If a team potentially interested in free agent Prince Fielder wonders how his power production compares to Harmon Killebrew or how his durability ranks with Pete Rose, Ichiro Suzuki and newly announced Hall of Famer Ron Santo, all that team has to do it ask.
Agent Scott Boras has a stat for that.
An annual rite of the offseason is the Boras Binder (patent pending perhaps). It arrives sometime before Dec. 1 each winter like baseball's answer to an Advent calendar, complete with a goodie on every page. The binder is a sleek three-ring snapper with industrial-grade aluminum covers and a Boras Corporation logo stamped into the corner. This winter the prized binder is a 73-page treatise on Fielder. There is also a binder for Boras client and former Cardinals pitcher Edwin Jackson, and two winters ago a 60-page binder for Matt Holliday circulated baseball and lauded his value as a free agent.
Boras described the binder as a way "to educate" the market on his client, and he told ESPN.com that the goal of the research inside is to answer a question, "What does he mean to a franchise?"
Christmas has come and gone and Fielder remains the best talent still available this winter almost three weeks after his rival for free-agent affection, Albert Pujols, signed a record deal. This is not unusual for Boras' biggest client. Holliday didn't complete a deal with the Cardinals until the first week of January in 2010. Boras plays the market deliberately, often dealing directly with ownership and fastening a tight lid on talks. The Washington Nationals and Baltimore Orioles are two teams believed to be courting Fielder, with others like the Chicago Cubs and Texas Rangers playing coy or playing off their interest.
'A RARITY'
A few days after leaving the winter meetings on Dec. 8, Boras joined Fielder on an eight-day road trip, according to Yahoo Sports. The duo canvassed potential homes for the lefthanded slugger and home run king. Fielder, 27, has the luxury of being choosy, especially as Boras bills him as a rarity.
"He's not even at his peak yet," Boras told a clutch of reporters in a lobby of Dallas' Hilton Anatole on the final full day of the winter meetings. "He has Albert Pujols-type numbers and those aren't even his premium years. Albert Pujols is the best hitter we've seen since (Barry Bonds). You're definitely going to have something that is a rarity in the game because he's so young and you can project five years ahead. Normally when someone (signs) a free agent, you're not getting that many prime years."
Enter the Binder.
Boras has had his staff produce binders for clients for the past decade, including one for Alex Rodriguez before he signed a record 10-year, $252-million deal with the Texas Rangers. He is not alone in such glitzy presentations. In 2010, the agents for Carl Crawford sent interested teams an iPad loaded with video and multimedia information on the Gold Glove Award-winning outfielder. One wonders if a general manage feigned interest to score an iPad. Other agents offer packets that stress their client's off-field activities because stats are readily available online or in a pack of baseball cards.
The 73-page booklet on Fielder has been given to interested general managers and select members of the media in an attempt to, as Boras explained, educate. The binder is a trove of statistical euphoria, color photos, and historical comparisons. As the market for Fielder meanders toward the new year it offers a peek at how Boras packages his client, but also on the market at large and what agents — in this case a super agent — feel teams value.
The binder contains glorious statistical factoids:
• Only three Hall of Fame first basemen had as many as 200 home runs by the age of 27: Jimmie Foxx, Orlando Cepeda and Killebrew. Fielder has 230.
• Fielder is the seventh player to hit 32 home runs or more in five seasons by the age of 27. The others: Miguel Cabrera, Eddie Mathews, Pujols, Rodriguez, Foxx and Vlad Guerrero.
• Pujols and Fielder are the only players with at least 32 home runs in each of the past five seasons.
• Fielder hit a home run that reached a velocity of 119.2 mph, the highest of any homer this past season, according to ESPN Stats.
• He is the only player to average .280 with more than 40 homers and at least 100 RBIs from 2007 to 2011. (Not mentioned: Pujols averaged .324, 39 homers and 114 RBIs in that same period.)
"You see who has as many home runs by the age of 27 at first base and you see Jimmie Foxx and Lou Gehrig and the list is only four guys," Boras explained this month. "You have to double-check. Then you start looking at what accomplishments this man has had at such a young age. You look at the game and the younger core that's coming and you'd say there's no one (like Fielder). You're going to have to average 37 home runs in this period of time. Who's going to do that?"
In just those few pages mentioned above, it's clear how Boras has positioned Fielder not just against history but against this market. Most of the stats described in the book are mentioned alongside the player's age, positioning Fielder's 27 against Holliday's 31, Cabrera's 28 or Pujols' 31. Pujols, the other premium hitter available this winter, is mentioned in passing several times. But it's clear the Binder shows what Boras tells: that Fielder, 5 years younger than Pujols, is built for a long-term contract because he's coming into his prime.
'BUILT FIELDER TOUGH'
Those are some of the statistical superlatives, and they're meant to wow in addition to illustrate. The Binder also reveals some of the selling points that teams value, that teams bank on. In Holliday's binder, one of the nine sections was titled, "Durability and Athleticism in the Outfield." In Fielder's, one of the nine sections is simple identified as "Built Fielder Tough." Both address the player's reliability and health through the course of their career and season.
Holliday, his binder says, was one of four outfielders to log 1,200 defensive innings from 2006 to 2009. This past season, Fielder joined Cal Ripken Jr. and Santo as the only players with more than 950 games played from age 22 to 27. Fielder is one 10 players with 959 games during any six-year span, alongside Santo, Ripken, Ichiro, Dale Murphy and Rose. Holliday's binder included an action photo of him in the weight room alongside a quote from teammate Troy Tulowitzki about Holliday knowing "what to do to get out of a (hitting) funk."
Simply put, durability pays.
Teams need to know about it to do the same.
Boras made the point this month that Holliday was drawn to the Cardinals and he encouraged Kyle Lohse to stick with the Cardinals because of the presence of Pujols. Fielder is a franchise player with a similar gravitational pull, Boras said.
A long-term contract for a star player helps "attract players to a franchise," Boras said.
To that end, Fielder's binder describes the protection he provided National League MVP Ryan Braun. Holliday's binder delves deeper into the potential business boost, illustrating how the Cardinals' attendance jumped 2,000 fans per game after the Cardinals added him for the playoff push in 2009. That information is juxtaposed with promotional work, hardware like Silver Sluggers, and charitable endeavors like the floor plan for the "YMCA Fielder Dugout."
BEHIND THE NUMBERS
Statistics are only the gateway information for teams who have such things as slugging percentage, home run rate, and ballpark factors at their fingertips. Most teams have analytic departments whose job it is to provide info on free-agent targets. The Binder, despite its industrial packaging, offers a glimpse of the person behind the numbers and thus strikes at the real qualities team sign: durability, future production and, in the case of a franchise player, intangibles.
Oh, and age.
Fielder's age is the spine of his Binder, and it also gives him an unusual spot in the market. As Boras said at the Winter Meetings, the interest in his client varies from teams on the verge of competing to teams expecting to compete three years from now. The offers for Fielder reflect those differing statuses, Boras said. His age creates an interesting detour that this market could take for Fielder: the shorter, higher-priced deal. Fielder could take a five-year deal with a higher average value than Pujols' $25.4 million, still set a record and reach free agency again at 32, Pujols' age next season.
That way the once-in-a-decade player that Boras describes would be available to the highest bidder twice in the decade.
"When you start to analyze, you realize we have a decade player," Boras said. "He's a rare kind."
Proof is in the Binder.
