By Murray Chass
March 25, 2010
......If Mauer were a Boras client, he would not have signed that contract. But then, he wouldn’t have chosen Boras as his agent.
Agents have track records, and players gravitate to the agent whose negotiating style suits their needs and desires. If they want to get every last dollar, don’t mind putting up with possible controversy and aggravation, don’t care how long it takes and don’t care where they play, hire Boras. If they care about where they and their family will be happiest and most comfortable and will settle for less than the absolute last dollar, go with Shapiro.
Mark Shapiro may be biased. Ron’s son, Mark is a Princeton graduate and general manager of the Cleveland Indians. He has dealt with all of the agents.
“His distinguishing factor,” Mark said, “is he considers himself an advocate of the player first. He seeks to do the best job for the player in the context of satisfying what he wants. In today’s game that’s not always the case. Some agents put client recruitment ahead of what the player really wants. They seek the best deal regardless of what the best fit is.
“Every single deal they do is a platform for the next client. How will this be viewed in the industry?”
.......Shapiro thinks it’s possible that Mauer could have exceeded that figure, speculating that had the Yankees and the Red Sox become involved, $30 million a year for 10 years might have been possible. But all speculation is irrelevant because Mauer wanted to remain in Minnesota.
“Joe had information from me about potential contracts,” Shapiro said, “and it was pretty clear to me he might be tempted to test the water. But in his heart he had a desire to play it out in the way Cal did in Baltimore and Kirby in Minnesota.”
How then does an agent proceed to achieve that goal while making sure his client is not shortchanged? Doesn’t it make the agent’s job more difficult?
“It makes it more difficult only in one sense,” Shapiro said. “It takes much more of an effort to negotiate with the club in this circumstance. It’s not a regular marketplace. I support the theory there is always an irrational bidder. There’s always someone who will step in and create a new marketplace without any effort on our part.”
......Before initiating discussions with the team of the player who wants to stay, Shapiro said, “you determine if a player is willing to go elsewhere if the club isn’t willing to give him proper value.”
“The club,” Shapiro added, “knows or suspects he wants to be there, but he has already decided if it’s not a fair deal it won’t be a deal.”
Beyond establishing ground rules with the player, Shapiro said, “you prepare like you do for anything. You get the client ready to withdraw from the process so his emotions aren’t going up and down if things aren’t going well. You work with the client to understand a fair deal is a deal that satisfies him but is not a high end irrational market deal.”
........Shapiro said the two sides “probably had two points of frustration.” But, he said, “I operate on the glass-half-full theory so no matter how negative it looks there’s a way out. We told Joe it might go into the season and wanted to find out if he would be willing to go into the marketplace.”
.......“I was reflecting with my partner Michael Maas,” Shapiro said. “People are saying ‘wow, you did this, you did that.’ All we did was spend a lot of time with our client and understand what was happiness in their negotiation, not focus on dollars. That doesn’t mean we aren’t going to try to get the dollars up. But in the end we have the satisfaction of having our players play where they are happiest.”
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