Funny How These “Once in a Lifetime” Prospects Keep Cropping Up

Before the 2009 MLB Draft, agent Scott Boras was telling anyone who would listen that Stephen Strasburg was a “once in a lifetime” prospect and deserved a $50M signing bonus.  Strasburg hasn’t even signed his bonus yet, and we are already being told about the next once-in-a-lifetime prospect high school catcher Bryce Harper.

Harper is 16, has been playing baseball since about the age of three, and is dropping out of high school and entering junior college so he can be eligible for the 2010 Draft.  He’s already expected to go No. One.

I think I commented on this phenomenon a couple of months ago.  Boras’ hope with Strasburg is to get a record-setting signing bonus that re-calibrates expectations on the signing bonuses for all draft picks going forward.

Strasburg really is an especially good prospect.  However, once he sets whatever record he sets for signing bonus (my guess would be somewhere between $12M and $20M), every time there is a player who is the consensus top player in the draft, he will want Strasburg money.

If, for example, Strasburg signs for a $15M bonus this year, and Bryce Harper is the consensus No. 1 prospect next June, any agent representing Harper will ask for Strasburg money, at least, and will have an excellent of getting it, since Harper at age 17 next year, can always go back to junior college for another year, with no harm done (barring injury) to his market price in the 2011 Draft.  Because of his tender age, Harper has more leverage than anyone.

Once two players have received Strasburg money, those kind of signing bonuses will almost immediately become the norm rather than the exception.

Guess who will benefit from this as much as the prospects?  The player agents, of course.  Their 5 percent cuts of signing bonuses will go through the roof.

Boras, in particular, has been particularly good at pushing up the fair market value of top player contracts.  All he has to do is find the one team out of 30 that will wildly overpay based on the mistaken belief that one great player will turn the franchise around or make all the difference in the team’s run for and into the post-season.

My guess is that Strasburg and Harper (or someone else) will get enormous bonuses, and the owners will start screaming for the kind of amateur draft pick cap the NBA has.   The rumblings have already well begun.

A cap on amateur bonuses will have to be collectively bargained, but if the owners are willing to give enough concessions to the Players’ Associations current members (i.e., current major leaguers), the Players’ Association will agree to a cap just the way that the NBA’s Players’ Association did.  Since no members of the Players’ Association are amatuers, they have nothing to lose by giving away amateur players’ rights.