After pissing off a fair share of Rays fans with his comments about not wanting to play for a reduced salary, Snell threw us all another change up by switching agents this week from Apex Baseball to Scott Boras
Boras, has a reputation as difficult to negotiate with and employs hardball tactics in every negotiation.
This was a head-scratcher considering the fact that Snell just signed a 5 year 50 million contract in 2019 and is under a contract for another four years through 2023.
Snell will earn $10.5 million in 2021, $12.5 million in 2022, and $16 million in the last year of the deal in 2023.
This switch in agents does not look good for Snell staying in Tampa past 2023.
Boras is a hardball agent who stops at nothing to get one extra dollar for his client. There will be no hometown discount offered by Boras as he has no concept of what that is.
Boras will take the money and run. He will auction off Snell to the highest bidder even if that means Snell ends up playing in Pittsburgh or Minnesota.
Wouldn’t matter to Boras. He will say that he has the best interests of his client in mind, but that best interest is dollar signs.
It’s all about the Benjamin’s for Scott Boras and that’s all you need to know.
After signing his new contract last spring, Snell had an injury-plagued season going 6-8 with a 4.29 ERA.
Snell had been shut down in spring training due to inflammation, but according to Rays pitching Kyle Snyder is 100 percent healthy and ready to go.
So enjoy watching Blake Snell in a Rays uniform the next three seasons. After that, he will be gone. And so may the rest of the Rays in 2028.
Next week the restrictions in place at Tropicana field should be relaxed. The Rays could allow pitchers to throw off the mound, and hitters to pick up a bat and take a swing or two.
The Rays are also talking about bringing in more weights and exercise equipment for the players to use.
The billionaire owners and millionaire players continue to haggle over how much the players will get paid this season.
Time is of the essence.
With a projected three-week spring training and July 4th start to the season, there is not a lot of time left on the calendar to get a deal done.
Let’s hope common sense wins out in the end and we will have baseball in 2020.
