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With just a little less than 48 hours until Monday's midnight deadline to sign picks from June's draft, Washington Nationals' president Stan Kasten told the AP he has "no idea" if top pick Stephen Strasburg will sign with the team. This is despite the Washington Post's report that the Nats have already offered Strasburg a larger signing bonus than any draft pick in history, a report that Kasten more or less confirmed to the AP. In each of the two seasons that the early deadline has been in place, most of Scott Boras' clients (including Matt Wieters, Pedro Alvarez and Eric Hosmer, all top-six picks in either 2007 or 2008) have gone right up to the midnight deadline before signing. Even if Strasburg has already decided that he wants to accept whatever it is that the Nationals have offered him (likely in the neighborhood of 15-$20 million), the world won't know until Monday.
What is troubling for the Nats' chances, however, is Kasten's statement that Boras is essentially looking to redefine the way draft picks are valued with Strasburg. If that's truly what Boras and Strasburg want, there's probably nothing the Nationals can do to change their minds.
I studied up a lot on the history of Boras's draft negotiations last year as a Pirate fan hoping to see Alvarez signed after the Pirates picked him second overall. The overwhelming impression that I've had of Boras is that these draft power plays he makes are very rarely about only money. In reality, Boras is almost always working to exploit holes in the CBA and the only way that negotiations really take place is if the team he's negotiating with is willing to play by his rules.
Take the Alvarez negotiations last year; Boras dragged the Alvarez signing right down to the last minute and Alvarez may well have actually agreed to a deal with the Pirates after the clock hit midnight. Because of that, the MLBPA filed a grievance saying the contract was illegally signed and the Pirates, not wanting to risk losing Alvarez, re-negotiated the contract.
The terms of the re-negotiation weren't actually all that different than what Alvarez had initially agreed too. The first deal he signed was a minor league contract with a signing bonus right of $6 million. The re-worked deal was a Major League deal worth a total of $6.35 million over four years. The total sum of money was more, but because some of it exists in options and is to be paid down the road, the total cost of this initial contract could end up costing the Pirates less than Alvarez's initial bonus did.
I don't think Boras' goal was to renegotiate for more money; it was to get a team to ignore the deadline and re-negotiate a contract. The Pirates were willing to play ball and in the end, both sides got what they wanted. If the Nationals want to sign Strasburg, they'll have to do the same thing.
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