Scott Boras Rips MLB, Says League Must Fix 'Noncompetitive Cancer'

Prominent sports agent Scott Boras ripped Major League Baseball for allowing teams to tank seasons in order to acquire high draft picks and top prospects.

Boras, whose clients have been impacted by a sluggish free-agent market during the current MLB offseason, referenced the 1919 Chicago White Sox in comments this week to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (via ESPN.com) about the current state of rebuilding organizations.

"We kicked people out of the game when they tried to not win," he said. "We have to get rid of the noncompetitive cancer. We can't go to our fanbases and sell the promise of losing to win later. That is destructive to our sport because it has removed one-third of the competition."

The big four American sports leagues have all seen a rise in teams that will openly throw multiple seasons away in hope of long-term gain.

It's a trend unlikely to change without the threat of league punishment following the high-end success of the 2017 World Series champion Houston Astros, who've built a juggernaut with the strategy. They lost at least 106 games in three straight years starting in 2011 and are now reaping the rewards of picking high in the draft and trading proven veterans for prospects.

The approach isn't guaranteed to work, of course. The NFL's Cleveland Browns, NBA's Phoenix Suns and NHL's Buffalo Sabres are among the teams that have struggled to turn the corner in their retooling efforts despite a series of top-five selections.

But there's a growing consensus that getting stuck in the middle—not good enough to win a championship, but too good to get a top-10 pick—is the worst place to land.

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred was pressed on the issue by Dan Le Batard of ESPN Radio (via Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald) after the Miami Marlins' new ownership group shipped superstar slugger Giancarlo Stanton to the New York Yankees as a way to slash payroll. Manfred defended the club.

"I know you have yourselves worked up on this topic. … [But] baseball has always been a cyclical business," he said. "The strategy the Marlins have adopted is tried and true in baseball. I'm not saying it's without pain. … But it was a process that ultimately produced a winner [at times, including Houston this season], in terms of smaller markets' ability to win."

In turn, without the potential for something like relegation in European soccer, in which the worst teams each season drop to a lower division, MLB front offices will continue their efforts to follow the Astros' blueprint for long-term success, even if it means an awful on-field product for several years.