Latest / The Layback Podcast / Alex Hinz, MLBPA Certified Agent and VP of Ball Players Agency (Ep. 48)

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Alex Hinz, MLBPA Certified Agent and VP of Ball Players Agency (Ep. 48) · The Layback Podcast

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Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Lay Back
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Podcast. Joining us today is Alex Hins of
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the Ballplayer Agency. Alex is our first agent ever on
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the podcast. This is something that I'm
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extremely excited about to get a new perspective with everything
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we do here with the show. We obviously talk to players,
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coaches, parents, all the above when it comes to elbow injuries,
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player development, but we have yet to tap into the agency
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world. They obviously have an extremely
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interesting perspective here as they kind of have to be their
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players right hand man, but they're also playing third party
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in between players and orgs. I don't even know all the things
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agents do. So I'm excited to get into it
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today. So I'm going to pass it over to
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Alex and let him fill in the gaps with that intro.
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Alex, thanks for joining us. Adam, thanks for having me.
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Yeah, I mean, you said most of it.
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I've been with Ball Players Agency for about 10 years now.
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Was with a larger agency before that and then before that worked
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for one of the MLB teams. So I've been around for a long
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time. I've kind of been on both sides
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of the table and and seen it all.
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And now I'm our VP of baseball over Ball Players agency.
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And so I on top of working with my guys, I also oversee and work
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with kind of all the guys in the company and coordinate our draft
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efforts and free agency efforts. And basically anything that has
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to do with baseball, I, I have a hand in at this point.
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So I appreciate you having me and I'll give as much
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perspective as I can without trying to make somebody out
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there too mad and we'll go from. There, Yes, yeah, you got to
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save face for someone, I'm sure. Let's let's even start off
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giving the look into Ballplayers Agency.
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I'd love to hear more about what you guys do specifically.
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We first got hooked up with you guys talking to Mark, gearing up
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for winter meetings, and now we have the really cool opportunity
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to work with a few of your players, which has been awesome.
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But I'd love to hear more about the guys you represent, or how
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many players you have, or just the structure of all players in
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general. Yeah.
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So BPA is what I tell people very firmly in the upper level
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of the midsize group of agencies.
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So we're not Scott, Boris, we're not CAA, we're not Octagon, some
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of those mega groups. But we have a good footprint.
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We have about 60 active players. Big leaguers include guys like
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Ryan Walker and John Birdie. And then last year, I think we
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had 17 draft picks and four free agents.
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So the company's been on a pretty upward growth since 2017.
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We are only actively doing draft players.
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So Canada, United States, Puerto Rico and we don't have a Latin
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presence. We parted with our Latin
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division back in 2017 and kind of went full force into the
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draft. We have 6 agents across the
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country. So we've got myself in Denver,
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our headquarters are in Detroit. We have Mark and Storm up there.
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Then we have guys in Los Angeles, Mike, who's in New
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Jersey, and then another guy in Chattanooga.
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So we really have a a pretty large national footprint and
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Storm started this company 25 years ago.
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That's been around for a long time.
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We tell families when we're when we're recruiting, we've been
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around for a long time and could we have grown this thing to be a
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mega agency? Sure.
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It's not what we endeavor to do. We try to give really high level
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service. And while we are growing, at
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some point we'll put the brakes on the growth.
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But right now we're really trying to give guys really full
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service boutique style attention.
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And I tell players like when you call my cell phone, you get me.
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You don't get a support person, you don't get Cindy at the front
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desk, you get, you get me handling whatever your issue is.
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And that probably segue into some of the stuff we talked
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about today. But we really try to be be there
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for all the UPS, all the downs and and everything in between.
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You even brought up something that I think was beyond me until
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we started communicating a bit more this concept of recruiting.
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You said you when you are recruiting athletes, so how much
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is it you reaching out to athletes to bring them into
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y'all or them reaching out to you?
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How's the courting process play out?
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Yeah, I would say 99% of the athletes we represent we either
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found or were tipped on or reach out to.
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So our network is large, whether it's scouts or college coaches
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or whatever it might be. PBR directors, we have a good
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relationship with enough people that they're telling us when
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they see something, when they've got something.
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And then really since COVID, the power of Twitter and Instagram
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is that we can find players pretty simply doesn't take much
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for PBR to tweet or perfect game or the kid to tweet individually
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and it shows up on our feed and we go from there.
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And so, yeah, we recruit the bulk of our players for the
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draft. And in terms of pro ball guys
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that we maybe didn't have out of the draft that we end up working
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with a lot of those referrals from current clients, the guys
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like, hey, this kids pretty good.
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I don't think he's got a guy you should you should reach out.
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I told him you're going to be calling.
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That's probably the next most common way we end up with
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clients. So you guys are scouting much
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the same way a Major League team would scout?
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Yep. So Mike Bradshaw, who I work
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with, is our director of scouting.
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He's got an incredible eye for talent.
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All of us can scout. It's something we require when
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we hire guys. That is one, that they that they
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played baseball, and two, that they can evaluate talent.
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And so, yeah, Mike does an incredible job of finding
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players. We all do.
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But then even if I find a player, and I've been doing this
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a long time, I'll send them over to Mike and to get Mike's
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opinion before we reach out. Sometimes I disagree with his
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opinion and I call him anyways. But yeah, we, we, we are
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constantly scouting. This is great background
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information because I think these are the things when I even
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typed out what role does an agent serve?
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When I'm thinking about all the things that you guys do, I don't
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think about scouting. That's not what they show in
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Jerry Maguire or anything like that, or that's not what's
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talked about when you see you guys on ESPN.
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So what? What are other things that
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agents do? Yeah, I mean, we, we, I wear so
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many different hats during a day.
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You you'd be blown away. Yeah.
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I mean, from scouting and recruiting to dealing with
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injury issues, which we, I'm sure we'll get into at some
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point, to dealing with trades, to free agents, to draft, to
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college recruitment. Unique to baseball is that we
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start working with kids when they're in high school.
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Sometimes we find them before the colleges find them.
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Scholarship issues, NIL and CAA rules is the new thing that
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we've been caught up in a bunch lately.
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And we also order all of our players equipment that are in
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pro ball, so cleats, turfs, bats, gloves, all that kind of
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stuff. That's all happening right now
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leading up to spring training, helping guys with just life
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stuff, taxes, weddings, babies, girlfriends, second girlfriends,
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like you name it, we're we're here to help.
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It's constant drives my wife mad sometimes, but we become such an
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integral part of these guys lives.
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I, I just had a player reach out this week and I'm going to I'm
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going to officiate his wedding. That's the kind of stuff you
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don't think about when you're getting in.
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We had a player this year that was electrocuted in a shower in
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Nicaragua. And like, how do we get him home
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and how do we make sure he's OK? And like, those are things that
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aren't on the agent exam that you end up dealing with.
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You, you basically, I mean left speechless on those last couple
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because officiating a wedding and dealing with an electrocuted
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player in Latin American country, I did not have in my
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bingo card today. I suppose that's the life you're
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living every single day. You can't go in with an expected
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bingo card. You are pretty much there to
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expect the unexpected for every player you work with.
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Yeah, I think you're you're always kind of getting ready to
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do the critical thinking. Things happen in everyday life,
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whether you're a baseball player or not.
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The difference is that these guys are so singularly focused
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on baseball that they need help dealing with some of the other
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stuff. I find that as the players start
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to get older and start to get married, like I spend more time
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sometimes talking to their wives than I do talking to them
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because they're so focused on being a big leaguer than all the
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other stuff that they might need help with.
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You know, I'm dealing with the wife or whoever to line that up
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where, you know, again, vacations or taxes or they have
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an insurance issue. We get it tied into all of it.
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Maybe stepping back a tad, I want to talk about also who
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agents are for, right? We, we talked a little bit about
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your role here and how you can support in so many different
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roles, but also not everybody in the sport or in the sports world
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is right for an agent or an agent might not be right for
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them, right. So I where do you guys kind of
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come in to the mix? Yeah.
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So obviously pro baseball players need agents and I don't,
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I think that goes without explaining.
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And the the bulk of that is just to have guidance on how to
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navigate the professional baseball world.
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Beyond that, the next year is kind of like the guy who's going
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to get drafted. There's the obvious ones, right?
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Your first rounders, your second rounders.
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Those guys need agents because they're dealing with huge
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endorsement contracts and leverage and those kind of
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things. But then there's guys from the
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third round on that may not becoming millionaires.
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So why do they need an agent? This comes up when we're talking
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to families often, and the first way that I think we provide
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value that a family just can't find on their own is the draft
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is insane. We're down to 20 rounds, 650
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players get their name called. There's probably, I don't know,
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5 or 10,000 players that are thinking they might get their
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name called. Well, Johnny, the second baseman
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only knows the area scout. The scout that covers the state
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that he lives in, that's the only person he's probably ever
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talked to. The area scout is not the person
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that makes the draft pick, right?
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That's the scouting director, the assistant scouting director,
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GMs in some organizations. That's the person we need to
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talk to. That's the radar that we need to
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stay on. And so we have the ability as an
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agency, as a company, to basically call into any draft
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room during the draft and speak to somebody who's a decision
9:30
maker. And so being able to keep the
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player on the radar is huge. On top of that, we gather a ton
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of information pre draft, we meet with every single team and
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talk about who they're interested in, the range they
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have them in. And the reason that happens and
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the reason teams are willing to do that is because the unique
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part of baseball is that basically if you agree to terms,
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you're taking it within the top 10 rounds.
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And it's too risky for teams to take guys in the top 10 rounds
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for the most part without an agreement in place ahead of time
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because if they don't sign, then they lose their slot value and
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teams don't want to do that. So there's a lot of legwork and
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a lot of information that goes in ahead of time that we provide
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to the player and their families to make a decision if they want
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to sign, if it's not going to be worth it, etcetera.
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Beyond that, you have the guys that hope to be in the draft
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conversation as they get older, talking college freshman,
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college sophomores, high schoolers that are in the
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sophomore and junior class for the most part.
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Where we help more with them is less with scouting, which will
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happen down the road, right? They hopefully will turn into a
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draft guy, but more so like where, what events do you go to?
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Where do you spend your money? What is worth your time?
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Because these players get inundated with requests from
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this tournament and that tournament and this showcase and
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this club team wants you this weekend and that club team wants
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you the next weekend. And so we do a lot of help and
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guidance and where to be and when and where to put the money.
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But also where are they training?
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Who are they training with? Where are they doing their
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strength training? Where are they doing their
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pitching training? Where are they doing their
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hitting training? That becomes a huge, a huge part
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of of their development as well. Fighting with our high school
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coach. Like, no, I know he threw 100
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pitches last Thursday, but it's now only Tuesday and like, you
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can't throw them again. Having conversations that kids
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aren't ready to have at 16 years old.
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OK, You bring up where to train. I definitely wanted to get into
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that at some point during the show and I'm I'm glad it's
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coming up already. So what does that look like for
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you is that more players are bringing you options like, hey,
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I've done this at this place before, or it's usually like you
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have a pre-existing relationship with some facility or some
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coachings like this is your guide go.
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Yeah, there's there's a few factors at play there.
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One geographically, where do they live?
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The number of options of places to train in northern Wyoming is
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is none. The number of places to train in
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Dallas, TX is plentiful. Often guys have people they
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train with and we have taken the position that we don't, we don't
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try to fix things that aren't broken.
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So if the player is getting better and there's no risk of of
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them getting hurt doing what they're doing, then we won't
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shake the tree. Now if we sense that the person
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that's training them doesn't know what they're doing or make
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it them hurt, then we might do something about it.
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Now who do we send them to? Again, geographically, it
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totally depends on on their situation.
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I've got a kid right now who lives in a tough part of the
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state he's in to reach high school, senior, likely draft
12:25
pick. If he does want to train, he
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trains with a guy that I used to represent, actually, but it's an
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hour plus drive. We just made the very difficult
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decision to have him transferred to a prep school in another
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state where he has access every day to training.
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He'll finish his high school degree there, play for their
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team down there. But not that the guy who was
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training him was doing a good job.
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It's just access wise, it wasn't working.
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And then on top of that high school team he's on is a small
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high school. He's there 1 college guy guy who
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can even go to college. So to surround him with better
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players and better access to resources to train, we've we've
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moved him down to to Arizona. OK.
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So you are participating in those kind of discussions.
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How do we advance the career in some capacity that I'm sure
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that's what a lot of this boils down to is what ultimately is
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going to benefit you, what could hinder you?
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Yeah. So I tell families everything do
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we do and every decision that I help you make will simply be an
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assessment of risk. What is our risk profile on this
13:30
decision we're going to make? And then are we comfortable with
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that risk? Every single family, every
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single player has a different assessment of risk, right?
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This is why you see players sign extensions that might cost them
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money down the road and other guys keep rolling the dice as
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they move forward, right? Their, their assessments of risk
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are just differently $1,000,000 to one player in the draft is
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not same as $1,000,000 to a different player in the draft.
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Every family views that differently.
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And, and so that's all we're doing where I'm saying, hey,
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family, here's my idea, or here's what I'm thinking, or
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here's what's on the table. Here's what I think the risk is,
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here's what I think we could gain, and then I let them make
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the decision. And are there, I, I guess like
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little things along the way, I guess trends when I say things
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along the way with like once you see a family or a player make a
14:15
decision in a certain capacity on the risk aversion scale, do
14:19
you normally see the pattern persist as you?
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Get they Families that tend to be risk adverse historically
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will stay risk adverse. Families that like taking risks
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will tend to continue to take risks until something goes wrong
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and then the needle moves back towards a little bit more risk
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adverse. It's easy to take risk when you
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just keep winning, right? If you keep putting $50 on black
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and you keep winning, you just keep doing it right it seems.
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Like a good investment. All of a sudden it isn't right.
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And that that's the part that that gets hard, right.
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But you can advise them of the risk and say, hey, I wouldn't do
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that. And then they do it anyways.
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And then it backfires. You hate to see those kind of
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things happen, but it also helps the family lean on you a little
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heavier of like, OK, he knows what he's talking about.
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They know what they're talking about.
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They might trust us a little more moving.
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Forward what would be a couple examples of I guess quote UN
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quote risky behaviors? Turning down money in the draft
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is a historically risky behavior that makes sense.
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Everybody likes to point to, well, this guy turned down
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800,000 in high school. And look, now he's the third
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overall pick. The reason he's that's such a
15:30
cool story is because it usually doesn't work out that way.
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I've been doing this 10 years. I think we've had two players
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ever turn down money out of high school and benefit out of
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college. And the reason for that is that
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there's all these variables that are outside the players control.
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So there's nothing to say you don't show up to school on the
15:47
first day you're there. You step off the curb wrong and
15:48
you break your ankle and you miss your freshman year and now
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you come in behind your sophomore year and then they cut
15:52
you at the break and now you're a JUCO.
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And like that happens. There's nothing to stop you
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showing up. And that day your head coach
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retires and then they bring in a new guy and that guy doesn't
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like you. And so he doesn't use you or he
16:04
uses guys in a way that's not beneficial for you.
16:06
And now your career goes off the rails.
16:08
The new thing is a transfer portal.
16:09
Hey, you've been told your entire recruiting process you're
16:11
going to be the starting shortstop the moment you get
16:13
here until they land LSU backup shortstop in the portal the week
16:17
before school starts. And now he's the starting
16:19
shortstop. So turning down money in the
16:22
draft. And we have data that backs it
16:24
that we use with our families. A show like, hey, here's kind of
16:26
the threshold of when to turn down money and not turn down
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money. That's a risky behavior.
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But he goes even further. I mean, there's there's guys
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that I had a guy who like to drink alcohol and we kind of
16:37
warned him and warned him and warned him and warned him.
16:39
Like, hey, if you keep up this behavior, at some point it's
16:41
going to bite you inevitably got released and in the midst of a
16:44
decent season. But the reality is when teams
16:47
only have 100 and what it is 65 roster spots in the minor
16:50
leagues now, and they've got to make a cut and they've got to
16:53
decide between the guy with a 5.5 but he's doing everything
16:56
right, or the guy with a 4.5 who's making some bad decisions.
17:00
They're tending to to get rid of the guy with making bad
17:02
decisions. And so that's a risky behavior,
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right? He just kept doing it and he got
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away with it for years until he didn't.
17:08
Thanks for digging into that a bit.
17:10
And you brought something up a little bit earlier that I wanted
17:14
to spend some time on. You talked about these player
17:19
development processes and for example, the player who moved to
17:22
a new location. One of the things that I still
17:24
wanted to go into on that topic is what does the check in
17:28
process look like for you guys or the communication process
17:32
during a winter development cycle or when a when a player is
17:36
in there offseason and they're working, How do you stay in
17:40
contact and how do you know it is the right fit or if you're
17:44
going to make a move to go elsewhere?
17:46
I mean, some of it's technology, right?
17:47
Most of my players will send me video of a bullpen or them
17:50
hitting and their metrics and I can see the track man report of
17:53
the rap Soto and know it's know what I'm looking at.
17:57
A lot of our guys train with people we know and it's just the
17:59
reality of it and so we can call in and see how they're going.
18:03
Every player is a little bit different, and some guys will
18:05
call me every day. Like there's legitimate players
18:07
I hear from every single day. There's other guys I have to
18:10
call and make sure that they're alive.
18:12
Ultimately, the proof is in the pudding, right?
18:13
You can't make somebody work who doesn't want to work.
18:15
But guys who tend to be big leaguers tend to be big leaguers
18:17
because they're obsessed with the process.
18:19
I'm not begging most of my guys to go to the gym.
18:21
I'm not begging most of them to try and figure out how to get
18:23
better. Most of them tend to do that on
18:25
their home. That's how they got to this
18:26
point. But yeah, I mean, we check in
18:28
periodically. Sometimes guys will send U.S.
18:30
data or a pen and, you know, ask for our thoughts.
18:33
But as long as I'm seeing the development arc kind of do its
18:35
thing, then I don't touch it. Guys who are experienced minor
18:38
leaguers, particularly pitchers, tend to tinker more with their
18:40
offseason plan. Like the last winter, I think I
18:42
ramped up too early this year. I think I'm going to ramp up a
18:45
little bit later. What do you think about that?
18:46
We have some conversations early in the offseason, particularly
18:49
about that kind of stuff. But yeah, hitters tend to just
18:51
keep doing anything. How much are you guys playing a
18:55
role in the player development process?
18:58
Are you guys creating player improvement plans at all?
19:02
I know some agencies get into that.
19:04
I'm curious, I guess. And then if you're not involved
19:08
in it, maybe why you might want to be involved, why you might
19:11
not want to be involved. I guess both sides of the.
19:13
Coin, there are some agencies out there that have like player
19:15
development departments. I don't functionally understand
19:18
how it works because I feel like you'd be crossing hairs with the
19:21
guys that they're working with, their training, but that's
19:24
their, you know, they figured out something that they think
19:25
they like and that's great. I try to stay out of their
19:28
development if I can for the same reason.
19:30
I don't want their trainer telling them how much money they
19:33
should accept free agency. I feel like we're really good at
19:36
what we do and those guys are really good at what they do.
19:39
And so we try to let them be good at their job and we'd be
19:42
good at our job, and that usually ends up working out in
19:43
the best interest of them. Fair.
19:45
I'll take it. Simple enough.
19:47
Yeah, I just always find that interesting because you are in
19:52
the foxhole with the players. You're seeing what they're going
19:54
through. Generally, even if you are not
19:56
training with them, you have a good idea of what they're
19:59
working on, but also you are the first person that sees or hears
20:03
about their results during the season.
20:05
So I assume this kind of interesting position that you
20:08
fall into would give you maybe insights into what the lowest
20:13
hanging fruit is or what's worth chasing.
20:16
Yeah, I think we have conversations with the players
20:18
that want to have that conversation.
20:19
I, I, I just try to stay out of it if I can.
20:21
Like I know 90% of the people my guys are training with, like
20:24
it's very rare that I don't know where they're at.
20:27
Like the bulk of my guys are training at speaking
20:30
specifically to me, not to PPA, but my guys are at Tread, my
20:35
guys are at Push Performance Arizona, My guys are at Marucci
20:38
Clubhouse down in in Castle Rock, Co.
20:42
That's about it. Like they tend to end up in in
20:44
those specific places. Now there's a few that aren't,
20:47
but you know, Legendary Academy down in Arizona.
20:51
Like I know where they are. Like I know they're getting good
20:54
coaching. So I don't need to go down there
20:55
and and try to interrupt what those guys are doing who are
20:58
very, very good at what they're doing.
21:01
That makes sense. You're good at what you do,
21:03
they're good at what they do. You can all communicate and
21:06
figure out what the end goal is here.
21:07
No sense muddying the waters with too many hooks in the
21:10
kitchen. I'll take it.
21:12
And I did bring up the foxhole. There is a series of questions
21:16
that I wanted to get into that I kind of like put in this foxhole
21:19
theme and I think that's where the agents usually kind of get
21:25
their name or that that's where my mind was going with.
21:28
Yeah, we make our money when shit hits the fan for sure.
21:31
Right, exactly when? Prove our worth.
21:33
That's probably our that's. Probably the better way to say
21:36
it, right? It's really easy to Rep a guy
21:37
when everything's going well. Yeah, we prove our worth when
21:41
when the wheels fall off. You are there to support the
21:44
player through thick and thin. So we we can tackle this in a
21:48
lot of ways. But with the podcast and our
21:51
mission here, a lot of it is regarding injury and trying to
21:55
provide more information for how you can support a player through
22:00
that process or maybe what you guys are seeing when a player
22:04
goes through a traumatic issue or even if it's something small.
22:08
But our our grand focus here is elbows.
22:12
So I'd love even if you could start with the higher level view
22:16
of what you've seen over your years in the industry dealing
22:20
with elbows, dealing with injury.
22:22
And then we can probably pick and choose our rabbit holes from
22:26
there. Yeah, elbows.
22:28
When I first started as an agent, elbows were really scary
22:31
when a guy had an elbow issue. That set off a lot of alarms
22:35
within the company. Now elbows aren't that scary
22:38
anymore. If a guy, I'd much rather have a
22:41
guy call me and say he needs Tommy John than a guy tell me he
22:43
needs his laboring fixed. And I think as an industry,
22:46
while we've gotten better at breaking pitchers, we're also
22:49
better at fixing them, at least with the elbow.
22:51
And so Tommy John sucks. You know, you're talking about a
22:55
15 month recovery. I did toss the guy basically a
22:58
year development, sometimes 2 depending on where in the
23:00
calendar the Tommy John happens. But, you know, they're probably
23:04
coming back almost always, like at least our guys.
23:08
And so I'm not as afraid of an elbow as I used to be.
23:09
But yeah, it's it's a disruption to the development arc of a
23:13
player, which then becomes a disruption to their pathway to
23:16
the big leagues, which becomes a disruption in their potential
23:19
career earnings sometimes. So it causes a number of
23:23
problems, but not something that we don't see guys come back from
23:25
generally anymore. But yeah, so elbows, elbows.
23:28
OK, shoulders scare the heck out of me.
23:30
Kind of lost track of the rest of the question there.
23:31
But I've seen it all. I've seen Tommy Johns.
23:35
I've seen I just had two Tommy Johns.
23:37
I had a guy this year that had a flexor tendon tear and while
23:40
they were inside we just went ahead and put an internal brace
23:42
in because we're already in there anyways.
23:44
I've seen a guy come back from back-to-back Tommy Johns and
23:47
then Burt tears knee up the 4th outing.
23:49
He came back when Tommy Johns team seemed to not care to Tommy
23:52
Johns team start to worry. Yeah, a little bit.
23:55
I've seen basically anything you can think of I.
23:58
Figured you've seen it all in your years at this point.
24:01
And I guess from my position, granted, my life is elbows at
24:09
this point. Yeah, so it is.
24:11
It's a little I, I don't know the right word to say, but when
24:15
you say elbows don't scare you as much as they used to, I'm
24:18
not. I'm not trying to fear monger
24:19
here and tell people they should be scared of elbows because we
24:22
should play this game freely. We should be excited every
24:25
single time we get this step out on the mound.
24:26
It's an awesome opportunity. I'm jealous of everybody that is
24:29
still playing without question. But when it comes to you saying
24:33
you're no longer scared, is it just because of what we're
24:39
seeing in advancements in surgery and.
24:43
In rehab. That realm?
24:44
Surgery and rehab, like it just, it used to be right.
24:47
If a guy got Tommy John, that was often the end of their
24:49
career, just didn't come back from it.
24:52
Now guys come back, it sucks and it takes a while, but they're
24:55
coming back. It also used to be the Tommy
24:57
John recovery. They're like, I get back on the
24:58
mound and 9 to 12 months now it's more like 15 months because
25:02
we figured out exactly what we need to do in that rehab process
25:06
to properly strengthen the body back to where it needs to be.
25:08
Assuming you're working with the right trainers and you know,
25:10
the, some of the best surgeons have developed their own rehab
25:13
protocol that's gotten built in. And so I just think we have more
25:16
information than we used to where we see guys.
25:19
I, I would, I have no data to back what I'm out to say.
25:23
It seems as though guys are coming back from Tommy John with
25:26
a much more successful rate than we would have seen a decade ago,
25:29
at least at the professional level.
25:32
OK, Yeah, I, I hear what you're saying.
25:34
And I, I guess like I'm, I'm working through it as well of
25:39
like, yeah, you said definitely like where the guy rehab matters
25:42
significantly. Like working with the right
25:44
person or the right people in the process is huge with whether
25:48
it's the technology that you have at your disposal or the way
25:52
that you can track the way that you progress.
25:54
Granted you're, you're constantly working with the best
25:57
of the best. Those are the people that you
25:58
are in charge of representing. And then when we when we kind of
26:03
from my perspective like step one more ring out and we see
26:07
like that next. Yeah, that's probably fair.
26:09
Yeah. So then we, we see these people
26:11
that either have no direction or like the research that came out
26:15
of a mods group up in New York where they're showing, although
26:20
we, we've been told guys are coming back with 90 to 95%
26:25
success rates, we're also seeing guys that aren't returning with
26:29
their stuff. So this is this is where I
26:33
that's. Probably a little different than
26:34
what I deal with and what I would tell, right?
26:36
Like if I was the dad of a high schooler right now and he was
26:38
just had Tommy John. Like do your research on who's
26:41
going to do your rehab. Anybody could do the, the dry
26:45
needling. Well, not anybody, but most,
26:47
most functional PTS can do the dry needling and the massaging
26:50
and that kind of stuff. But like who's programming it?
26:52
And I would strongly encourage them to reach out to some of the
26:55
higher level baseball specific PTS across the country and have
27:00
them develop the rehab protocol. Because like even if your kid
27:04
has aspirations of playing low level college baseball, like
27:07
you've got to make sure it's done right.
27:08
Because if it's not done right, you've got problems.
27:10
And frankly, even in professional baseball, there are
27:13
PTS that don't do it right. And there are organizations that
27:16
have not figured out how to get their own Tommy John guys back
27:19
on the field, which is a whole another thing I can do sometime.
27:23
But that, you know, there's some organizations that are great at
27:27
getting guys back on the field. There's other organizations that
27:30
can't figure out how to do it. Do you have a an opinion or a
27:35
guess as to why? Like I'm not going to make you
27:39
name names here, but just from your experience do you think it
27:42
is? I can't imagine it's lack of
27:45
effort. Here, no, it's never lack of
27:47
effort. I think that there's been
27:49
advances in the rehab world that some have latched onto and some
27:53
have not. I think there's data and
27:54
technology out there that some have latched onto and some have
27:57
not. Again, I think everybody wants
27:58
the player to get better, right? Nobody wants their players to
28:00
continue to be hurt. But there's also a lack of
28:03
willing to collaborate with the people outside of the
28:05
organization. And I don't know if that's a
28:07
pride thing or I don't know, I don't know what that is.
28:12
But there's organizations that refuse to allow the player to do
28:15
stuff outside of their their training room.
28:17
And I think that that can be problematic as well.
28:20
I think that's that's an awesome Ave. to go down for a little bit
28:24
regarding the communication that athletes are allowed to have or
28:28
the freedom that they're allowed to have.
28:30
So I'm assuming as you let on to certain orgs allow for more
28:34
player autonomy than others? Or is that really player
28:38
dependent as in they've earned it because of their standing
28:42
within an org? I mean, yes to both of those
28:45
things. So the big development in the,
28:47
when the minor leaguers unionized, of course they're
28:49
getting paid more and they're getting better housing and all
28:51
of that is wonderful. But in my opinion, maybe the
28:54
largest thing that came out of that was that minor leaguers
28:56
gain what's called second opinion rights, which they did
28:59
not historically have. So big major leaguers have had
29:02
this for a long time. If you get hurt in your Major
29:03
League and your team doctor says, hey, you tore your UCL,
29:06
you can take your MRI, go to any doctor that's on their approved
29:09
list and there's lots of them. And that to that doctor.
29:13
In fact, you can even go outside, you don't have to pay
29:14
for it and then the doctor can give their opinion on the
29:18
injury. In fact, they can do the
29:19
operation if you that's who you want to do the operation.
29:21
Minor leaguers didn't have that right.
29:22
They got one shot. They could take that MRI, have
29:25
the team doctor read it. The team doctor would decide
29:27
what the injury was and then the team doctor would do the surgery
29:30
unless the player want to come out of pocket for it, which no
29:33
very small subset of minor leaguers can afford a non
29:36
insured about surgery. So now minor leaguers have that
29:39
right too. And so we are insistent that
29:42
when a minor leaguers hurt, even if we agree with the diagnosis
29:46
that we have that that MRI and usually subsequent hands on
29:51
evaluation done by somebody else in the country.
29:54
Historically we send our guys to Doctor Meister down in in
29:57
Dallas. I think he did every Tommy John
29:59
on ABPA client this past season and there were several as well
30:01
as several other evals with guys who end up not having Tommy
30:04
John. In my opinion, Doctor Meister is
30:06
as good as anybody there is the best in the country, but there
30:09
are a couple teams that because Doctor Meister is not on the
30:12
approved list, which is a whole nother thing.
30:15
There's a couple teams that won't pay for your guy to go
30:16
there. And it's frustrating and it's
30:18
hard to deal with. And it's hard to explain to a
30:19
player that, hey, you can't go see the best doctor in the
30:24
country even though this is your livelihood at stake.
30:27
So yeah, there's some teams are better about it than others.
30:29
But yeah, there's there's specific surgeons that we want
30:31
our guys to see. And then from that initial
30:35
doctor's visit, they have some sort of rehab with their team.
30:40
Generally. There's also going to be overlap
30:43
in the offseason where guys are doing it on their own.
30:46
Are you now playing that communication point position
30:50
again of, hey, these are the guys we trust with rehab, we've
30:54
sent people there before or how's that play out?
30:58
Yeah, exact same way. I mean, if you talk about the
31:00
entire life cycle of an injury, like phone call comes in, it's
31:04
funny. Those calls either come really
31:05
late at night or really early in the morning.
31:07
I tell my wife this all the time.
31:08
Like if a player calls me before 9:00 AM or after 10:00 PM, it's
31:11
not because they're giving me good news.
31:13
Unless they got moved out. That's The only exception.
31:16
It's. Either really good news or
31:17
really shitty news. Yeah, it's, it's there's no in
31:19
between, right? Like nobody just calls me to
31:21
shoot it at like 10:30 from there.
31:24
I've been doing this long enough that I can almost ask questions
31:27
about what happened and can figure out what the likely
31:30
injury is and that. And in my head, I'm not
31:32
necessarily telling them this. I'm starting to think of like,
31:35
OK, here's what we need to do, Here's who I need to contact.
31:37
Here's here's the next steps. Often on younger players, that
31:40
also includes looping in mom and dad and telling them, hey,
31:42
here's where my head's at. Don't worry, we know how to deal
31:45
with this. What I tell players is, well,
31:47
let's just get the imaging first, right?
31:49
Because players always go to the deepest, darkest.
31:51
My UCL is gone, I need surgery. This is horrible.
31:55
And that's not always the case, but I just say, well, let's just
31:58
get the imaging, see what it says, make sure you get a copy.
32:01
Those are two things I always tell the player and then I text
32:04
him as soon as we got off the phone, hey, everything's going
32:06
to be fine, let's get your MRI. Make sure you get a copy and I'm
32:09
adamant about getting a copy because it makes my second
32:11
opinion life much easier. From there the team sets up the
32:15
MRI. Often they flying back to
32:16
wherever their spring training facilities at, they'll do the
32:18
MRI. Player will start doing some
32:20
like pre surgical training, maybe trying to get the
32:23
inflammation to go down, whatever.
32:25
Meanwhile, we are often coordinating with every whoever
32:28
is the medical coordinator at that team to have the second
32:31
opinion done. Most teams will send the MRI
32:34
over for you. Sometimes the clinics can grab
32:37
the MRI's on their own. Otherwise, we have a copy, we
32:39
get it mailed out overnighted. Get the read on that and find
32:43
out if that doctor wants to do a hands on assessment.
32:46
Get the player out there hands on assessment, get surgery done.
32:50
Surgery happens, you know, player begins rehab process and
32:53
for the most part they're going to rehab with the team.
32:55
For the most part they might go a day or two off site to
32:59
somebody else that usually has been recommended by us or that
33:02
they know already have a pre-existing relationship with.
33:04
The hard part to navigate, and this has been the new one, is
33:06
the dead period that now exists where players aren't supposed to
33:10
be at the facility and interacting with the club
33:12
between Thanksgiving and and the like the 4th of January we have
33:16
there is a carve out for rehab guys, but the reality is like
33:18
guys want to go home. Most of these guys haven't been
33:22
home in a long time. So then coordinating the
33:24
transfer of care from the team to who they're going to be
33:28
utilizing at wherever home might be for the next six weeks,
33:33
getting through that process. And then I'm just watching their
33:36
benchmarks and seeing how they're progressing.
33:38
Then the next hope and the new battle.
33:40
We've had to have a teams, once a guy's better teams wanted to
33:44
play and compete and get going. There's some level of pushback
33:47
sometimes from us of like, hey, like he can't he can't throw
33:50
three times this week. He's coming off of Tommy John
33:53
again. There's teams that are great
33:54
about easing guys back into the workload and there's some that
33:58
have thrown them. Once they say, you know, once
34:00
the doctor gives the thumbs up, they throw them in the fire.
34:03
So you're still dealing with teams even in, well, we're not
34:08
in the 2025 season yet, but you were dealing with teams in 2024
34:13
that see it as black and white, hurt or healthy.
34:17
There's no like, real bridge there.
34:20
I had a kid last year, lower body surgery in 2023.
34:25
It's all the way back. His first week he was thrown I
34:30
think 4 times in seven days and his elbow blew out because his
34:34
body wasn't ready for that kind of workload.
34:36
When he saw the team doctor afterwards, the team doctor
34:38
goes, what the fuck are we doing?
34:41
And he's like, I don't know, you're in charge.
34:43
Not not me. Yeah.
34:45
Still happens in 2025. Wow.
34:48
Yeah, I I would have thought we were a little farther along than
34:53
that. I understand there's a lot of
34:55
things that we still needed to learn, but I think I was
34:59
operating a little bit in sunshine and Daisy land.
35:03
They're thinking that we at least understood on ramps and
35:08
the importance of slow exposure and.
35:12
There's a subset of people. There's a subset of people in
35:14
this business and in this industry that still believe that
35:18
you should throw through the pain and that weighted balls are
35:22
poison. And the reality is that's not
35:25
true. The reality is there's a right
35:26
way to do this. But yeah, they're still, they're
35:28
still a subset of people that they don't get it.
35:30
So when you have those kind of interactions with an individual,
35:34
which you obviously have to have at least occasionally these more
35:39
head butting type debates in a sense, how do you navigate that
35:44
to advocate for your guy? Yeah, so my boss and I talk
35:49
about this frequently. You have to know when to yell.
35:52
There's times to let a light a bridge on fire and there's times
35:54
to not. And you've got to try and figure
35:56
that out. The reality is that we often
35:59
don't just have one player in an organization, usually with
36:01
several. And so like, you often can't
36:04
burn the whole house down because you've got all two other
36:07
guys or whatever you're advocating for that you might
36:10
have to call on next week. And so sometimes you have to
36:13
take your losses, sometimes you have to, even though you don't
36:17
agree. You just have to let it happen.
36:20
But if you feel like the players in jeopardy, that's usually the
36:23
time to puff your chest out and say no.
36:27
So are you in that regard ever quote UN quote playing the game
36:33
in a sense? We are always playing a game and
36:35
they are always playing the game.
36:36
There are teams within BPA that won't talk to me but will talk
36:41
to Storm and vice versa, usually because we had to burn a bridge
36:44
at some point in time, whatever seems to last, it's usually like
36:47
a year or two where you feel like you get banished from
36:49
somebody and you're not allowed to call him for a little while.
36:52
And then the reality of front offices is that they get, they
36:56
seem to roll over every several years and then a new group comes
36:59
in or everyone just kind of forgets about it.
37:02
More often than not, though, at some point they need something
37:04
from us where they have to decide if they're going to call
37:07
us or not. People want to talk about how
37:09
Scott Boris has bad relationships with certain teams
37:12
and sure, that's great until that team wants to sign one of
37:15
his clients. And then they have to make a
37:16
decision about whether they're going to lose a player that they
37:18
really want because they don't like the agent or if they're
37:21
going to put on, you know, their big boy pants.
37:23
Remember that this is business and go have a grown up
37:28
conversation. And that happens with us too.
37:30
Sometimes I have to remind myself like, hey, stop being
37:32
petty. Pick up the phone and call
37:34
somebody. Right, because at the end of the
37:38
day, you represent talent. That talent wins games.
37:41
Yeah, I can't let something that happened five years ago impact
37:44
how I'm representing the kid who needs needs me in the moment.
37:47
Yeah. And I'm sure on the human side
37:49
that gets difficult at times in the sense that you aren't just
37:53
playing chess. It is human lives.
37:55
And we all have our motives, good or bad.
37:59
But I mean, your job is to, as we discussed early on in this
38:03
episode, is represent an individual to the best of your
38:06
abilities to give them the best possible path to success in your
38:12
eyes. Exactly.
38:14
Exactly. OK, so they that's been a fun
38:18
little winding Rd. there. Let's stick in this foxhole.
38:20
I like, I like where we're at right now.
38:22
I like where we're at with this injury space.
38:25
I do want to pick back up on the stuff.
38:29
So like, like I touched on a little bit earlier, the research
38:33
that came out of Ahmad's camp earlier this year or I guess
38:37
back in 2024 was not so much that guys couldn't return to
38:41
play, but we were seeing delays in their overall performance
38:46
that was trailing them being cleared as healthy to throw
38:50
again. So now in your role, or maybe
38:54
when you're coming up on a contract post injury, a guy gets
38:57
cleared to pitch in game again, but we know the stuff isn't
39:02
there yet. Now I'm sure this is where
39:04
things both get fun, interesting, nightmarish, all
39:08
the above, every single emotion. But how do you fight through
39:12
that? Yeah, I mean, I think the first
39:14
thing is just just on stuff alone, I feel like there's this
39:18
facade that the world has put out there that if you get Tommy
39:21
John, you're going to come back throwing harder That's that's
39:24
not 100% correlated anywhere close.
39:28
Right. And the research would even say
39:30
otherwise that it's the opposite.
39:32
Yeah. Are there guys that come back
39:33
throwing harder? Yeah.
39:35
Is it because they have a new and improved elbow?
39:38
No. The reason is because they just
39:41
spent the last year lifting weights every single day, and
39:45
they're likely 10 percent, 20% stronger than when they got
39:50
hurt. And they fixed some other
39:52
deficiencies that likely LED them to getting hurt.
39:55
Yeah, it takes a while for the stuff to come back.
39:57
And it's hard to navigate with guys because they're
40:00
competitors, right? And they just want to go.
40:02
But yeah, it takes, it seems like it takes the breaking ball
40:04
a period of time to to get to where it was.
40:07
Change UPS seem to come back more naturally.
40:10
Fastball command takes a little bit too.
40:13
We see guys often come off Tommy John and start walking people at
40:16
a little bit higher rate than they maybe have historically.
40:19
So yeah, all those things are factored.
40:21
And then, you know, how does that help or hurt on a contract
40:23
side? It mostly hurts.
40:25
The teams love to use anything they can to drive player value
40:28
down and you're often fighting against that and it's a battle
40:32
you can't really win, right. You can't.
40:35
You can't tell the team, well pay him now and 12 months later
40:38
he's going to be what he was. They don't operate that way and
40:41
I wouldn't say I blame them, but I would do the same thing if I
40:43
was on the other side. Really what you're trying to do
40:45
is find a satisfactory floor for the player where they can feel
40:48
satisfied financially moving forward.
40:51
Most players are real about what their situation is in at least
40:54
at least the players we're dealing with.
40:56
They understand where they're at, they understand the
40:57
situation. They understand that, yeah, some
40:59
value has been been lost in the interim and hopefully we can
41:02
gain it on the backside. But yeah, that's why, I mean,
41:03
when we talk about guys taking pre arbitration extensions or or
41:07
mid arbitration extensions to lock in value, that's why,
41:10
right? They're basically taking an
41:11
insurance policy against their own injury.
41:15
I like that last point you made a lot and which is why I paused
41:17
for a second to just kind of process it because I, I was
41:20
prepared to ask my next question.
41:22
And then right when you said it was like, oh, good point.
41:24
So thanks. Yeah, I think like Bobby Witt
41:27
Junior, right, like what is Bobby Witt Junior worth on the
41:30
open market? You could argue somewhere close
41:32
to what Soto just got paid the Bobby Witt Junior signed an
41:36
extension be pre armed for several $100 million.
41:39
And that's a decision that Bobby made.
41:42
You know, people are like, oh, his agents an idiot or oh, this
41:44
was a huge mistake. First of all, his agents is
41:46
dead. So neither here nor there, but
41:49
important to know. They made a decision as a
41:51
family. They knew that they were taking
41:53
the risk and doing that. Maybe there's some value loss,
41:55
but Bobby and his family were comfortable that risk and
41:58
everyone would beat him up on the other side too if he didn't
42:00
take the extension and got out into the media.
42:01
And then he got hurt and everyone said, well, what an
42:03
idiot. He got this extension on the
42:04
table and he didn't take it. How stupid is he?
42:06
Like there's no win. So ultimately you do what's
42:09
right for your your client, what they're trying to accomplish,
42:13
and take it from there. You're always going to be damned
42:16
if you do and damned if you don't.
42:17
The grass is always greener, no matter what.
42:20
Yeah, at the end of the day, everyone loves to look at us and
42:22
say that we're the idiot. The reality is that's not quite
42:24
how it works, and the players tend to understand that.
42:26
Yeah, the, the thing I was going to bring up before we we got in
42:31
that quick little pre art discussion, there was the
42:34
survivorship bias that happens with return from injury as well.
42:39
So you, you brought up this statistic or the facade that our
42:43
world believes out of nowhere that guys throw harder post TJ
42:48
or post surgery. And I do think a lot of that
42:51
comes from the survivorship bias of if the best player in
42:56
baseball goes down, he's going to come back and pitch again.
43:02
I to my knowledge, you guys don't have anything to do with
43:05
Otani's camp hand up, don't do anything with Shohei Otani, but
43:10
Shohei Otani is going to pitch again and is going to throw
43:13
really hard again. So no matter what it's it is
43:17
another statistic in the positive win column for TJ
43:20
Surgery. Yeah, the elite guys, even if
43:23
they're 10% worse when they come back, are still better than like
43:27
99.999% of the world population or the US population, whatever
43:32
data set you want to use. It's the guys that are like the
43:36
back end of the roster, right? Like they're only better than
43:39
99.997% of the population, but there's a group of guys behind
43:44
them in AAA and AA that might catch them and jump them and it
43:49
makes it impossible for them to ever get back.
43:51
That's the hard part. Again, when I say guys come
43:53
back, like they come back and play, it doesn't mean they're
43:55
going to be a big leaguer. I mean, it's hard enough to be a
43:57
big leaguer to be in with and you need a lot of things to go
44:00
right and catch some luck. And had a guy who was a big
44:02
leaguer simply because I hope it took out half a team's
44:05
organization and he was just having to be the AAA third
44:09
baseman at the time. Like he was having a pedestrian
44:13
season and still got to debut because of it.
44:15
There's luck involved and anything that comes in your
44:19
career that hurts that luck is is detrimental to you becoming a
44:23
big leaker and then staying a big leaker, which is even harder
44:25
than becoming a big. You discussed that back end of
44:29
the roster or those guys where an injury may be more
44:35
detrimental in a sense because a guy isn't proven or might not
44:39
have the track record that those around him has or the upside
44:43
that people expect. How can you help a player then
44:47
navigate that as they're returning?
44:49
Of course they're going to work hard.
44:50
Everybody works hard. But is that where you start
44:53
trying to find like the new no competitive advantage to use our
45:01
like fancy business terms? Yeah.
45:03
To some level, I think the mental side is so hard and
45:07
almost with complete certainty around month 8 or 9 of Tommy
45:12
John recovery, guys tend to get really depressed.
45:16
The hope is kind of gone from the surgery and you're still
45:19
looking at 5 or 6 months of rehab.
45:23
And guys hit a really dark place.
45:24
And I feel like that's where our value comes in the most.
45:28
In that process is like being the psychologist for a minute
45:32
while letting a guy be upset and frustrated and maybe depressed,
45:37
also saying, but like, look how far you've gotten and getting
45:39
them to latch back onto that. I think that's where we lend the
45:43
most value. It's a long process.
45:46
And then once they get back, yeah, there's some of the same
45:48
thing happens. I'm like, hey, give it time.
45:50
You're getting there. I know you're, you're not, you
45:53
don't feel like you're all the way there yet, but it's coming.
45:55
There's some level of that, but it's more within the rehab
45:58
process. Like every single guy hits the
46:02
dark place and you've got to help them through that place.
46:05
I particularly guys that having to get TJ during TJ recovery,
46:10
those ones are even harder. Whether something was wrong
46:13
surgically or something went wrong in the rehab process.
46:16
It happens. I've had a couple in the last
46:18
few years and those guys hit a really dark place, right?
46:22
Because they did all this work for nothing, they feel like, and
46:25
they've got to start all over again.
46:26
Like wearing that psychologist hat is probably where our value
46:29
becomes the most. Extreme, are there any agencies
46:34
to your knowledge and maybe you guys do it, but much like some
46:37
have brought on player performance aspects to what they
46:40
do or player development aspects.
46:42
Do you think there is a need for the what kind of sports
46:48
psychologist role in what you guys do?
46:51
Or is that just something you can outsource for easily?
46:53
I don't know if anybody effectively has one on the
46:55
payroll. I'm sure somebody does.
46:57
But all of us have connections to sports psychologist that we
47:00
refer guys to. And there are times guys in a
47:03
place where it's it's too much. I am not a board licensed
47:06
therapist. I am not a mental skills coach.
47:08
I played for my career and I've seen just about everything you
47:12
can see, but sometimes it needs more than me.
47:14
Sometimes a guy needs medication, Sometimes a guy
47:15
needs something else. And so we, we, yeah, we all have
47:19
people we send people to. Right.
47:21
It's not something I had thought about or.
47:24
The now the teams have them on staff too, right?
47:26
We could talk about how that opens up a whole another can of
47:28
worms, but we would prefer that our players not give their
47:34
employer information and about where their mental.
47:39
Spaces. That's interesting.
47:41
So I understand why this is a new can of worms, because I
47:45
guess on the surface level that individuals there to support
47:48
them, help them. But you'd assume somebody who
47:52
has a degree will act in the best interest of the player and
47:55
not disclose the private things that a player says.
47:58
And I don't have a specific example of that not happening,
48:02
but I'm not going to let my guy be the one where we find out it
48:04
is happening. That's a that's a tough year to
48:06
live with from your position because you have seen it on the
48:10
performance side, you've seen a guy get hurt or whatever, have
48:15
some tweak and it grossly impacts a contract, I'm sure by
48:19
hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars.
48:23
Yeah, it is understandable for you to think that could possibly
48:26
be the case when it comes to the mental side of things as well.
48:30
Correct. OK.
48:34
That's that's very interesting and not something I've ever
48:38
thought about before. I'm glad you don't have any
48:40
examples of it. That's probably a good sign at a
48:43
minimum. But.
48:45
Yeah. It's just, you know, you're
48:47
trying to think of risk before it happens, right?
48:50
And so yeah, I'd much prefer my guys seek outside assistance
48:54
than from the employer. Yeah.
48:57
OK. There's one thing that probably
49:01
one more topic we can hit on here that that we haven't talked
49:05
too much about yet in that is the actual financial impact.
49:10
We've hinted at it a little bit, but the financial impact that an
49:14
athlete can experience with an injury, right?
49:18
There's, there's the mental, there's the physical, all these
49:21
toils and troubles that they fight through.
49:25
But the other thing that is very important to address is that
49:29
they get paid to do this for a living.
49:31
And if something happens that can prevent them from playing,
49:37
that ultimately negatively impacts them.
49:40
So I'd love if you could offer some insights on whether you've
49:44
seen it or how you've seen it play out in the draft process,
49:47
how you've seen it play out in free agency or trades or
49:51
anything. Yeah.
49:52
So from the draft side, if the player is actively injured at
49:58
the time of draft, meaning they either are needing Tommy John or
50:02
have had Tommy John, there's a significant impact on value.
50:07
We've seen it on some guys that were first rounders where they
50:09
may have been top ten overall pick and now they're a 28th
50:12
overall pick. That gets exacerbated when they
50:14
were supposed to be like a fifth round pick.
50:16
If you're supposed to be a fifth round pick and you get Tommy
50:18
John or need Tommy John, you may fall to the 14th, 15th round.
50:23
Now eventually someone buys the talent and thinks that they can
50:25
fix it, but it's substantial on your minor leaguer that gets
50:30
injured. It was never going to probably,
50:32
most likely never going to be a big leaguer.
50:34
The financial loss is pretty minimal.
50:37
The career is likely going to get to AA or AAA and then
50:39
fizzle. Just not a financial loss there.
50:41
But on the guy that was going to become a big leaguer, it's
50:45
substantial for a number of reasons #1 when you talk about
50:49
salary arbitration and how players get paid during their,
50:51
your first three years, you just get big league minimum.
50:54
But once you get to salary arbitration, they compare you to
50:57
past players and that's how they decide what you're going to get
50:59
paid. Well, a large factor that can
51:01
have an impact on that is both injuries and broken service
51:04
time. We're talking several $1,000,000
51:06
impact at times, and that carries on for till you get to
51:09
six years of service time. Free agency.
51:12
If you get injured heading into free agency, obviously that's a
51:14
major issue. Depending on your injury
51:16
history, that can impact free agency as well.
51:18
So we'll see guys not get paid as much because they're viewed
51:21
as a player that's often hurt. Now if you have a one off
51:24
injury, they got fixed and you never really had a problem
51:26
again, teams tend to look the other way.
51:28
But the guy who's often hurt, that can have a major impact on
51:31
the open market. So quantifying it broadly is
51:34
probably impossible. Quantifying it individually on
51:37
player to player, it can have no impact to millions of dollars of
51:42
impact. And I assume you have been a
51:45
part of at least a couple of those situations, whether it's
51:48
draft or contract. How do you manage that with your
51:52
guy? Set expectations.
51:54
You've got to be very upfront with your player about what's
51:58
about to happen. And you know, you tell the guy
52:01
who was going to be 1/5 rounder that it's not hurt.
52:04
Hey, you're not a fifth rounder anymore, right?
52:07
Here's the teams that are so interested.
52:08
Here's where we think you're going to go.
52:10
Here's what we expect financially on the guy who's
52:12
going to be a free agent. It's hey, we're going to get
52:15
hit. You've been in the training room
52:17
a lot. You know what, we know it.
52:19
You got to be ready for it. For the guy going through salary
52:21
arbitration, hey, here's five guys who had very similar stats
52:25
to you that also had injuries and what they got paid.
52:27
Here's what guys who didn't have injuries got paid.
52:29
You're going to be in this bucket somewhere.
52:30
We're going to try and put you at the top of the bucket, but
52:33
you're going to be in that bucket.
52:35
You've got to manage expectations.
52:37
The easiest way to get fired as an agent is to over promise if
52:40
you, and that's any business. But if you set expectations for
52:44
your client about what's coming, they generally don't end up
52:47
upset on the back end. I feel like this goes back to
52:50
the Tell the truth and they'll hate you for a day and love you
52:54
forever. Tell a lie and they'll love you
52:57
for a day and hate you forever. Exactly.
52:59
Yeah, that's pretty much the world you live in.
53:01
Just be the. Before they love us forever.
53:03
Most of my clients stick around and you know, I some of the most
53:06
phone calls I have during the day are guys that aren't even
53:09
playing anymore and hearing like what they're up to now.
53:11
And a lot of those conversations.
53:12
Remember when you were in AA and this happened?
53:15
Remember when you were in rookie ball and this happened?
53:17
You remember that idiot you played with in Tulsa?
53:20
You remember that like that? That stuff is the really cool
53:24
part of my job. I'm.
53:26
Sure. Well, this it concludes my
53:30
questioning, at least on the agency specific stuff.
53:33
I don't know if there's anything else you want to share you feel
53:36
you need. No, I think this is fun.
53:38
I think it's good for people to hear.
53:40
And you know, again, my the way I view it and the way that maybe
53:43
the broader baseball world views it are probably a little bit
53:46
different based on who we're dealing with.
53:48
Like we said, like I'm not super scared of elbows, but I'd be
53:51
super scared of an elbow on my 14 year old who's playing
53:54
freshman high school ball. That's a little different than
53:56
the guy who's already in AA and knows how to work hard and knows
53:59
what we have and arm pre care and post care looks like and,
54:02
and those kind of things. So that was a good point you
54:05
made that that made me think for a minute on how I was thinking
54:07
about it. But yeah, I think elbows are for
54:12
professional baseball players. Elbows are less scary than they
54:15
were ten years ago. Yeah, I I can, I can live with
54:18
that take because. I prefer they not get hurt.
54:20
Let me caveat, I prefer that they none of them are.
54:24
Yes, Yeah, there's no quite. There's no question about that.
54:27
If you've learned anything from our few interactions, hopefully
54:30
you know that we're at least trying to do something about.
54:32
That you guys are doing. You guys are doing a lot about
54:34
it and that's appreciated. Thank you.
54:36
Yeah, thank you very much. But no, I I really appreciate
54:39
the time. Getting your perspective on all
54:41
these things was awesome. And hopefully we can utilize you
54:44
as a resource going forward because this absolutely to me is
54:48
a, is a part, it was a part of the conversation that I
54:52
certainly don't hear about and I don't think most people hear
54:55
about often. So getting to hear your
54:57
perspective where you are playing middleman in the
55:00
majority of these discussions provides a new line of sight.
55:06
Yeah. And I think the reality is that
55:08
in professional baseball you're dealing with 18 to 28 year old
55:12
males sometimes. I remember being 18, I couldn't
55:15
have effectively communicated my displeasure about something to
55:19
my employer. At 18, often from the employer,
55:22
I'm dealing with a rehab coordinator.
55:24
Like sometimes the conversation is better had through me than it
55:28
is through the player. Hey, he said that he wasn't
55:31
going to do our rehab today. I'm like, no, that's not that's
55:35
not what he meant. Here's what I think he's
55:36
thinking. Maybe you want to go back and
55:38
talk to him. And sometimes we can help clean
55:39
up that that communication that 22 year olds just aren't great
55:43
at having. Yeah, you're there to help.
55:46
You're there to share. You're there to make their lives
55:48
easy. More often than not, our
55:49
communications with teams are beneficial for everybody
55:51
involved and appreciated by everybody involved. 1% of the
55:54
time it ends up in. Fireworks.
55:56
And that's when you just have to know when to yell.
55:58
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
56:00
Well, Alex, I really appreciate your time today.
56:03
I don't know if there's any resources that you want to share
56:06
or if there's way people can learn more about your agency.
56:10
I mean ball players, agency.com, you can find all about us there,
56:15
my emails on the page. You feel free to reach out if
56:17
you have a question and I'm happy to answer.
56:20
I will tell you that in this time of year, my response times
56:23
are horrific. That's a nice way to put it,
56:27
right? Horrific, if at all, existence.
56:29
Do they get better? I I circle back to everything
56:32
eventually. There we go.
56:33
As long as you circle back. Let's let's use that good office
56:36
jargon. And I am good and put.
56:38
Pin in it. Archiving and revisiting when I
56:41
have a chance to take a moment's breathe.
56:44
Well, I appreciate your time today and to all the listeners
56:48
out there, thanks for laying back with us.