Boras Blog

Tricky Case

Scott Boras and Rick Ankiel were set to face the Cardinals in an arbitration hearing today.  Boras and Ankiel had asked for $3.3 m and the Cardinals offered $2.35 m.  Just before the hearings were to begin, the two sides agreed to a one year deal at the mid-point of $2.825 m.

This was going to be a tricky case, as Ankiel's history is unique - he does not have much performance history to show (as a hitter) and he is a bit old for where he is in his stage of development.  The Cardinals can claim the he owes them for the second chance they offered, and he can blame the Cardinals for ruining his pitching career.  It would have been quite the circus, and probably harmful to Ankiel's relationship with the Cards, so the mid-point seems fine to me.  I just have to wonder if Boras has been too distracted with ARod to adequately prepare for Ankiel, given the timing of this deal.

Boras in Arbitration

Cardinals Nation asks, and answers, the question of whether the Cardinals should be especially wary of facing Scott Boras in the upcoming Rick Ankiel arbitration.  They run the data back to 2003 and show that the Cards have had 30 non-Boras cases, of which they won 20.  They had eight cases against Boras, of which they won five.  So Boras did a bit better than average, winning 37.5% versus the other agents at 33%.

Hardball Times ran the data on January, 2005, compairing all of Boras' cases versus the total sample and found that:

Scott Boras has gone to arbitration for a player 39 times, and clubs have won 59% of his cases. Right on the overall average.

This is somewhat surprising to me, but most of his top clients do go to free agency at a higher rate than average.  I will be tracking his arbitration success rate going forward, it will be interesting to see how he performs going forward.