Monday, February 2, 2009

Solving the "who is 'scottboras.com'" riddle?

So who is that dastardly "scottboras.com" that Gammons was once complaining about? Well, if you believe Rich Lederer of the Baseball Analysts, it's none other than Jon Heyman of SI.com.

If you're wondering how Heyman got wind of the news before any of the Boston beat writers or columnists, be aware that he had Mark Teixeira going to the Yankees before anyone else and, according to his biography, also "broke the story of Barry Bonds going to the Giants in 1992...Alex Rodriguez going to the Yankees in 2004, A-Rod opting out of his $252-million contract in 2007 and Manny Ramirez going to the Dodgers in 2008."

Varitek. Teixeira. Manny. A-Rod 2x. Bonds, vintage 1992. Do you notice anything in common? Yes, all of these players are or were represented by Boras at the time of their signings. It is plainly obvious that Heyman, known among fellow writers as scottboras.com, is getting fed such stories by Scott himself, which is fine and dandy except there is more going on here than meets the eye.

You see, Boras throws Heyman a bone on a Tek or Tex signing but also uses him to spread rumors about the level of interest and terms in ongoing free agent negotiations to create a false sense of demand. Teams that fall for this trick wind up competing against themselves, which is exactly what Boras desires.
Rich goes on from there, analyzing seemingly every Heyman story, particularly the ones around Manny. Let's just say it isn't the kindest portrayal of the Heyman/Manny/Boras dryhumping reporting.

2 comments:

Jay said...

That makes a lot of sense. I've never put too much faith in what Heyman said as opposed to Joel Sherman, Buster Onley and of course, Ken Rosensquirrel, among others. It would certainly help explain away the trade proposal for Holliday to the Yankees for Robinson Cano and Phil Hughes he retardedly proposed.

He also had the scoop on the Holliday trade to Oakland.

Anonymous said...

Wasn't Bonds represented by Dennis Gilbert then?