I wrote recently about the persistent thinking among some old-school baseball folks that amateur baseball players shouldn’t use agents or care about money, but I wasn’t expecting to find a concrete example so quickly. A Baseball America article on the recent meeting between some college coaches and MLB scouting directors featured this anachronistic beauty from American Baseball Coaches Association executive director Dave Keilitz:
“This has kind of become a phenomenon in the last 15 years or so—every kid seems to have his advisor, not just advising him on pro issues but on where to go to college and what position to play and all of that stuff, and that has really come into being in the last few years,” Keilitz said. “It’s a total frustration to many baseball programs and coaches, and it certainly is with the pro people. It’s almost a shame when you call a kid that you think you’re interested in and he refers you to his advisor—some 16- or 17-year-old kid and he has an advisor.”
It’s a shame? A shame that what – these kids are actually seeing their interests represented properly at the negotiating table? That they’re getting advice from a professional with (usually) previous experience in the draft? The typical first-round pick out of high school and his family are engaging in the biggest financial negotiation of their lives. God forbid they get some help.
Oh, I get it. It’s a shame that colleges and MLB teams can’t bend these kids and their parents over like they used to. No, wait, that’s not a shame. That’s fantastic. The shame is that Keilitz is openly wishing it was still 1965.
I think it might be helpful to add that advisors/agents can’t take a dime from the player until he is officially drafted and signed. Many advisors spend thousands of dollars in preparing a player months before the draft, only to have the player dump his advisor at the last minute for a big-time agent; or, have the player suffer a poor final amateur season thereby lowering his draft ranking (and consequently, signing bonus). Advisors may look like they are taking advantage of young talent, but they are also carrying a load of risk in offering commitment-free service.
Sorry to thread-jack but I made the stuffing/dressing you suggested in your Thanksgiving post and got rave reviews. Thanks for the tip!
Keilitz is a dousche
Colt – no worries, glad you liked the article … Phil, I also know there are some situations where agents don’t actually receive a commission for negotiating a contract. For example, if a player signs a major-league contract for the minimum, the agent doesn’t receive a commission, because the player could have negotiated the same deal himself.
I can’t see how anyone could rationally argue that it’s a BAD thing for a high school/college athlete to have an adviser. We sometimes harp on the negative aspects of guys like Scott Boras, but the reality is, many of these kids are never going to make it and play pro ball, and their signing bonus is the only guaranteed big money they will ever see. That seems to be a big reason why agents don’t want to see a slotting bonus system put in place, and can you blame them? Everyone knows how complicated the business aspect of anything can be. If I were a hot shot 17 year old prep prospect, I’d certainly want someone who understands the process advising me, because what experience would I have with it? I’d think it would be easier for me to just worry about playing the game and let other people worry about other things.
At the end of the day, it seems that the kid ultimately has final say in 99% of the cases. Moustakas wanted to sign, he signed. Boras didn’t convince him to go to college instead. He’s an adviser and an agent, but it’s on the kid and the family to make the final decision, and they ultimately do what they want. Blaming the advisers for somehow “corrupting” the system is a copout at best.
It is both comic and pathetic that Keilitz doesn´t recognize the irony in the last sentence in his quote (“some 16- or 17- year old kid and he has an advisor.”) – wouldn´t teenagers involved in financial negotiations be precisely the group that most needs advisors? Perhaps a Curt Schilling has enough experience to serve as his own agent, but a high school kid obviously needs an experienced attorney or agent to guide him in dealing with a major league organization.
Keith,
And then you keep your fingers crossed that the player actually gets his three years of service time so that you might be able to take him to arbitration. While you wait, you get to buy the player his equipment, subsidize his off-season training, babysit, and make sure he doesn’t get lost in the team’s system.
I’ll put it this way- the entire agent/advisor experience takes an incredible amount of time, patience, and money. There is a reason why most of the successful representatives in the game belong to a big-time agency. Like most of the players they represent, very few agents ever experience the big pay-day guys like Boras and Tellem see most off-seasons.
James, I think you hit the nail on the head. Most of these kids and their families have no idea how the process works; they just want to make sure their son is able to play professional baseball with a bonus that is commensurate with their draft position. However, I think in many instances, in particular with the Boras clients, the players and their families can easily be swayed by the possibility of more money. This is what attracts them to guys like Boras in the first place.
It´s comic and pathetic that Keilitz fails to see the irony of his last quoted sentence (“a shame … some 16- or 17- year old kid and he has an advisor.”) A 16 or 17 year old kid is precisely who is in need of an advisor when negotiating a contract with a major league organization. Perhaps Curt Schilling has enough experience at this point to represent himself, as he did recently, but a teenage athlete obviously needs to avail himself of an attorney´s and/or agent´s services.
Yeah,
I’m not sure why this is a debate. People want the proverbial free-lunch here; they want the players and athletes to play for the “love of the game”, and to be grateful for any compensation they might get. I never got this premise – if I work for P&G, should I do it out of the goodness of my heart’s desire to produce toilet paper?