TODAY: Soriano has hired Alan Nero and Ulises Cabrera of Octagon Baseball, Jesse Sanchez of MLB.com reports on Twitter. The righty tells Sanchez that he is “working out every day” in preparation “to get back to playing baseball and helping a team win in whatever role I’m asked.”
YESTERDAY: Free agent reliever Rafael Soriano is set to replace agent Scott Boras, according to James Wagner of the Washington Post (Twitter link). It is not clear whether he has chosen a new agent.
Soriano hopes to sign a deal and return to big league action, per the report. He has been inactive for the first two months of the year despite plenty of apparent interest. Presumably, the fact that he has yet to do so had something to do with the parting.
Boras has negotiated Soriano’s contracts since the fall of 2010 — as Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times then reported on Twitter — and has done rather well for his now-former client. Soriano has earned a total of $49MM over four years, exercising an opt-out clause negotiated into his deal with the Yankees and overcoming a qualifying offer to find better money over two years with the Nationals (though a significant piece of that was deferred).
Most recently, the Marlins were said to be dabbling in the Soriano market, though no deal was completed and the team apparently no longer has interest. MLBTR’s Charlie Wilmoth provided a complete look at the possible suitors last weekend (with our readers voting the Cubs as the odds-on favorite to bring him in).
now if only the rest of baseball would do this
Yankees should consider him if he’s available for like 2MM and doesn’t mind being a 7th inning guy. Crapenter is terrible and is probably DFA’d for Tanaka, Lindgren and Shreve are gonna be solid, Wilson’s been fine. Shreve is the 3rd best reliever atm, but Girardi doesn’t seem to want to use him in big spots.
They won’t and they shouldn’t. Soriano hasn’t shown anything.
What do you mean by show? He’s shown he could close for them in the past. If I were the Yankees I would sign him to a $2 million dollar contract plus incentives. Heck, I’d give him the shot at being the closer since Miller and Betances would be more valuable as 2 inning relievers. The Yankees bullpen has been terrible except for the two guys I just named, Schreve, and Lindgren who has nasty stuff.
I mean, I could get on board with them thinking about adding him(though I don’t think it’s a must) to offset some of the struggles they’ve had with a few guys, but he’s definitely not going to close for them, and really, it’d be a long shot for them to be the team that takes a look, there’s certainly worse off teams right now. Also, Martin had been solid enough out of the pen before being hurt as well, and should be back pretty soon.
He was poor the second half of last season, and hasn’t pitched this year. You really don’t know what you are getting. Sure, if he could pitch at the level he did a couple of years ago, sign him to that type of contract. But, if he was at 2013 level, he wouldn’t be available right now.
I don’t blame him, he should have a deal of some type by this point in the season. Even considering he’s no elite, closer type, there is enough teams in strong need of relief help that it’s pretty amazing he’s still without a team, good move to take things into his own hands.
Boras is a terrific agent for most of his players. For a few, he fails, and fails badly. Maybe it’s because he spent too much time negotiating the meg-bucks contracts for his star clients, and maybe it’s because he overvalues everyone and occasionally that leaves someone without a job. But if I were a 35 year old soriano, I’d want to get back on the field. Two months into the year. I’m not only gambling with 2015 money, I could be gambling with the rest of my career
Boras can play hardball through bulk and it probably gets him the most money in aggregate but a few individual clients end up getting torpedoed.
This is my take on it as well. But clients know the deal when they go with him: higher risk, higher reward. And Soriano has benefited from Boras in the past.
Varitek, Drew (Stephen), Felipe Lopez are a short list of players who had to come humbly looking for a job after Boras put the Shanghai (or tried) on GM’s, thinking his clients were some perennial AS caliber players.
It is good to see that Soriano woke up, albeit possibly too late.
Drew is awful. Please do not put him in the same sentence again with Felipe Lopez and Jason Varitek
Sorry for the unrelated comment but how does Darren O’Day have 2 runs allowed with 3 Homers if you know off the top of your head
Because one of the home runs counted as an unearned run due to an error before the HR. O’Day has actually given up 4 runs, but only 2 were earned.
Thanks
On April 24, vs Boston at Camden Yards, O’Day came in 8th inning with 2 outs and Sandoval on 1st (BB). Alan Craig hit a chopper to Manny Machado who charged the ball and missed it, getting an error. That would have been 3d out and ended the inning. When next batter Brock Holt hit a HR, all 3 runs were unearned. Craig and Holt were charged to O’day, and Sandoval was charged to Matusz.
Thank you
Sandavol and Tazawa are on the same team. How could Sandavol be charged ro Tazawa?
Fixed it. I read the baseball reference game log wrong. O’Day relieved Brian Matusz, not Junichi Tazawa. Both entry lines were followed by an Allen Craig line, so I just looked up and transcribed it wrong.
Nobody cares
Would Matt Harvey?
Speaks volumes
Cubs are signing him
i am surprised he hasn’t gotten much interest i mean he still had decent numbers last year
The fear is that the huge decline in his numbers for the second half of last season were more indicative than his early season numbers.
Should have just taken an incentive laden MiLB deal to start the season
Good. Boras seemingly nearly ruins as many careers as he helps.
I don’t honestly see how you can back that up. It’s easy for fans to hate on Boras, but his JOB is to get the best and most he can for the players he represents, and he consistently does that. What careers has he ruined, and further, what is the ratio of “ruined” careers to guys who got paychecks far higher than they had before?
Ask Brady Alken & Matt Harrington how Boras did for them.
I’m relatively confident that for the two names you mentioned, you could (with very little effort) compile a list of dozens, if not a hundred, athletes who got paid beyond their wildest dreams due to Boras.
I would love to see the Tigers take a flier on him at a reasonable price. they don’t have a lot to trade from the minors, so one less thing to thin out the farm system for.
I couldn’t imagine why….
Very interesting. There has been plenty of rumours of Soriano going to the Blue Jays, but given Boras history with the Jays, I wonder if that is why a deal has never been done. Maybe now
Alan Nero? Welcome to the Cubs Mr. Soriano.
Almost wonder if there is collusion against Boras clients.
For the right player, Boras brings in the maximum return. The teams look, they want the player, they grit their teeth, watch him o his dance, and prepare to overpay. He’s been tremendously successful, and this off season wasn’t any different. If there’s any collusion, you aren’t seeing it at the top end of the market. Is it possible that players that have some dings on them, but Boras is still shooting for the moon on, might be not worth the effort for some GMs? Possible. But colluding is a serious risk–not one to be “wasted” on 35 year old player who was poor the second half of last season.
Well, I might be wrong but I think he’s going to the Cubs forsure now. Pretty sure Nero is the agent of Maddon and Cubs have a really good relationship with Nero so don’t be surprised he’s on the Cubs within a week or so
the angels could use another arm in the bullpen