Jerry Crasnick at espn looks at the Manny standoff and does an excellent job summing up the off season so far for Scott Boras:
Things peaked just before Christmas when Boras negotiated an eight-year, $180 million deal for first baseman Mark Teixeira with the Yankees. The process generated hard feelings in Boston and prompted The Boston Globe to write an editorial that equated dealing with Boras to investing in a Bernard Madoff "Ponzi scheme," but Teixeira walked away with the fourth-richest contract in MLB history.
Skeptics who suggested that Boras was blowing smoke on Derek Lowe got a wake-up call two weeks ago. Amid speculation that Lowe was destined to settle for scraps after CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett ate up all the big starter money in New York, the Atlanta Braves swooped in and signed Lowe, 36, to a four-year, $60 million contract.
Throw in multiyear deals for arbitration-eligibles Prince Fielder and Ryan Madson, and Kyle Lohse's $41 million contract with St. Louis before the market turned ugly, and it makes for a considerable haul. Even some of Boras' lesser lights have fared well. There's a joke in front-office circles that Boras clients who rank down the pecking order are more likely to have their calls returned by one of the agent's lieutenants than the man in charge. One executive calls it being demoted to the "Mike Fischlin division." But you won't hear any complaints from Willie Bloomquist, who parlayed one extra-base hit in 192 plate appearances with Seattle into a two-year, $3 million contract with Kansas City.
Nevertheless, it's been a rough winter all around in baseball, and dozens of agents have taken solace in grousing about collusion and penurious ownership. Boras, for all his resources and strategic vision, isn't immune from market forces, a cratering economy, the perils of overreaching and a trend toward teams' going young at the expense of big outlays on veterans.
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