Rob comes to WEEI.com after serving as a Red Sox beat writer for the Boston Herald. He has written two books, Chasing Steinbrenner, in which he follows the front offices of the Red Sox and Toronto Blue Jays through the 2003 season, and Deep Drive: A Long Journey to Discovering the Champion Within.
Brad Penny confirmed to WEEI.com that he has reached a preliminary agreement with the Red Sox on a one-year deal with a base salary of $5 million, which was first reported by FoxSports.com. The contract has the potential to reach a total of $8 million for the year with incentives.
“There were a lot of teams involved,” said Penny in a phone conversation, “but I wanted to go somewhere where I knew we had a great chance at winning and Boston is that place.”
Penny, who was shut down in September last season by the Dodgers with a sore shoulder after experiencing bouts of tendinitis throughout the 2008 season, will take a physical in Boston on Jan. 7, which is when the deal will become official if the examination goes off without a hitch. The 29-year-old right-hander said he will begin his throwing program next week.
Penny had already talked to two of his former teammates with the Marlins, Mike Lowell and Josh Beckett, Sunday, to pass along the news of his agreement with the Red Sox.
Speaking of Beckett, the right-hander will begin his throwing program Monday. He had begun exercises on his throwing shoulder earlier this offseason than in years past.
The injury the hurler experienced throughout the end of the 2008 season involving his side has also subsided. Upon further examination it was determined that the ailment was centered more in the intercostal muscles (running between the ribs), and less an problem with his oblique, than previously thought. Because of the location of the intercostals, there wouldn’t have been much different the Red Sox’ medical team could have done to alleviate the pain he was incurring throughout the postseason.
I know this subject comes up every offseason, folks wondering why anybody would use Scott Boras for anything but helping keep photoshopped devil’s horns in business. But usually the majority of those who are forming such opinions aren’t the ones who are handing over the five percent to Boras Corp. Talk to that faction and you will have a distinctly different crafted picture.
As we hear the evils that come with a Scott Boras negotiation, all I can do is present you with some examples of his righteousness as suggested by some clients.
Let’s start with J.D. Drew. Drew, a devout Christian who lives his life under the ‘family first-baseball second’ umbrella, would seem to live at the complete opposite end of the spectrum from Boras. But talk to the Red Sox outfielder about his agent, and you hear of a person that Drew perceives as a family man, who is also grounded in his own faith, and somebody who will always be there for you.
After listening to Drew you honestly believe that Boras would prioritize sending out Christmas cards over contract demands.
Bottom line is if you want to scrap every penny you can from the bottom of the barrel, leave nothing on the table, he’s your guy. That being said I’ve spoken at length with Jason about him, a guy I have a ton of respect for, and Jason considers him a very close friend, so that means something to me.
Couple the feeling of good vibes with the notion that Boras will always protect his guys by taking the bullet and being the bad guy, and that adds up to a pretty powerful combination.
Alex Cora, another Boras client, is all about the agent’s hands-on approach. He insists that no other agent will take as much of a personal interest in their client as this guy, no matter what the pay-scale. Cora cites the example of when he signed his two-year deal with the Red Sox. Boras sat him down and explained that he was going to lay out a plan for the infielder to stay physically fit enough that when his next contract came up he would be in position to score another payday. He then hooked Cora up with the Boras Corp. personal training guru, Steve Odgers, and presented a diet/fitness plan to keep the utilityman’s greatest asset to potential suitors — his infield range — viable enough so that the value would still be there.
This was after signing the two-year deal!
Here’s something I wrote in the Eagle-Tribune on March 1, 2007:
Scott Boras, of all people, has shown Cora the light.
“Scott and I talked about it and he said if you keep your legs and range, you’re going to keep making money,” the Sox utility infielder said. “I turned 31, but if I keep doing what I’m doing, there will be a few options out there, not breaking the bank, but making some money.”
The words of wisdom from Cora’s agent, which came after he signed a two-year, $4 million contract with the Red Sox, led the infielder to change his ways. Using the online guidance of Boras’ conditioning director, Steve Odgers, the Boston infielder altered his eating habits (most notably, cutting out beer and rice), while staying loyal to Odgers’ offseason workouts.
After playing for much of last season at 200 pounds, the 6-foot Cora shot up to 205 immediately after the season. At last check, however, his weight had dipped to 191 with his body-fat percentage dipping from 14 percent last year to 10.
Cora’s journey back to fitness began with Boras, was kick started by Odgers and continued thanks to Cruz, who began working with Cora on Nov. 1 and hasn’t stopped since.
“Scott was the one who mentioned it,” Cora said. “He said, ‘You see this contract we got? This is why we got it.’ I already mentioned I wanted to lose a little weight, and he said that was a good idea. Now I feel good.
“(Boras) just mentioned I could get one more two-year deal, or two more, and then we can go year by year. It all depends on if I can keep my range.”
Then, of course, there is that other factor when signing up Boras … getting the money. But it’s more than that. In many players’ eyes it’s about the belief that this guy will somehow navigate around sometimes enormous obstacles to make their situation appreciably better.
When Julian Tavarez was looking at the potential of having the Red Sox control his existence with a team option, leaving the pitcher feeling like he might be missing out on a payday as a starter for another team, he had his focus on Boras. The conversation went something like this …
“They can control you. They have final say.”
“Yeah,” Tavarez responded, smiling, “but I have Scott.”
Reality be darned, this was the perception. Boras means more than legally binding documents.
Of course there is another example, Manny Ramirez. Starting in August 2007, Ramirez had asked his then-agent, Greg Genske, to find out if the Red Sox had planned to pick up his option after 2008. That morphed into a desire to at least meet with the Sox brass to broach the subject following the ‘08 campaign. When no headway was made, Ramirez turned to the agent he believed would break free of the lingering nothingness and get the job done — Boras.
The player whose existence was perceived as silence and uncertainty all of a sudden became a stream of sound bites, most of which included some reference to the new dream of a six-year deal. The transformation was no coincidence.
And, at the end of the day, the heart of the Ramirez case offers the most succinct answer as to Boras is consistently wooed by pro ballplayers, young and old. The other stuff is nice — and fairly fascinating — but at the end of the day he gets them the money. End of story.
LAS VEGAS — While exiting the Bellagio Hotel, and Baseball Winter Meetings, came across one final nugget …
With the Twins’ re-signing of Nick Punto, the Mets are targeting Alex Cora to replace Damian Easley as a middle infielder. Cora is now a free agent after having been with the Red Sox since the middle of the 2005 season.
Easley played in 113 games, getting 316 at-bats, with the Mets last season while playing five different positions (primarily second base). Cora hit .270 with a .371 on-base percentage, playing in 75 games with 152 at-bats.
WEEI.com’s Lou Merloni talked to a source close to Derek Lowe who reported that the acquisition of C.C. Sabathia by Yankees has actually made the prospects of signing with New York more attractive to the right-handed pitcher. Reportedly, Lowe’s thinking was that without Sabathia there may be too many questions still remaining in the Yankees’ rotation. There are some reports that Lowe has been offered a deal worth four years at more than $60 million.
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