Exploring Scott Boras’s statistical projections that helped score A-Rod $252 million

I’m Rich Biatch!

With the turn of the twentieth century came a new era of megabuck salaries for professional baseball players, led by uber-agent Scott Boras and his compilation of colossal contract negotiations. Jose Canseco may have thought he was laughing his way to the bank with the then-record $4.7 million/year deal he signed with the A’s in 1990, but Boras’s clientele today rake in the kind of cash the former Bash Brother would have to sell a billion more books to attain. Of course, the most notorious of these dealings was the $252 million agreement signed between Alex Rodriguez and the Texas Rangers before the 2001 season. Entering the big leagues in 1994 at the ripe age of 18, by 2000 A-Rod had already established himself as a cool, collected superstar capable not only of leading a team on the field but carrying a franchise off it. So when the star-caliber shortstop with the model good looks and squeaky clean image became a free agent, Scott Boras did his thing masterfully and got Mr. Rodriguez muthafuckin’ paid. His 10-year, $252 mil deal was double the previous highest-ever paid sports contract, a not-too-shabby $126 mil compensated to Kevin Garnett by the Minnesota Timberwolves in 1997.

One part of Boras’ strategy in working out this epic arrangement was sending all 30 MLB teams a snazzy blue binder proclaiming A-Rod’s greatness via comparisons, quotes, and projections. The comparisons were clearly on point; even disregarding everything he has done or will do with the Yankees, Rodriguez still could make a compelling argument for being the greatest shortstop in baseball history. The quotes, while seemingly hyperbolic in retrospect (sorry Dan Le Batard but I think you’d be hard pressed today to find anyone who believes Alex Rodriguez indeed saved baseball), represent the general consensus of the baseball community a decade ago. And while it is amusing to look back at idolatry proclaiming Alex Rodriguez to be the greatest ever at age 24, the quotes and comparisons provide nothing more than a brief snapshot of a time long since passed.

A-Rod no longer plays shortstop and his once impeccable image has suffered the taint of steroids and adultery, not to mention an arrogance that has soured him to many fans that may have otherwise overlooked his various cheatings. But through it all, Rodriguez the ballplayer has consistently carried on in top notch form. And this brings us to the binder’s projections, or what Boras & Co. extrapolated the phenom was going to produce over the rest of his career based on numbers from 1996 to 2000. A decade has passed since the deal went down and the time has come to go back and look at those projections to see if A-Rod has lived up to the numbers that Scott Boras sold to Tom Hicks and the Texas Rangers for a quarter of a billion dollars. To begin, this is just a simple statistical comparison; to determine whether Rodriguez was actually worth the amount he was paid is another issue entirely.

Projected Performance:
AGE YR G PA R H 2B HR RBI SB AVG
30 2006 1660 7483 1357 2072 420 410 1284 284 .312
OBP SLG
.375 .568

AGE YR G PA R H 2B HR RBI SB AVG
35 2011 2385 10790 1965 2994 608 594 1858 410 .313
OBP SLG
.376 .570

AGE YR G PA R H 2B HR RBI SB AVG
40 2016 3110 14097 2573 3916 796 778 2432 536 .313
OBP SLG
.377 .571

Actual Performance:
AGE YR G PA R H 2B HR RBI SB AVG
30 2006 1746 7774 1358 2067 364 464 1347 241 .305
OBP SLG
.386 .573

AGE YR G PA R H 2B HR RBI SB AVG
34 2010 2230 9890 1718 2599 462 591 1751 299 .304
OBP SLG
.389 .572

For the most part, it appears Boras and his NASA-trained statisticians were right on the mark. While the projections for his games played and therefore his plate appearances by age 30 were low, (presumably to account for possible injuries) A-Rod would go on to miss only one game in his three seasons with Texas and only 15 in his first three seasons with the Yankees. While his predicted and actual total hits and runs scored were nearly identical, Boras apparently failed to foresee the sudden burst of power that would place A-Rod atop the MLB home run count four of the next six seasons. This increase in yard balls also nudges his actual RBI just over the prediction for 2006. And while Boras may have slightly overshot Rodriguez’s career batting average, his higher than predicted walks has in fact increased overall OBP more than ten points greater than projected (while Boras does not include BB in his presentation, I presume he came out low in his calculations due to fewer projected G and PA).

Assuming that A-Rod stays injury free and maintains current production through the remainder of this season and next, he is pretty much on pace to match Boras’s 2011 predictions as well. The biggest inconsistency appears to be that Boras envisioned A-Rod remaining more of a speed guy when in fact his game has become more about the long ball in the last ten years (more HR, RBI, and strikeouts; less 2B and steals). And while the projected HR totals may have seemed lofty to some GMs at the time the blue binder made its rounds, Rodriguez has flat out destroyed them. He will surpass 600 career HR this season, and remaining healthy could very easily reach the 800 mark before turning 40 (Barry Bonds and Hank Aaron both played until they were 42).

However, beyond the 2011 predictions it is still quite difficult to know what A-Rod will do. Most players’ bodies begin breaking down at this point and anyone can quickly fall from stud to dud with an ill-timed injury or two. But A-Rod has always been commended for his work ethic and offseason training habits, so that coupled with the fact that playing in the AL he could serve his last few seasons as a DH greatly increase his chances of slugging in MVP form into 2016 and beyond. Either way, Rodriguez has always held himself to the standard of wanting to be remembered as the greatest baseball player the world has ever seen and I predict he will keep on truckin’ for those numbers until the wheels fall off. While some of Boras’s and others’ claims about the 24 year old Rodriguez may have been exaggerated, his projected production appears to be anything but. But was he worth $252 million?

Simply put, for the Rangers the answer is no. Owner Tom Hicks sunk the majority of his payroll into a single player, and even though that player was tremendous the team as a whole remained atrocious. Their pitching staff would’ve been crushed by an average high school varsity squad and being treated like God’s $252 million gift to baseball had obvious effects on A-Rod’s ego and leadership (one soared, the other plummeted; you guess which did what). During his three years in Arlington the Rangers stunk worse than a West Texas cattle pasture while the Mariners put together some of their best seasons in franchise history. And being the quarter of a billion dollar cornerstone to a team in the AL West cellar put Rodriguez under an enormous amount of pressure to perform, such pressure in fact that he felt compelled to use performance enhancing drugs to live up to expectations. But even with juiced through the roof numbers, A-Rod was still one man in a nine man game, a team game, and despite his remarkable individual accolades (two Gold Gloves, 2003 AL MVP) the entire thing seemed doomed from the start. After only three seasons the Rangers dumped Rodriguez and the remainder of his cannibalistic contract to the bottomless money pit that is the New York Yankees.

Now Alex Rodriguez making that payday in pinstripes makes a lot more sense. He gets to play in a market as big as his ego for fans that admire, instead of abhor, the fact that he shows up to the field looking more dressed for a photo shoot than a ballgame. The Yankees throw around money like it’s going out of style, and in fact the Boss not only saw Hick’s contract but raised it, inking a 10-year, $275 million extension to essentially keep A-Rod in New York until he retires (for the record, following the advice of investment guru Warren Buffett A-Rod signed this deal sans Boras). His new salary, actually increased from what essentially decimated the competitive hopes of the mid-market Rangers, is a drop in the bucket for the billion dollar Yankees franchise. Until last year he even had Jason Giambi in the dugout to reminisce with about the good ol’ days when nobody cared about testing your pee.

Love him or hate him, there are two undeniable facts about Alex Rodriguez: the guy can play baseball and the guy gets paid. He took the Rangers for literally almost all they were worth, and I bet if Boras had known what was to come when he got on the juice he could’ve gotten even more. And as much as us everyday hard-working folk like to bitch about the insane amounts of money grown men get paid to hit a ball with a stick, remember that it’s every single one of us ticket-buying, jersey-wearing, game-watching fans that make it all possible.

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Brett Phelps is a regular writer for The Golden Sombrero who splits most of his time between the Land of Enchantment and the Biggest Little City in the World and contributes weekly to You Been Blinded. Known in other circles as Slo-Mo and Captain Buck Nasty, he is a wandering gypsy and amateur conspiracy theorist. He likes skiing, getting thrown out of sporting events, and long walks on the beach. He hates being in handcuffs, as this is usually a sign he will spend the night in jail. Any questions, comments, concerns, love or hate mail can be sent to him at brettsta04@yahoo.com