boras does is focused on getting his clients the largest share possible of MLB’s revenue pool.
Perhaps you could provide examples of Scott Boras using “unscrupulous interpretations of facts, policy, the rules of baseball”.
Boras’ player contract requires players to pay him his 5% commission for the current deal he is negotiating and their next contract, whether or not he’s their agent and whether or not he negotiates the deal….how’s that for unscrupulous. If you doubt me, ask Gary Scheffield, A-Rod or any of his former clients about it.
His representation of plenty of steroid users is a start
I don’t think he’s unscrupulous because I don’t think he’s doing anything wrong.
He puts his clients in the best light. He negotiates for the best salary available. What’s wrong with that? Isn’t that the purpose of an agent? If his clients want to go somewhere instead of the place offering top dollar, all they have to do is say so. He can’t sign their names on the contract for them.
I believe that people like Stephen Drew are victimized by Boras who holds out for more money than they are worth, then the lack of team affiliation in the off-season hurts their value even more the following season.
An agent advises a client. The client is free to instruct the agent. If Drew held out, it was because Drew was unrealistic, not because Boras victimized him. Guys like Drew are a penny a pound. If he thought Boras could get him a contract out of proportion to his worth, then more fool he.
The Drews are definitely an arrogant bunch, but I believe that Boras falls under the headline of “super” agent. He plays harder and demands more. He can easily manipulate an arrogant guy like Drew into holding out for something bigger. You can’t pin it all on Drew. Boras deserves some of the “credit”.
They used to call that stuff advocacy and marketing, but now I guess they call it unscrupulous, shady, underhanded dealings.
I would argue that the agents are the ones with the real moneymaking talent and the players are making most of their bones off of their agents. Without agents (and also the PA to an extent) these guys would all be playing their whole careers with a single team on a 25 year contract at $50k-100k per year. Are there some unscrupulous agents? Of course. Are there many unscrupulous players? Yeah, you bet.
How does the agent prevent the signing of long-term, miniscule AAV contracts? I have a feeling that players like Mike Trout and Clayton Kershaw are smart enough to realistically know their value to a team and use that to negotiate their own deals.
Great piece.
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
Then why don’t they
That’s my point. I’m personally not sure on whether or not the player needs the agent, or it’s more that the agent needs the player.
LOL. Then go get rid of your insurance agent, lawyer, and accountant. After all, you don’t need them, they need you.
That’s a different case, although admittedly, you make a valid point that I didn’t think about in that the player agent is there to interpret the legalities within the contract for the player. It’s not as simple as just signing on the dotted line for the player, which was something that didn’t cross my mind.
I was thinking simply in terms of negotiating for a deal, which I felt that the player would know their own worth realistically and sign a contract that reflects that knowledge.
You don’t pay your insurance agent or accountant 10% of your gross income. You might pay your lawyer that in a criminal case, depending on the charge, but in that case you’re paying him to keep you out of jail, so the character of the services rendered isn’t really comparable.
Agents do 1000x more work AND 1000x more valuable work for a player than an accountant or insurance agent does for a player or any other joe. And your example is completely bogus, as lawyers are forbidden from taking contingency arrangements, or percentages of anything, in criminal cases.
Nice straw man there! I didn’t say lawyers take contingency arrangements, or percentages of anything, in criminal cases. They do, however, base their fees on the seriousness of the charges, the time involved in mounting a defense, etc. “You might pay your lawyer that in a criminal case” means it might very well turn out that the fee ends up being = or > 10% of your gross annual income. That’s not the same thing as saying “the lawyer would take a contingency arrangement.”
As to accountants and insurance agents, you’re the one who made that comparison, not me. As to “1000x more work,” I’m not so sure. If it takes a CPA say, 3 hours to prepare a player’s tax return, that means an agent works 3000 hours per year on behalf of one client? There are only 2080 or so (40 hours a week, 52 weeks) business hours in a year… or are you saying an agent works day and night, every day, every night, for most of the year, for each of his clients? It doesn’t seem possible.
This sounds just like Pablo Sandoval and his brother being involved in negations with SF. Pablo is not smart enough to get a real agent and can’t figure out his bad feeling are because his brother was involved. His brother gets offended during negations and took it personally and takes his anger to his brother. Pablo takes that resentment his brother has to make the decision to leave SF, leaving more money and fans that loved him, because of his brother. They did help get him out of trouble in Santa Cruz a couple of years ago. Boston sounded so good to him to have 2500 miles between that mess.