Way back at the turn of this century, a venture capital guy named Tom Hicks, who also happened to be the relatively new owner of the Texas Rangers, decided it was time to make a bold move to jumpstart his team after a losing 2000 season.
Super agent Scott Boras saw him coming.
Boras was shopping the best young player in the game – and maybe in a generation – and clearly was determined to make a statement with the free-agent contract he negotiated for Alex Rodriguez.
And what a statement it was. He convinced Hicks to give ARod $252 million in a 10-year deal that was exactly twice the previous record for the richest sports contract in history. And if you think the fact that it precisely doubled NBA superstar Kevin Garnett’s record $126 million deal was some kind of odd happenstance, you would be wrong.
It was a message to the baseball world that Boras was also taking the agent game to a whole new level of economic insanity. He was already the best of the best, but that’s when a lot of people started calling him – myself included – an evil genius.
Don’t get me wrong. I like and respect Boras. His only job is to do what is best for his clients and he does that better than anyone, but that contract wasn’t good for the sport and it certainly wasn’t good for the Rangers, which Hicks eventually figured out. He would call it one of his greatest regrets after trading Rodriguez to the Yankees along with a bunch of cash only three years later.
ARod had three terrific individual seasons, averaging 52 home runs and 132 RBIs, but the Rangers had three more losing seasons – averaging just 72 victories. Attendance rose 9 percent in his first season in Arlington but dropped sharply the next two years to a level 20 percent below where it was the year before he arrived.
So, what does this have to do with Corbin Burnes? Just the fact that Boras finds himself in a similar position with the pitcher who carried the Orioles’ injury-depleted starting rotation last season. He has kept Burnes back until the handful of other elite starters have signed or been traded and now is in the process of maximizing his value.
There was a time when estimates of Burnes’ value on the open market would be somewhere in the low-to-middle $200 millions. Now, I’m willing to bet the deal he eventually signs will start with a three and maybe even a four.
New Orioles owner David Rubenstein is a very smart guy, but he has made it clear that he’s willing to spend much more than the previous ownership was to put the team in a position to win the World Series. The big question now is, how much more?
Burnes might be a $300 million pitcher in a sport that now has two players with contracts worth more than $600,000, 000, but would that really be in the best long-term interests of the Orioles and their fans?
Signing a pitcher for that much money comes with great risk, as Hicks found out when he realized that signing ARod handcuffed the front office for several years after he left. And ARod delivered above and beyond expectations during his three years in Texas, though you can draw your own conclusions as to why he and a lot of other guys suddenly found it very easy to hit 50-plus homers.
If you’re a fan who has waited 41 years for the Orioles to get back to the World Series, how much a billionaire spends on one player is not your problem, but be careful what you wish for.
The Orioles are still paying Chris Davis and you know how that worked out.