Baseball

• Some interesting ideas include: increase scholarships, bring back the one-time transfer rule, make a switch to wooden bats, and push the MLB Draft to after the CWS [College baseball still needs major changes].
• Big ATL agents (France – football and Abbott – baseball) will be in attendance [First Ever Brian McCann Celebrity Softball Game Set for 11/13].
• Quite a line from Boras: “If stem-cell research were around, you’d want to tap into that gene pool.” [Scott Boras is making pitch for Johnny Damon's free agency this winter]
• The Arizona Fall League has produced a lot of very successful Major League players [Scout's Diary: AFL Still A Great Secret].

Football

• Surprised that Antonio Gates is not in the top 10 paid TEs? [Under the Cap: Top Ten Tight Ends]
• I also hate the uniforms, but glad to see that NFL execs are taking a peek at the talent [Don't discount the UFL].
• Josh Morgan seems to be taking the news pretty well [Report: Crabtree likely to start for 49ers].

Sports Agents

• Former sports agent, Alonzo “Lon” Monk, was up to some shady business [Ex-Blagojevich aide pleads guilty to corruption].

A young-adult receives many benefits from going to college.  The education attained from living on your own for the first time, sitting in on lectures taught by the best of their trades, drinking too much certain nights, etc. is tough to learn elsewhere.  However, for talented high school baseball players, college is an experience that may be put aside…at least for the time being.  If offered a signing bonus in the 6 to 7 figure range and the opportunity to live your dream by having a chance at an early start with an MLB affiliate, how do you say no?  It’s definitely tough to decline.  But what about giving up your senior year of high school?  No prom, no homecoming, no graduation with your best friends you have known your entire life.  Is it worth it?

Bryce Harper and his parents think so.  If you think Stephen Strasburg received a lot of hype leading up to the 2009 MLB Draft, you ain’t seen nothin yet.  Baseball columnists are already speculating what kind of bonus Harper will receive when he is selected #1 overall in the 2010 Draft.  That’s right…you can already pencil his name in…he is apparently THAT good.  But again, is it worth skipping senior year of HIGH SCHOOL to be the #1 overall pick in 2010 instead of the #1 overall pick in 2011?

While the Harpers think so, a man named Landon Powell disagrees.  And he knows best, because he missed the prom to start playing pro ball a year early.  Unfortunately for Landon, that did not work exactly according to plan.  While he did not end up signing with an MLB team until many years after making his decision, Harper will undoubtedly be picked #1 overall next year.  That being said, Landon still makes a good point.

“I was still young and not making my own decisions. My dad and Boras did, and my name was getting dragged through the mud. When you tell an 18-year-old kid, ‘If you do this, you’ll get paid millions,’ any 18-year-old kid will say, ‘Yeah, let’s do that.’ I had no idea what would hang with me my whole career. I get asked every year about weaseling my way through the draft.”

I just hope that Bryce has played this important decision out many times in his own head.  Landon also had Scott Boras as an agent and both Boras and his father were advocates for him leaving high school early.  Bryce will get paid millions.  I hope that in his mind, that is fair compensation for losing the last dance.

Guess who represents #1, #2, and #3 overall.  Scott Boras.  John McGrath of the News Tribune thinks that at least Ackley might be hurting himself by holding out until the deadline.  He wrote,

Either way, Ackley’s fast track to the bigs is in peril of losing momentum. This is too bad, because if ever there were a team in position to give a college player the keys to the car – and the freedom to put his pedal foot to the floor, without adhering to a speed limit – it’s the Seattle Mariners.

For elite talents with college experience, good things can happen in a hurry. Troy Tulowitzki (Rockies), Ryan Braun (Brewers) and Evan Longoria (Rays) needed between 10 months and a year to reach the big leagues after signing. None of these guys, it might be noted, held out. It also might be noted that none was represented by Boras.

But will a month and change really affect Ackley that much?  I believe good things may still come his way even if he delays his appearance in Rookie Ball for another month or so.  What if Ackley doesn’t end up making it to the big leagues in a year?  The signing bonus is what he will be surviving on.  For all we know, Ackley could step on a crack in a sidewalk on August 18th and break his leg (G-d forbid).  The signing bonus is the only thing guaranteed for these guys.

Sports Business

• Federer has a lot going against him, yet he still wins…moreso on the court than off of it [Off The Court, Federer Is Trumped].

Football

• Comfort is key [Wilfork seeks 'comfortable' contract].
• I also love the pullover jackets [Iconix Using Romo To Resurrect Starter].
• I’ll see your pool jump and raise you with a pickup truck jump [YouTube Video Helps Eloi Get Jump on NFL].
• Apparently there was no violation of Alabama’s sports agents law [Alabama AG closes Smith case].

Basketball

• A member of the U.S. House of Representatives is sick and tired of the NBA’s one-and-done rule [Steve Cohen asks NBA to stop barring 18-year-olds from the league].
• Is there anything to be surprised about here? [Agent Won’t Let Big Ben Retire].

Tennis

• A struggling economy means nothing to die-hard tennis fans [Tennis laughs at your recession!].

It is easy to laugh about the fact that there are 50 rounds in baseball when there are only 2 rounds in basketball, but believe it or not, many players taken past the 40th round have made it to the stage.  In fact, a few of Dynasty’s clients were taken after the 40th round, or not even selected at all, and are currently making their way up their respective organizations (Pete Parise, Dan Leatherman, Kyle Gunderson…).  That being said, it is preferable to be a top pick of the organization you play for.  You get instant gratification with a large signing bonus (those players are commonly refered to as “bonus babies”) and your club feels “pot committed” to you (meaning they already have an investment in you and want to see you make it up the ranks).  If they spent poorly on signing you, it’s their jobs at risk as well.

Today’s picks will get the instant gratification.  They have been well covered by the Keith Law’s and Jonathan Mayo’s for a long time now.  But just because they are a first or second round pick does not mean they are necessarily destined for greatness.

Dynasty’s main focus will be on Wednesday.  We have some underclassmen that we are advising and hope to see get selected early in the day.  The draft will resume on Wednesday at 12 p.m. EST.  Dynasty is also helping out some college seniors who had remarkable seasons, but lack that underclassmen/high school leverage.  We still love these kids because we see them having deep careers full of future success.

Today, all of us at Dynasty will take it easy.  On Wednesday and Thursday, we will be tracking the draft from start to finish.  It could possibly be the most draining days of the year for all of Dynasty’s Baseball Operations staff and interns.  And many of the players waiting to see their names flash on the computer screen will also be sweating with anticipation (G-d forbid your internet goes out).  Others will be on the diamond playing with a Summer League team, and some will be out on a boat fishing with friends.

We are always excited with new technologies and will be following not only the live picks, but also the Twitter feeds of MLB analysts and some players who will be drafted today or tomorrow.  Can you guess which player on the list is being advised by Dynasty?  All MLB Draft related tweets will have an #mlbdraft hashtag attached.

Football

• Stafford should not have much to complain about, though, considering all the guaranteed money he has been promised before taking a single NFL snap [Report: Matthew Stafford faces endorsement challenges].

Hockey

• Any takers to be his agent as he attempts an NHL comeback? It could be a life changer [Ex-NHLer Danton back in Canada awaiting parole].

Entertainment

• Is this enough to make you watch the show? [Brian Austin Green Coming to 'One Tree Hill' as Sports Agent]

Sports Business

• BEST embraces social media [SportsFanLive.com Inks Multi-Year Content, Promo Deal With BEST].
• Consumers hear pitchmen in their own words [Athletes Can Leverage Their Social Media].

Basketball

• The general population will know who he is, come Thursday [Is Howard The Next Great Endorser?].
• So long to shoe wars [Guest Post: How to Get a Shoe Deal].

Baseball

• Jonathan Mayo weighs in [Crystal ball: Projecting the first round].

This year, a lot of players drafted hit the jackpot.

Three of the four largest up-front bonuses ever were paid out, led by the Giants giving No. 5 overall pick Buster Posey $6.2 million. The 27 first-round picks who signed received an average bonus of $2,484,963, more than $300,000 than ever before, and an increase of 18.4 percent from 2007, the biggest jump in the era of Major League Baseball’s recommendations for bonus slots.

The house kept the money on Aaron Crow, though. But when the house keeps its money, there is no guarantee that the clientèle will come back in the future. Jim Bowden, GM of the Washington Nationals (the team that selected Crow), is not too fond of this vegas-style system.

The system doesn’t work. And, you know, I think it would be in the best interest of the players and the clubs and the fans if there was a hard slotting system, whatever the numbers end up being — let’s take the numbers out. The player has to sign into the draft. They have to say they’re going to sign, and sign into the draft. The clubs then are allowed to take the best player, and wherever you’re drafted, the slotting system will pay you whatever that value is. … It should be a system where you don’t have small markets trying to do pre-cut deals or small markets not taking the best player because they can’t afford him. It should be a system where everybody gets to take the best player when it’s their turn to draft, and the player should sign and go. We shouldn’t sit all summer. Aaron Crow shouldn’t have to go home right now and play for the Fort Worth Cats and sit out and wait ’til next year’s June draft and then maybe until August 14 before he signs again. I don’t think that’s fair to him, I don’t think it’s good for baseball, it’s not good for the club, it’s not good for anybody.

I just think a hard slotting system would be the long-term solution for our sport. To sit there and have the negotiations that took place with several clubs between 11:30 and 12 where you’re talking about huge movements with lots of players where some teams didn’t even have conversations with the agent until quarter to 12 last night, and deals got done at 11:59 with literally, I understand, no conversations for long periods of time. I’m not sure that’s the best way to do business for a sport.

Is it not fair to Crow or is it actually more fair to him to be able to negotiate his value instead of fall into a hard slotting system? If the MLB were to use a hard slotting system, would we then not allow high school seniors to enter the draft? What about Junior College players? To stretch the question even further, should we then allow college juniors to declare for the draft? What if they get selected in the 40th round. They should have to sign also? Obviously, there are issues with the current system. Players are hurt by holding out until the last second and even having to play a year with an Independent Ball team. Teams are hurt because they cannot sign some of their best picks and lose valuable time training them if they sign right before the deadline. Buster Posey is happy right now, but many on both sides of the fence are not. Is there a solution to this mess?

On to my notes:

• As I mentioned in the comments of the Thursday post, Gerrit Cole will go to UCLA instead of the Yankees.
• I errored in the Thursday post.  Aaron Crow was actually being advised by Randy Hendricks.  Besides Crow, the other two first round players that did not sign are Boras clients (the aforementioned Cole and Josh Fields).
• Every pick in the Supplemental 1st round, 6th round, and 8th round signed with the teams that chose them.
• Watch out for UGA.  Georgia will receive two highly touted players who did not sign: Chase Davidson (3rd round) and Zach Cone (Supplemental 3rd round).
• Robbie Ross ended up being the highest paid player in the second round – $1.575 million.  The Texas Rangers will be happy to pay the left-handed pitcher.
• The highest paid fourth round player is no longer a tie.  Tim Melville, who would have been picked much higher minus his demand for big money, ended up receiving $1.250 million from the Royals.
• Adrian Nieto’s $376k in the fifth round was impressive until the Red Sox pushed over a cool $2 million to Ryan Westmoreland.
• The Pirates spent big money in the sixth round on Robbie Grossman – $1 million.
• A bunch of unsigned tenth rounders will be going to California schools.

If you want to get an early start on tracking the guys that we will be discussing around this time next year, tune in to ESPNU tomorrow (Sunday) at 2 p.m. EST to watch the Under Armour All-America Baseball Game.

Number-one overall pick, Tim Beckham, received a $6.15 million signing bonus.  Word is that Beckham’s bonus will be trumped by Buster Posey, who may get a whopping $7.5 million.  Posey was the fifth player taken in the draft (by the San Francisco Giants).  The aforementioned Pedro Alvarez (Boras), Eric Hosmer (Boras), and Brian Matusz were all taken earlier than Posey and remain unsigned at the moment.  After Posey, there are six players who will probably not be signed until the final minutes before the deadline (if signed at all).  They are Yonder Alonso, Aaron Crow, Justin Smoak, Josh Fields (Boras), Allan Dykstra (Boras), and Gerrit Cole (Boras).  I do not know what is more remarkable: the fact that Boras has five players in the first round or that five of the ten players still holding out in the first-round are Boras clients.

Out of all of the first-round players yet to sign, only one seems to be for a reason other than the belief that he feels he deserves higher than slot figures.  Allan Dykstra has medical issues, which has delayed progress between the Padres and Boras Corp in signing the former Wake Forest first baseman.

As of writing this post, here are the bonus babies (highest signing bonuses) in the first ten rounds:

• 1st round (pick 1) – Tim Beckham – $6.15 million (Rays)
• Supplemental 1st (pick 1) – Shooter Hunt – $1.08 million (Twins)
• 2nd round (pick 9) – Destin Hood – $1.1 million (Nationals)
• 3rd round TIE (pick 5) – Roger Kieschnick – $525k (Giants) and (pick 10) – Danny Espinosa (Nationals)
• Supplemental 3rd (pick 1) – Ross Seaton – $700k (Astros)
• 4th round TIE (pick 1) – Ty Morrison – $500k (Rays) and (pick 19) – Matt Cerda (Cubs)
• 5th round (pick 9) – Adrian Nieto – $376k (Nationals)
• 6th round (pick 28) – Brett Marshall – $800k (Yankees)
• 7th round (pick 29) – Tim Fedroff – $725k (Indians)
• 8th round (pick 4) – Bobby Bundy – $600k (Orioles)
• 9th round (pick 15) – Steven Caseres – $250k (Dodgers)
• 10th round (pick 12) – Rashun Dixon – $600k (Athletics)

For a team with a small payroll, the Nationals seem to be spending quite a bit of money on their early draft picks.  Other notes:

• Out of 16 Supplemental 1st round picks, only one remains unsigned: Jeremy Bleich (Yankees)
• Only one player in the entire 3rd round has yet to sign: Chase Davidson (Astros)
• Every single player selected in the 8th round has signed a deal with the club that drafted him.
• The 10th round sticks out, containing ten players that have not yet signed.

For a great breakdown of the reasoning behind why certain players remain unsigned, check out this article published by BaseballAmerica.  Friday shall be an interesting day, indeed.

Maybe a post about how Lara got to where he is at, decided to accept a signing bonus (could he have went back to school?, what type of bonus, tuition did the team give him?)

Robert Lara is a 6′2 205 lbs pitcher out of University of Central Florida.  He was selected in the 19th round by the San Diego Padres this year is currently playing for the Arizona League affiliate.  He graduated from Nova High School, which is the same school that I went to.  At Nova, Lara led the school to a state title in 2005, a team that was ranked No. 1 nationally in the final USA Today poll.  He was drafted in the 17th round of the 2005 MLB Draft by the Minnesota Twins, but opted to decline signing and spent a couple of years playing at LSU before transferring to UCF for his junior year.

[Why he] decided to hire you (what is he looking for in an agent, how many agents did he meet with)?

I cannot speak for Robert, but through our many conversations, I believe that trust had a lot to do with it.  He was happy with my upfront approach and that I refused to promise him anything that I could not necessarily deliver upon.  We both graduated from the same high school and have a lot of friends in common.  He told me that he was in conversation with a few other agencies, but in the end, he decided to choose Dynasty, and I am very grateful for that.

What your job will be now and in the future (what level of management at the Padres do you talk to, about what types of things)

At this point, I told Robert that we will begin to develop his brand and his fan base (click here to become a fan of Lara on Facebook!).  We will start creating an online identity.  When he moves up the ranks, he will have an advantage over his peers in that he will be very marketable.  He is also a good looking kid with a brain on his shoulders, which always helps.  Additionally, we started conversation with the decision makers in the Padres organization.  I have put in an email with the GM of a Padres class A affiliate to let him know about our representation of Lara and that we hope for a successful future.

How often [do] you talk to Lara?

Whether through text or a phone call, Lara and I have spoken almost every single day since he signed.  I tell all of my clients that they can reach my by phone or email at any time.  They do not only get access to a baseball agent, but direct access to the CEO of the company that represents them.

The process of trying to get a glove and shoe deal (is he going to bat in minors, batting gloves, wristbands, etc), what types of deals to companies offer a 19th round pick, about how much money you think you will have to invest in bats and other equipment

Good question.  We sent some messages to various equipment companies yesterday and are anxiously awaiting a response.  It may take a little longer than normal due to the long weekend (most people even took today off).  If no deal is forthcoming, then we will gladly pony up the expense in supplying Robert with whatever he needs, much like we have done for Dan Leatherman.  Daily players are more expensive to maintain than pitchers.

When do most agents recoup this money?

They don’t.  An agent has two opportunities to make money on the player’s contract.  Once, when the player signs with the team and gets a signing bonus.  We were not Lara’s advisor at the time, so we received no cut.  The other time is when Lara makes the 40-man roster.  If a player never makes it up that far, then the agent may very well lose his investment.  We can also make an income off of endorsement/appearance/marketing deals that we procure for Robert in the future.

About how long does it take others in the Padres organization to move from on A to the other AAs?

Impossible to answer.  Too many variables.  Everyone is different and management treats players differently whether there is a reason for that or not.

And why it is so special that you guys stay true to your colors?

It was a figure of speech.  Lara and I both used to show our green and gold pride as students at Nova High School (school colors).  We are once again united under the green and gold of Dynasty.