Top agent Boras calls rebuilding teams ‘competitive cancer’
CARLSBAD. CALIF. >> The agent for free agent Bryce Harper and many of baseball’s top players claims rebuilding teams have become a “competitive cancer” that caused this season’s 4 percent attendance drop.
As the sport’s officials start to consider possible rules changes to spark offense and speed pace, Scott Boras acidly critiqued several clubs that were among the 17 to draw fewer fans this year than last.
Boras pointed out Louisiana State’s baseball team had a higher average attendance for its 37 home games than the Miami Marlins did for their 81 — 10,786 to 10,014.
“The fans of Florida have certainly brought the MIA to Miami,” he said Wednesday in a courtyard outside the general managers’ meetings.
He claimed when “the divisional clubs come to Minnesota, it’s gotten so bad that only one of the Twins shows up.”
And he criticized the Toronto Blue Jays, who had the biggest decrease in the major leagues this year, falling by 878,000 fans to 2.33 million.
“They’ve lost near a third of their fan base due to the blue flu of not bringing attractive players the fans find interesting to their market,” he said.
Boras has self interest in encouraging spending, wanting fewer clubs jettisoning veterans in favor of youth and more handing out lucrative contracts — especially to his clients.
Major League Baseball’s average attendance dropped to
28,830, its lowest since 2003 after 14 consecutive seasons topping 30,000, and six ballparks set record lows. Boras connected the drop to noncompetitive clubs: There were three 100-loss teams for the second time since 1985 and the first since a record four in
2002. And there were eight
95-loss teams for the first time in big league history.
“The reality of it is they’re losing their fan base, and it costs millions and millions of dollars to rebuild the fan base,” he said.
Boras is seeking a record contract for Harper, topping outfielder Giancarlo Stanton’s $325 million, 13-year deal through 2027 reached with the Marlins, who traded him to the Yankees last December. Boras sounded as if he had rehearsed his zingers like a stand-up comedian,
“Certainly Harper’s bazaar has begun,” he said. “It’s fashionable. It’s historical. It’s elite. It’s global, certainly. And certainly it has inspirations that deal with great shoes and great hair.”
Washington made a lateseason offer before Harper became a free agent at the unusually young age of 26. Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo said Harper didn’t respond.
“He’s going to go about his business and we’re going to go about our business,” Rizzo said. “We drafted, signed, developed him. He turned into one of the best players in the league with our uniform on.”
More discussion is likely when owners meet next week in Atlanta, and the players’ association appears open to at least consider changes — a stark change from their nearconstant refusal in recent years. But first MLB must formulate what it wants to propose, a process likely to stretch through next month’s winter meetings in Las Vegas and possibly into January.
“We live in a time where we expect answers very quickly, and I think we have to remember that in baseball history there have been many different eras, many styles of baseball that have been played,” Phillies GM Matt Klentak said. “A deadball era occurs, and then teams begin to adjust their behavior, and all of a sudden you hit more home runs. And then teams adjust, and speed and defense takes over the game more . ... ”