Alex Kirilloff, and the Truth About Scott Boras and Contract Extensions

Actually, if they are thinking long term deal (whenever in the future) any service time manipulation could be counterproductive

Very nice - I really appreciated this essay

I think we’re seeing some congestive dissonance type behavior when it comes to people drawing these conclusions about Krilloff.

Some people love this front office. Nothing wrong with that at all. But, they are placing their own moral outlook onto the operations of the Twins front office. It’s like anthropomorphism in a way. Because they’re a good person, I like the Front Office, they must be good people. If they’re good people, there’s no way they would do something that may seem unethical like manipulate a players service time for financial reasons.

Thus, in order to reconcile with the potential Kirilloff situation, there has to be something else at play. It has to be that he isn’t ready for the majors, despite just watching him rocket the ball around the field again the Astros pitching staff in a playoff game. Or, it has to be some nefarious motive from a lurking agent, and the Twins are merely manipulating his service as a wise defense from getting ripped off in some way. They’ll just never accept that they’re screwing this kid over, and making the team worse, for financial gain.

All of this said, we say see Kirilloff start in left field on opening day. But the absolute refusal to buy that the FO could possibly do something unbecoming is wild.

Great article!!! The best thing for ownership and team value is to win. Win in 2021, especially in October. Winning the world series makes AK's service time irrelevant. AK is a S.T.U.D. Play him 157 games, starting on opening day. I am 100% confident that he is our best LF and the FO knows it as well. Let's play ball!!!

I think we’re seeing some congestive dissonance type behavior when it comes to people drawing these conclusions about Krilloff.
 

 

Cognative dissonance. 

I think "congestive dissonance" may be when you have a cold, but have convinced yourself it's allergies..

It's cognitive dissonance, with an "i," if we're scoring for accuracy. Just throwing that out there

I'm one who has expressed my support for the current front office, but it's not because I necessarily think they're exemplary humans. I'm not in a position to say. I do think they've shown signs of being exemplary baseball + businesspeople. As such, they know what Kirilloff may be capable of and are in the best position to make the call on what to do with him. I trust them not to needlessly antagonize one of our potential future cornerstones. If Kirilloff does earn a spot in camp and they still hold him back, I'll chalk it up to the front office deciding the extra year of control outweighs the ill will they'll earn.

Interestingly, Buxton may serve as an interesting test case of the wisdom of holding back a player. Will he let bygones be bygones and re-up? We'll soon find out.

Ultimately, I think the system needs to be changed so that no one -- ballplayer or front office -- is put in this position. I think that's something we all agree on.

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I think we’re seeing some congestive dissonance type behavior when it comes to people drawing these conclusions about Krilloff.

Some people love this front office. Nothing wrong with that at all. But, they are placing their own moral outlook onto the operations of the Twins front office. It’s like anthropomorphism in a way. Because they’re a good person, I like the Front Office, they must be good people. If they’re good people, there’s no way they would do something that may seem unethical like manipulate a players service time for financial reasons.

Thus, in order to reconcile with the potential Kirilloff situation, there has to be something else at play. It has to be that he isn’t ready for the majors, despite just watching him rocket the ball around the field again the Astros pitching staff in a playoff game. Or, it has to be some nefarious motive from a lurking agent, and the Twins are merely manipulating his service as a wise defense from getting ripped off in some way. They’ll just never accept that they’re screwing this kid over, and making the team worse, for financial gain.

All of this said, we say see Kirilloff start in left field on opening day. But the absolute refusal to buy that the FO could possibly do something unbecoming is wild.

Why is doing something within the rules...rules agreed to by the players union...”unethical”. It’s either good for the club in the long term or it’s not. Nothing more, nothing less. The notion that this is any more “unethical” than a player deciding to leave teammates and an organization that have treated him well for any amount of additional money...well, it’s not a terribly objective stance. One is try to maximize long term value to the club...in other words, do their job. The other is doing the best for himself and his family. Nothing unethical about either regardless of whether we like the rule or the outcomes.

Thank you for the wonderfully written essay.

I dont know why anybody hates Boras. He does what any one of us would do if we could....Be the absolute best we can be at their job.

I don't think fans hate Boras as much as how MLB is structured.  With some teams having 60M to 70M payroll and others 200M which teams are likely to get the cream that has risen to the top?  Yep the Yankee's, Dodgers, Nationals etc.  So when teams like the Indians can't keep a homegrown player like Lindor because he alone would be a quarter to a third of their payroll as a fan that sucks. The guy you watched come up. watched perform in the clutch and become one of the best players in baseball is ripped from your team because your team can cannot compete financially.

Do I think the players get screwed more often than not and Boras is at least somewhat of an equalizer sure, but while I am a fan of baseball players I am a greater fan of the team I root for. So when Boras moves my favorite player to the highest bidder and I am rooting for a team that gets supplemental picks it doesn't feel fair when Boras moves player Z to team X simply because my team can't afford the player.

Is that selfish on my part? sure, but so is wanting your team to win and others to lose, it is part of what makes you a fan, wanting your team to win.  If you are a top revenue generating team you love Boras because he prices out half the league most of the time so they have less competition for great players.  If your team is one of the bottom revenue teams probably not so much because he makes it hard to keep your star players and field a competitive team.

It isn't so much about hating Boras as it is how the market system in baseball is setup.  Boras is doing his job and doing it well but market inequalities do make him look villainous to fans when he moves the best players on their team to another.

I don't think fans hate Boras as much as how MLB is structured.  With some teams having 60M to 70M payroll and others 200M which teams are likely to get the cream that has risen to the top?  Yep the Yankee's, Dodgers, Nationals etc.  So when teams like the Indians can't keep a homegrown player like Lindor because he alone would be a quarter to a third of their payroll as a fan that sucks. The guy you watched come up. watched perform in the clutch and become one of the best players in baseball is ripped from your team because your team can cannot compete financially.

 

Do I think the players get screwed more often than not and Boras is at least somewhat of an equalizer sure, but while I am a fan of baseball players I am a greater fan of the team I root for. So when Boras moves my favorite player to the highest bidder and I am rooting for a team that gets supplemental picks it doesn't feel fair when Boras moves player Z to team X simply because my team can't afford the player.

 

Is that selfish on my part? sure, but so is wanting your team to win and others to lose, it is part of what makes you a fan, wanting your team to win.  If you are a top revenue generating team you love Boras because he prices out half the league most of the time so they have less competition for great players.  If your team is one of the bottom revenue teams probably not so much because he makes it hard to keep your star players and field a competitive team.

 

It isn't so much about hating Boras as it is how the market system in baseball is setup.  Boras is doing his job and doing it well but market inequalities do make him look villainous to fans when he moves the best players on their team to another.

I agree with this post, but I'll nitpick and say that Boras isn't the one who moves a player. His client, the player, makes the final decision about whether to stay or go. However, Boras has deservedly acquired the reputation of being more aggressive about negotiating for his clients than most agents, presumably because a larger contract for his client gets him a larger cut. Also, I suspect that a player who puts the dollar amount of his contract as his highest priority is one who is more likely to choose Boras as his agent, which in turn makes it more likely Boras will be involved in these situations. It's kind of like a feedback loop. That said, in these situations Boras and the player are not being unethical. They are simply playing by the rules, exploiting the (inequitable) system.

I think more extensive revenue sharing would benefit not only the majority of fans but also the majority of players. When only a few teams have much greater power to pay large contracts it means the few players getting those contracts benefit at the expense of other players. Giving all teams similar financial wherewithal would mean that player salaries will be more equitable, not just within a given team but within MLB as a whole. It also would mean players in one team's system have similar chances of succeeding as a player in another team's system, both in terms of on-field performance and in terms of salary. Think of it this way--compare a utility player for Kansas City to a utility player for the Dodgers. The two probably have similar performance profiles and so forth but which player will be more likely to have a higher salary and chance of postseason success? Which borderline minor league player will have a greater chance to be promoted to the majors, one in the KC system or one in the Dodger system?

It's also important to realize that just because someone signs with Boras it doesn't necessarily mean that he's really their primary guy, too. He's a big-time agent with a lot of clients...Kirilloff will get some attention but not undivided.

The extensions before making their debut have a lot more value to guys who were lower draft picks. Kirilloff got a healthy signing bonus and it makes it easier to bet on himself. He also doesn't need to support his family.

I think he's going to be a great, great hitter so I'd love to get him locked down and not have to deal with any arbitration games and hold him through at least 1-2 years of FA...but we'll see how it goes. 

MLB has a lot of dumb rules and agreements and Boras is smart enough to see the loopholes and weaknesses and exploit them for his players.  He has done an amazing job.   I get angry at some of the tactics, but I get angry at some of the FO people too.  The Seattle situation really opened up a window on many FO personnel. 

People need to remember too that it is not up to Boras if and when a client signs a deal.  He tries to get and it is up to his client if they will sign it.  I have been stating for weeks that with the CBA coming up I expect major changes to it because over the last decade how teams are spending money has shifted a ton.  

The old rules of signing deals for players until they are in late 30's are no longer happening.  There is advantage to players signing bigger deals earlier on.  If the Twins want to piss Kirilloff, then manipulate his service time, then you will never get a good deal with him.  At least I sure would never sign with a team that screwed me over to save a little bit of money, I would want to stick it to them later.  

Put the best team on the field, worry about 6 years from now later on.  If he crushes for years and gets too expensive to resign well you get 6 good years.  If he does not then who cares about 1 extra year.  If Kirilloff hits well enough and healthy he should break with team.  We are talking about keeping him down for a few weeks to have one more year of control over him, because we expect he will be so good that we will not be able to resign him.  

Bryant with Cubs was well publicized for this.  There was huge talks about him not being tendered this year because he has been struggling last couple years.  We have no clue how well Kirilloff will be playing in 5 or 6 years.  

Actually it's a lot more complicated than that. The teams that engage in service time manipulation are getting close to violating actual legal principles of contract law. Here's a paper from the Boston College Law Review that lays it out pretty well starting on page 23:

 

https://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3528&context=bclr

 

Cases like Kris Bryant have just enough grey area for teams to avoid punishment in front of an arbitrator, but it's still a real legal question. Not really comparable to feelings about a free agent player signing with a new organization -- there's nothing to legally arbitrate there.

 

It's why teams don't option good players when they fall out of contention, even though they technically could within the CBA rules -- they would almost certainly lose those cases in front of an arbitrator, as a violation of the implied obligation of good faith in their contract.

Good faith has a lot of gray area.

1. AK is not the best defensive LF (Cave)

2. Rooker was up at the MLB and got injured. 

3. Is AK better than a platoon of Cave/Rooker?

4. Maybe the Twins want to use AAA to improve his defensive abilities in LF and 1B.

5. Maybe the Twins are going with the hot bat at the end of ST or not.

The Twins could use a few of the above to justify AK being sent down.

The Rays did the same with Evan Longoria until he signed a long, team friendly contract.

The Twins Front Office needs to put the TEAM ahead of any player. Getting an extra year is much more important than a few weeks.