The baseball owners are going to love this. They implemented a salary cap only two weeks ago, and already a player agent has figured out a way to squeeze even more money out of their new system.
Scott Boras is the agent who engaged the Orioles in a bitter contract dispute over Ben McDonald in 1988. He still represents McDonald, and now he has devised a plan that would enable the pitcher to leave Baltimore.
McDonald, 27, is a restricted free agent under the owners' new economic system, meaning the Orioles can retain him by matching the offer of any club attempting to sign him.
Boras also represents four other top pitchers in the same category -- Steve Avery, Andy Benes, Alex Fernandez and Jim Abbott. His plan not only would make them rich, it would give them unprecedented bargaining power.
That is, if the owners went along.
It seems doubtful, seeing as how the plan revolves around an oral promise by a player to stay with the club that signs him. The point is, agents like Boras will find loopholes and outsmart the owners under any system.
Boras is Lex Luthor to Bud Selig's Superman.
And now he's even more dangerous, with time on his hands.
For now, the union has imposed a moratorium on contract signings, not because the players are on strike, but because it wants to educate them on the cap. Eventually, that moratorium will be lifted. And then the fun will begin.
Oh, the owners will just love the Boras plan. They designed restricted free agency to hold down salaries for the four- and five-year players who once benefited from salary arbitration. Boras, naturally, is proposing just the opposite.
"The clubs are saying, you know Baltimore will match any offer for McDonald," Boras says.
"And I say, believe me, there's a contract mechanism I can give you where there's no way a club can match it."
Are you ready, Roland Hemond?
Breakfast is served.
Boras says he would ask clubs interested in McDonald to make an offer, but not just any offer.
A five-year, guaranteed offer.
An offer with an inflated first-year salary.
L An offer with an option to void the contract after one year.
Yes, it's the dreaded one-and-out clause, coming soon to a ballpark near you. The owners are to be congratulated. Without realizing it, they might have created an entire generation of Chris Webbers.
