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How do you celebrate closing roughly $1 BILLION in MLB contracts in one short offseason?!?
That’s the question we posed to MLB superagent Scott Boras — and while he’s trying to downplay the historic impact of his work, you can tell he’s pretty fired up!
FYI, Boras is arguably the most powerful agent in pro sports … at least judging by the deals he’s negotiated in the past couple of weeks.
Gerrit Cole signed a $324 million contract with the Yankees. Anthony Rendon inked a $245 mil deal with the Angels. Stephen Strasburg‘s getting $245 mil from the Nationals. And Mike Moustakas got $64 mil with the Reds.
Getty Composite
So far, Boras’ clients are at $878 mil in contract money this off-season — and with Hyun-Jin Ryu, Dallas Keuchel and Nicholas Castellanos expected to close deals soon, Boras should easily pass the $1 BILLION mark.
“It’s really a great thrill,” Boras told us at Reagan National Airport in Virginia.
“The biggest celebration is that you get to call the players you represent and let them know that something they’ve worked so hard for is complete.”
Boras has a reputation for being a pretty hard-nosed negotiator — so we asked if there are teams that are afraid to deal with him out of fear they’ll have to break their piggy banks to get SB’s clients.
“Oh, I don’t think anybody is [afraid]. When you represent great players everybody wants to talk with you.”
There’s more … we also spoke with Scott about Bernie Sanders, who recently tweeted about the deal Boras inked for Gerrit Cole — “If pitchers can make $324 million, we can pay every teacher in this country at least $60,000.”
“I don’t think Mr. Sanders took a shot [at Cole],” Boras said … “I think he brought the fact that in America we recognize greatness, and teachers are a great part of American greatness.”
“We should acknowledge them with an appropriate compensation system which doesn’t exist right now.”
In other words, Boras seems to AGREE with Sanders — teachers need to get paid more. So, do they just need a better negotiator? A Scott Boras, if you will?
“I can’t address the competency. It’s just state government. What we do as a society, we need to reward the people that teach and generate the next generation of brilliance for America. That’s very important.”
Boras continued, “I don’t think [Sanders is] suggesting that anyone of greatness is overpaid. I just think he says that an additional quadrant of greatness needs to be acknowledged like players are being acknowledged.”