Super Agent to the baseball stars, Scott Boras, likes to create "books" to pitch teams on his free agent clients. Sometimes he oversells. To wit: The Scott Boras book on free agent Oliver Perez has hit bookstores, and with juicy chapters like, “Perez Is One of Baseball’s Top 5 Left-Handed Starting Pitchers,” and “Perez Dominates on the Biggest Stage.” . . .If this baseball thing doesn't work out for Boras, he could repurpose his publishing operation as vanity projects for rich people. I mean, if I had the cash, I'd certainly love to hear what he'd say about me.
. . . For those keeping score at home, this means Oliver Perez is definitively better than lefties such as: Scott Kazmir, John Lackey, John Lester, Eric Bedard, and likely 2008 AL Cy Young recipient Cliff Lee. This could make the meetings with the Mets a tad awkward, considering Minaya would have probably traded Ollie for any one of those guys in an instant.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Scott Boras is the Best
You've heard how Boras makes "books" on his free agent clients? Big, glossy prospectuses that explain to GMs why they'd be fools not to sign his guys? Well, he has one on Oliver Perez, and it sounds like an instant classic:
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6 comments:
In other news, John Lackey was surprised to learn that he is, in fact, left handed.
John Lackey. Not a lefty.
There are a few more decent lefties out there. Cole Hamels. CC Sabathia. Johan Santana. John Danks. Joe Saunders.
Hell, Ted Lilly is better based on 2008 numbers.
I would love to get some of Boras' books as nighttime reading for my three year old as I want her to fall asleep with nothing but happy, pie in the sky thoughts. Maybe Boras is intended on having a Madonna-like second career writing fiction for children and the books are helping him to develop his voice.
What I would really love to do is pick these books apart to see if the book on one FA may contradict his books on others. For example - do all his left handed pitchers, John Lackey included, get the top five lefty argument. If so - what statistic is he manipulating to make it work? What top lefty are included in every book he write about his lefty FAs because he has quite a few to including CC, Hamels, Lester, Lee, Kazmir, Petite, Liriano, or Santana? I would suspect that some of his books have conflicting arguments and when viewed as a collective would make even the best spins doctors take a bow.
Last note - Boras is an example of stats run amuck as he can find a way to manipulate a stat to his clients benefit. While Bill James may use stats in a purer way, guys like Boras can construct some false arguments based on the faulty use of the same stats.
Hey now, he has a point -- John Lackey pitching left-handed would not be as good as Oliver Perez (although I bet he'd have better control).
In fairness to Mr. Boras (and in my own defense) the inclusion of Lackey among the lefthanders was the responsibility of the NBC columnist who wrote the piece.
But if you think that Boras wouldn't adopt your reasoning, Alex, you're plum crazy.
Any GM who does anything but throw this material in the trash is doing his team a great disservice.
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