Boras isn’t buying Yanks out on Bryce
LAS VEGAS — Scott Boras will believe the Yankees’ disinterest in Bryce Harper when he hears it. Actually, maybe not even then. The superagent, holding his annual State of the Scott news conference Wednesday morning at the winter meetings, expressed no concern about Brian Cashman’s proclamation earlier this week that Harper, the All-Star outfielder, resided nowhere on the Yankees’ radar.
“I’ve never heard the Yankees say that,” Boras said. “It might be that they say things to you. I wasn’t there.”
Cashman, asked about Harper in a Monday session with New York media, said he didn’t understand the continued questions about the 2015 National League Most Valuable Player given that the Yankees’ outfield ranks as a strength. The Yankees were not entertaining the notion of signing Harper to play first base, Cashman added.
“As far as the Yankees and what discussions I, Hal [Steinbrenner] and Cash have had, I will leave that to our own,” Boras said. “And I will only let you know that when you’re talking about star players, and I go back to Mark Teixeira. Mark Teixeira with the Yankees.”
The Yankees publicly played down an interest in Teixeira at the outset of the 2008-09 offseason, when he entered free agency. They wound up signing Texieira, of course, to an eight-year, $180 million contract. Cashman has rejected this historical comparison and insisted the Harper situation differs from Teixeira’s because the Yankees had a vacancy at first base as opposed to the current outfield glut.
“The Yankees are very adept. They’re smart,” Boras said. “They are going to do something, and I think they can earnestly tell you that right now they’re not doing it and have every intention of doing something else when it’s best for them to do it.
“… When the nurse walks in the room with a thermometer, the issue is not what the thermometer says that day. The issue is, what’s the health of the patient when they’re ready to leave the hospital? And [the Yankees] are not ready to leave the hospital yet.”
On Wednesday night, Cashman, asked about Boras’ comments, said, “I kind of try to promote that we are an aggressive, open-minded operation. That every day is different. That we are prepared to pivot and react at any moment if things change, if the rosters adjust. If something doesn’t make sense today, it doesn’t mean it won’t make sense tomorrow.
“All I can keep telling you is you know where my current focuses are, but at the same time, we’re a fully operational Death Star.”