So Kyle Lohse finally found a job, landing with the Cardinals at 1-year, 4.25 million, plus incentives.

I think it is safe to say that in NO WAY is this fair market value for a pitcher of Lohse’s abilities and background, not in an offseason when Carlos Silva extracted a 4-year, $48 million deal from the Mariners, and just one year after Adam Eaton got a 3-year, $28 million contract from the Phillies and Jeff Suppan got 4 years, $42 million from the Brewers.

To find a comparable deal, you’d have to go back a long time. In 1998, for example, the Texas Rangers signed 30-year-old starting pitcher Mark Clark to 2-year, $9.3 million dollar deal after Clark had given an extremely Lohse-like performance the year before, going 9-14 with a 4.84 ERA for the Cubs.

Of course, that deal was widely panned at the time, and didn’t work out very well for either the Rangers or Mark Clark (who was out of baseball after the contract), but the point is that it was more than TEN YEARS AGO, when baseball had far less money than it does now, that a Kyle Lohse-like pitcher was given less than $5 million a year.

So basically, this deal is a huge steal for the Cardinals. In the best case scenario, Lohse pitches well, saves the bullpen for half a season, and then the Cards can flip him to a contender at the deadline, getting one or two good prospects after having paid Lohse less than the typical signing bonus of a first rounder.

In the worst case scenario, if Lohse sucks or gets injured, the Cardinals will only be out 4.25 million bucks, which in this day and age is the kind of spare change major league teams can find in their clubhouse couches. The Cards wouldn’t even have to buy out Lohse’s option year, because they didn’t even give him an option year. And keep in mind, Kyle Lohse has never been on the disabled list for a even a single day in his whole career.

In fact, Justin Inaz over at “On Baseball…and the Reds” breaks down the numbers and shows that Kyle Lohse is probably worth about the same as Carlos Silva, and that in an ideal contract both pitchers should have gotten about around $7 or $8 million per year for a 3-year deal.

So given that the Cardinals seem to be paying Lohse a little over half of what he should be worth, at almost no risk, and may very well be able to flip him for prospects, why is Cardinals GM John Mozeliak so down about the signing? In fact, he actually laments to the AP reporter,

“If it were a perfect world, we wouldn’t have had to go down this path. But it’s not and we’re going to need someone to pitch every fifth day.”

And how the heck can we explain how Lohse lasted so long on the free agent market without getting a better deal?

I think part of the answer has to be Scott Boras. With messy, high profile breakups between Boras and players like A-Rod, Gary Sheffield, and Kenny Rogers hitting the newswires this offseason, and now Boras’s failure to get reasonable contracts for actually semi-valuable major leaguers like Jeff Weaver, Corey Patterson, and Lohse, we may be seeing a decline and fall of the once-mighty Boras Empire. It seems as if both teams and players may be tiring of Boras’s negotiating style, and while teams may still be willing to talk to Boras when it comes to signing superstars, they simply don’t want to deal with the bother when it comes to the mediocre players.

Another reason may be a glut of amazing young talent this year, as Sarah discussed in a recent post. But I think there is something else in this case, something that has to do with Kyle Lohse in particular. The USS Mariner and East Windup Chronicle have supported the theory that this offseason baseball front offices have suddenly discovered the sabermetric idea of “replacement level” players, who can deliver almost the same performance as the lower tier of major leaguers at a vastly reduced cost, but I have a really hard time buying that argument. While certainly there are a *few* GMs around the game that have embraced some sabermetric ideas, there are plenty of counterexamples of GMs who seem just as enamored of big names and veteran experience as ever.

No, I think what is going on here is that GMs are looking at the same old thing they have always been looking at, which is so-called intangibles. Kyle Lohse has long had a reputation as an selfish underachiever, going back to his Minnesota days, and the fact that he went with Scott Boras as his agent despite being a fifth-starter type only added to this reputation. I don’t think all that many GMs were looking too closely at Kyle Lohse’s actual numbers or his marginal value over a “replacement level” player. They were just considering his reputation as a guy who simply doesn’t have the right “makeup” to make the most of his talent, a guy who isn’t a “winner” or simply doesn’t have enough “heart,” and decided that that simply wasn’t the type of guy they wanted to be bringing into their clubhouse, regardless of the cost.

It would be nice to think that we are finally getting to an era when pretty much all GMs all around the game are finally coming to terms with spreadsheets and new statistics and are willing to break down numbers in a systematic way to evaluate players more rationally. But I don’t think we are quite there yet. I mean, this is an offseason in which JP Riccardi, a one-time disciple of Billy Beane who has long been touted as one of the more stats-friendly GMs in the majors signed David Eckstein to be his starting shortstop because he thought he needed to be bringing more “gamers” into his clubhouse.

I think that, ironically, the more statheads raise a hue and cry about how overrated a player is, the more attractive many GMs actually find that player. Because in their minds, if a player is outperforming what you would expect, that is not evidence of a routine statistical anomaly or a small sample size but actually just additional proof that that player has “heart,” “grit,” or “intangibles,” and that he is a “gamer” or “just knows how to win.”

Kyle Lohse is the opposite, a player who has consistently underperformed expectations, which I think goes far toward explaining why most teams wouldn’t touch him with a 10-foot pole this winter, and why even the Cardinals are left feeling icky after signing him, despite the fact that they will probably be getting tremendous value out of the deal.

Professional baseball players are selfish. Everybody knows it. They’re greedy, money grubbing douchebags.

Except, for most of this offseason, they weren’t.

Don’t believe me? Let’s take a walk down memory lane.

This winter, Troy Tulowitzki, Matt Holliday, Robinson Cano, Brad Hawpe, Manny Corpas and a few others signed contracts that locked them up through their arbitration-eligible years. They left money on the table (possibly) in exchange for financial security. Nobody wants to go year to year.

Mike Lowell gave the Boston Red Sox a hometown discount. So did Curt Schilling. And the latter even promised to lose weight!

Alex Rodriguez negotiated his contract with the Yankees himself (with the aid of Warren Buffett), pushing aside Scott Boras and signing for millions less than many speculated he might get.

Kenny Rogers flat out fired Boras. Garry Sheffield called the super agent a “bad person.”

Manny Ramirez showed up to camp in great shape and told the media that he wanted to play until he was 50 and that he wanted to retire a Red Sox.

It all seemed too good to be true. Maybe it was.
Lately, the era of good feelings has come to a screetching halt.

First, Schilling announced that he wanted to have surgery, but the Red Sox wouldn’t let him.

Then Ramirez, fresh off his “I want to stay in Boston” speech, hired Boras as his new agent. Not that hiring Boras is a guarantee that Ramirez will sign elsewhere — but it’s certainly not encouraging.

This week, Jonathan Papelbon said he wants $900,000 — the same amount Ryan Howard got in his third year. The implication, as always: they can pay now or somebody else will get the chance to pay later.

Also, Prince Fielder and Cole Hamels got all bent out of shape when their teams renewed their contracts. Both players felt like they got jipped. Hamels called his $500,000 contract a “low blow.” Here’s what Fielder had to say about his $670,000 deal:

“I’m not happy about it at all,” Fielder said. “The fact I’ve had to be renewed two years in a row, I’m not happy about it because there’s a lot of guys who have the same amount of time that I do who have done a lot less and are getting paid a lot more.

“But my time is going to come. It’s going to come quick, too.”

Them there’s fightin’ words.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that Tampa Bay CF B.J. Upton said all the right things after his contract was renewed by the Rays this week. Upton will make $10,000 less than he made in 2007, despite hitting .300-24-82 with 22 steals last year. But he says the slight won’t affect his play.

Upton’s tact notwithstanding, the last few weeks represented a bit of turbulance in the otherwise smooth sailing relationship between the players and management. What will the future hold? Your guess is as good as mine.

Nothing says “I want to stay here” and “I want to finish my career here” like going out and hiring Scott Boras as your agent, right?Oh Manny, you so crazy!

For those of you who missed it (where the hell were you?), last week, we here at UmpBump nominated 27 deserving men to be the first ever recipients of The Douchies, an award that finally recognizes the douchiness of certain individuals employed by Major League Baseball. Close to 500 of you cast a total of 1746 votes in our four categories and I have to say, some of the results were surprising.

So here they are! Your winners of the 1st Annual Douchie Awards!

The Reggie Jackson Award for Best Display of Attention Grabbing is named after a man who has attained mythical stature as an attention-whore during his playing career. He was the forebearer to the modern, preening baseball player, putting the size of the contract ahead of most anything else. This award will be presented to the person who best personified Mr. Jackson’s penchant to run after the spotlight no matter what cost.

And the winner is…

Read the rest of this entry »

Not too long ago, we asked the question, “Was Matsuzaka worth it?” And we concluded that he wasn’t. At least, not last season. But we remained optimistic that, in coming seasons, Matsuzaka would yet live up to his expensive contract.

Of course, that was taking for granted that Matsuzaka was as valuable a marketing tool as he was a strikeout machine. Scott Boras sold the Red Sox on Matsuzaka’s ability to bring in big bucks from Japan. And the Sox sold us on that theory.

But now comes word from the Boston Herald’s Rob Bradford that Matsuzaka wasn’t the marketing dynamo that we were led to believe.

Sam Kennedy, the Red Sox senior vice president of sales and marketing, told Bradford that the Matsuzaka signing wasn’t as profitable as the Sox imagined it would be:

“The Japanese advertising market has been softer than we thought, especially considering we have two Japanese pitchers.”

Softer? How soft?

While most estimates have Seattle and the Yankees garnering between $3-6 million annually because of the presence of Japanese outfielders Ichiro Suzuki and Hideki Matsui, respectively, the Red Sox’ final tally came up well short.

Funai Electronics proved to be the sole sponsorship gained because of Dice-K, netting the Red Sox an annual contract of approximately $900,000.

How come so soft?

“There was absolutely not this windfall of corporate advertising dollars we thought there may be, or that (Matsuzaka’s) representative might have led you to believe during the negotiations,” Kennedy said.

Wait? Scott Boras lied? Impossible!

But I don’t get it? Why weren’t the Japanese as excited about Matsuzaka playing in the US as they were about Ichiro, or Matsui?

Part of that was due to the advertisements in Fenway Park [map] not being as relevant in Matsuzaka’s case as they might be for an outfielder. Matsui, for instance, can potentially stand in front of a Japanese advertisement in the outfield for 162 games while the Sox pitcher is limited to one appearance every five days.

“We can’t put a sign on the pitcher’s mound,” Kennedy said.

Or could we? Mwa ha ha!

Alex Rodriguez now knows what it feels like to be upstaged. Barry Bonds’ indictment drowned out the news reports that A-Rod was about to re-sign with the Yankees. Since A-Rod’s contract status has been the most hotly discussed topic in an otherwise rather tepid hot-stove season, surely the news of his impending nuptials with New York would have garnered more airtime, no?

Maybe not. As Nick was among the first to point out, maybe A-Rod heading back to New York was more of a foregone conclusion than it at first seemed.

As late as Tuesday, media reports were circling that the players’ union, dismayed over the lack of interest in A-Rod, was growing concerned about possible collusion against him by the owners.  But this just shows how paranoid the players’ union is. There is only one team in baseball that can afford a 10 year, $275 million deal. Even with some deep pockets at other clubs, no one can match the Yankees in a bidding war.

Alex, we are supposed to believe, was angry at the way Boras mishandled the situation, announcing his client’s free agency during Game 4 of the World Series. Alex, we have been told, was hurt by the backlash against him and wanted to remain a Yankee all along. So Alex, the media reports said, approached the Steinbrenners with his tail between his legs, his agent nowhere to be seen, and asked for forgiveness…and 10 years, 300 million dollars. Boras, for his part, finally met his match.

I’m skeptical. If there is one thing A-Rod has shown so far, it’s that he has little media savvy and, despite his most desperate efforts, no control over his image. And if there’s one thing we know about Scott Boras, it’s that he’s an evil genius who doesn’t care how he makes his millions. If Scott Boras had the choice between a hypothetical 8 year, $200 million deal from, say, the Dodgers and a 10 year, $275 million deal with the Yankees, and the only thing he had to do to get his percentage of the extra $75 mill was fabricate a little bad blood between his client, the most disdained player in baseball, and himself, the most despised agent in baseball, do you think he’d even hesitate? Besides, the I’m-mad-at-my-agent-let’s-just-talk-without-him schtick is a tactic the two have used before. And in the past, he’s described his job as to “create the theater of who the player is.”

Did Boras miscalculate when he leaked the news of his client’s free agency during the World Series? Undoubtedly. Was Boras mistaken in the market out for A-Rod? Almost certainly. When push came to shove, the only team to even make Rodriguez a formal offer was…the Toledo Mud Hens. But did Boras cost his client money? I don’t think so. Even with the money they were getting from the Rangers, the contract extension the Yankees were preparing for A-Rod came to 8 years, $230 million. At the worst, Boras hurt his client’s reputation (which his machinations, as described above, have now already started to repair). Even if A-Rod hadn’t opted out, the Yankees probably would have been willing to give A-Rod another couple of years and a few more tens of millions of dollars. So at worst, from A-Rod’s perspective, the past three weeks have all been a pointless sideshow. And at best, this pointless and probably painful sideshow has netted him some extra millions. While the Yankees probably would have gone up to $275 million even without the opt-out drama, that extra bit of leverage is, in my view, what allowed Boras to squeeze out an extra $25 million in performance bonuses. That brings the total potential value of the contract to the nice, round number of $300 million dollars. Which, of course, is just what Boras originally set out to get. Beyond the A-Rod/Yankees drama, there’s another winner here: the Texas Rangers, who are finally free of the albatross of the $252 million deal they signed with A-Rod all those years ago. What might they do with their extra $21.3 million? Might they sign a free-agent pitcher? Might that be Kenny Rogers, who just happens to be another Boras client? It wouldn’t be the first time Boras has been accused of orchestrating events to suit multiple clients at the same time.

Boras might look like the loser of this contest in this news cycle, but make no mistake: long term, he has won. Again. In the world of Scott Boras, everything has a price. And to get his client the 10 year, $300 million dollar deal he wanted, all Boras had to do was kick some dirt on his own reputation. That’s a trade you have to make.

Yesterday, New York Times writer Jeffrey N. Gordon gave us his take on the A-Rod opt-out. And it’s a must read.

In short, Gordon thinks A-Rod opted out because he wants to be a Yankee, not because he doesn’t.

Conventional wisdom is that Rodriguez willfully ignored the Yankees’ repeated public assertions that they could not rationally pursue him in free agency because they would lose $30 million from the Texas Rangers when they took over his contract. But the Yankees’ assertion is simply a bargaining gambit.

Assume some other team, call them the Dodgers, were to offer Rodriguez $32 million a year for eight years. Remember that the Dodgers are receiving no part of the Rangers’ booty. Is it really the Yankees’ position that Rodriguez is worth more to the Dodgers than to the Yankees? If the Dodgers can afford to pay the $32 million a year, can the Yankees — the richest franchise in sports — plead poverty?

Gordon then goes on to defend A-Rod’s agent, Scott Boras, and his decision to announce A-Rod’s opt-out during game seven of the World Series:

Does this sound too sophisticated for a fellow who makes his living hitting home runs? Remember that his agent, Scott Boras, is the black-belt negotiator. Why would Boras gratuitously expose Rodriguez to ridicule and scorn?

I gotta tell ya, I agree with Gordon. We’ve all been so quick to assume that Boras announced A-Rod’s opt-out during the World Series because it offered his client maximum media exposure.

But let’s give Boras the benefit of the doubt. He’s never given us any reason to suspect he’s anything but media savvy.

Go ahead. Read Gordon’s story. And then ask yourself: did I underestimate Scott Boras — again?

Here’s a round-up of recent baseball tidbits. Sigh. It must be November.

In case you missed it, Red Sox catcher (and captain) Jason Varitek did one better than handing out candy this Halloween: he gave out autographs. After the Variteks’ Halloween party broke up (the guest list included the Mirabellis and the Lowells), Tek took a lawn chair out to the driveway and started signing, at the suggestion of his 7-year-old daughter. The short version:

Christopher Roberts, 10, dressed up as the catcher - a white number 33 Red Sox jersey, baseball pants, and red colored socks pulled up past his calves - only to find himself standing face-to-face with his hero.

“He signed my shirt, right on the first three,” Roberts said.

Two police cruisers came to direct traffic and control the crowd, which swelled to some 50 youngsters and parents on a leafy block in the tony village of Waban, in Newton.

“Varitek looked really tired,” said Chris O’Connell, 45, who brought his sons Joshua, (dressed as a Japanese ninja), 9, and Zeke, (Darth Vader), 7, to get autographs. “It was great - for him to be sitting out there after 9 o’clock on Halloween says a lot about the guy.”

At the local commuter station a few blocks from Varitek’s home, the village’s affection for the Sox catcher is articulated on handwritten signs hung on a fence - “Waban Loves V-Tek!” and “Tek is the best” - that he passes on his route to Fenway Park.

“Waban has been good to us and respected our privacy,” Varitek said yesterday in an interview at his home. “It was a good opportunity for me to say thanks.”

At the O’Connell house, Joshua woke up the morning after Halloween in disbelief. He spotted the baseball signed by the catcher of the 2007 World Series champions, but still ran down stairs with a question. “I asked mom if it was a dream,” he said.

And not quite a family man yet, Jonathan Papelbon took to the airwaves, using some colorful language on The Late Show. He also exposed fellow fan favorite David Ortiz….as an avid Bedazzler:

I kept waiting for Letterman to ask him about the Papel-face. Oh well.

Manny Ramirez also went on the Late Show, where he at first seemed almost in thrall of Jay Leno, which was kind of cute. Despite some requests to be traded away from Boston in the past, it sounds like Manny is quite happy to stay there now:

Steve Carrell was the other guest and just seems happily bemused by the whole thing.

And to round out our late-night lineup, we present the video Conan O’Brien interviewing one Bedazzled motherf*cker, David Ortiz, who came bearing gifts:

His advice to you? Go home and get some ass. (Seriously, he said that!)

In other news, Scott Boras continues to furiously backpedal from his mismanagement of A-Rod’s already dubious public image, which he cast into further disrepute by announcing his client’s free agency during Game 4 of the World Series. He now insists that A-Rod didn’t really mean to stand up Hank Aaron. Nonetheless, any warm feelings that half-assed excuse could stir were instantly negated by news leaking out that Boras and A-Rod considered the Yankees’ lucrative $230 million contract to be about $100 million short. The Hardball Times has a full breakdown on the challenges Boras and Rodriguez face en route to securing that massive contract.

In other douchery, Barry Bonds whined about getting scapegoated. If you don’t click on the link, did he make a sound? The AP reports that Bonds won’t attend the Hall of Fame ceremony inducting his record-setting home run ball if the ball is branded with an asterisk, as fans have demanded (an artist bought the ball and set up a website where seamheads could vote on whether the ball should be asterisked or not; the result was overwhelmingly in favor of asterisking). Bonds explained:

““You cannot give people the freedom, the right to alter history. You can’t do it. “

Those are some strong words. Does this mean we can count on George Bush to invade Barry’s house?

A few last Red-Sox-as-World-Champs notes: Charlie Pierce has an engaging column on the Sox’ win that a) refreshingly demonstrates that the Red Sox are not, in fact, the New Yankees, and b) contains this interesting nugget:

On Sunday, they brought out Papelbon, and that fearsome goofball ended the game by blowing away pinch hitter Seth Smith with some high heat, and by demonstrating some impressive upper-body strength by hoisting the fully armored Jason Varitek off the ground.

(Note to Papelbon: Baseball etiquette requires that the catcher lift the pitcher in such situations.)

This may be true, but at least on the Red Sox, the last time I saw Tek hoist the pitcher, it was when he lofted 120-pounds-soaking-wet rookie Clay Buchholz after his no hitter. Everyone else seems to insist on hoisting Varitek (as Foulke did in 2004, I might add).

And sadly, just as I was coming to rely on Will Leitch’s Fair and Foul blog, it is stolen from me. But not before he points out a few salient items, one of which I was thinking of myself as Leno interviewed Manny: why doesn’t anyone ever ask him about hitting? Maybe that’s not of interest to the typical Late Show viewer, but I would dearly love an opportunity to hear the Maestro break down his art. Maybe some day.

So A-Rod opted out of his contract with the Yankees. Is anyone really surprised?

Well, I suppose some people must be surprised since the media consensus over the past week seemed to be moving toward the notion that the Yankees would just offer whatever it took to keep him and that would be that.

But we must always remember that Scott Boras ALWAYS takes his players to free agency. It’s a matter of principle, but also just smart business practice. If your job is to make the most money you possibly can for your client, why would you ever accept a situation in which you have less leverage than you could have?

But this also shows that A-Rod is a weak-willed character who is totally under the thumb of Scott Boras. We have long known that Scott Boras can convince many GMs and owners of almost anything, but we should also recognize how much he uses that silver tongue on his own clients.

Because I think we can all agree that it was probably in A-Rod’s best interest to stay with the Yankees. He was finally on the verge of becoming a “True Yankee” and signing a Jeter-esque 9-year Yankee-for-life type contract would have sealed the deal. He could have finished out his career on the most glamorous team in sports and had his name etched into Baseball Lore alongside the likes of Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, and Mantle.

But now, if the Yankees keep their word and refuse to negotiate with A-Rod, his time with the Yankees are done, and at age 32, A-Rod will be joining his fourth team. He will go into the Hall of Fame as a mercenary, and choosing which team’s hat he should wear will be one of the most difficult hat-choosing decisions the Hall will have ever faced.

I mean, if he retired today, would we think of A-Rod as a Mariner? As a Ranger? As a Yankee? He was all of those, but really none of those. He certainly never quite reached “True Yankee” status, and if there is such thing as being a “True Mariner” or a “True Ranger” he certainly never became those either.

But more than anything, A-Rod and the Yankees were such a match made in Heaven, because A-Rod was such a great symbol for everything the Yankees of this current era represent. The team that is willing to spend any amount of money signs the games most mercenary player to the biggest deal ever. A-Rod needs to be on the Yankees, because it simultaneously makes both the Yankees and A-Rod more hateable, thus perpetuating two of 21st-century baseball’s greatest traditions.

But now? A-Rod as an Angel? A-Rod as a Met? A-Rod as a Phillie? He just doesn’t belong on any of those teams.

And as for the Yankees, they are now officially in total disarray. Torre is gone. A-Rod seems gone. Rivera and Posada can feel free to leave if they want. Clemens and Mussina are done.

And it’s not like the Yankees can just fill holes by overpaying on the free agent market anymore, the way they had for so many years, what with the way the free agent market has dried up over the last few years with teams locking up players to long term deals so much earlier these days.

Scott Boras is likely correct - the Yankees probably do need A-Rod even more than A-Rod needs the Yankees, and it probably would be in the Yankees’ best interest to negotiate with A-Rod anyway, even though they swore they would not.

And I think that is probably what is going to happen, actually.

Although what I would really love the Yankees to do is to send a strong message, offering A-Rod the exact same monstrous 5-year extension they reportedly offered him the day before he opted out, but with the $27 million they will no longer be getting from the Rangers subtracted from the total. So they can say, “Fine, you want to cost us $27 million? Well it’s coming out of your salary.”

My girlfriend is chasing her PhD in applied mathematics, so I get subjected to a lot of talk about circuits, black holes and equations. And most of it is way over my head. That’s why I get really excited when scientists come out with something that even I understand.

Yesterday, USA Today announced the release of a new scientific study that proves that, “Even after a long series of competitions, the best team does not always finish first.”

From USA Today:

The study authors, who specialize in studying random behavior in complex materials, plugged the odds of low-seed teams beating high-seed ones, 44% in baseball over the last century, into a mathematical model of a typical season.

The more games played, the better the chances that the higher seeded teams will become champions, according to the study. And it becomes less likely that a weak team will weasel its way to the top.

Frankly, nothing in this report should come as any surprise to anyone who watches sports. Over the course of a long season, the talented teams always win. But over the course of a short playoff series, sometimes a Cinderella will prevail.

Last year, people got genuinely pissed when the Cardinals won the World Series. Bloggers and columnists wondered aloud if they were the worst champions ever.

In fact, the 2006 Cardinals were not the worst team to win a World Series. That honor goes to the 2003 Marlins, who the study says were the crappiest team in the last 50 years to win a championship.

Most of the time, of course, the better team does win — especially in baseball. The study says baseball’s lengthy season rewards superior squads more than, say, football’s 16 game regular season.

But in the playoffs, baseball could do more to ensure that the better team comes out on top:

But to ensure that the best Major League Baseball team wins, a longer World Series, say 11 games, would be mathematically appropriate. “The same is true for other competitions in arts, science and politics,” write the study authors.

A longer World Series? What a crazy idea. Seems to me somebody suggested that not too long ago. Can’t remember who…

Oh that’s right — it was Scott Boras! The super agent told Bud Selig he wanted to make the World Series nine games, instead of seven. He also said that the first two games of the series should be played at a neutral site.

Sure, Boras claimed his motivation for expanding the series was to create a “marketing bonanza.” But is it possible that, in addition to making money, a longer world series might actually make sense?