Top takeaways from Scott Boras’ truth-speaking – and stretching – at MLB winter meetings

LAS VEGAS – There are certainly more impactful and significant moments on the baseball calendar than Scott Boras’ annual Christmas tree chat at the baseball winter meetings.

There are few that better reflect the current state of the game, however.

Equal parts hubris, humor and case-making for his stable of elite athletes – headed this year by right-fielder Bryce Harper – the 66-year-old super agent’s winter soliloquy stretches truths but also confronts uncomfortable ones facing the industry.

A breakdown of the talking points that emerged Wednesday from Boras’ hour-long Mandalay Bay extravaganza, and analyzing what they really mean:

‘You’ll see dramatic changes’

Boras occupies a space between baseball’s union and its billionaire owners, finding significant common cause with the former while aiming to extract nine-figure contracts from the latter. While he won’t talk out of turn in representing the union, he’s possibly keeping the wariest eye on the run-up to the 2021 expiration of the Collective Bargaining Agreement.

With salaries flat – and another cold and stagnant winter unfolding – despite industry revenues he now says approach $12 billion, Boras did not issue a declaration of war.

He did, however, denounce owners for their dereliction of duty in aiming to field winning teams.

“Our revenues, in 2000, were $3 billion,” Boras said, citing the winter he and Alex Rodriguez rocked baseball by striking a $252 million contract. “Now they’re approaching $12 billion. When you’re looking at that, you have to say, ‘If the revenues are there, is it good business for teams to do things differently?’

“We know the revenues are there. What are they doing with them? If things became static in the player community, we know that the CBA is not working. Because the concepts in 2000 of luxury taxes and (revenue sharing) was not designed to be salary caps, they were designed to be something that created a greater parity in how the teams compete.

“And if it was merely a profit-taking dynamic, I think you’ll see dramatic changes in the reserve system, you’ll see dramatic changes in the CBA, and again, one of the big problems is, we have to get a system that rewards teams for doing things better than most.”

The takeaway: Boras is very much saying what MLB players’ association chief Tony Clark cannot lest he incite a cold war. With veteran free agents facing another freeze out this winter, it would not be surprising if Boras – and by extension the union – aim to fight for earlier free agency, or significant alterations to the salary structure for high-achieving younger players, come 2021.

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