The Zen of Scott Boras: "When you're the thermometer, you're not the turkey."

As MLB's winter meetings continue, trouserless on Zoom, the LA Times profiles super-agent Scott Boras, 68, son of a dairy farmer, who supposedly used to birth the scariest words an owner could hear, seemingly yanked from an ambulance chaser TV commercial: "He's being repped by Scott Boras!"

In a time when agents become GMs and rappers become agents, who knows where truth and fiction intersect? In their elaborate mating dances, greedy owners plead poverty while greedy agents shout about social justice, and at the quantum level, their kids attend the same private academy. It's money, the closest thing to magic that humanity ever made. 

A friend of mine used to sum up all human interaction this way: "Tens screw tens, nines screw nines, eights screw eights, and so on. The missing factor - which allows, say, a three to screw a ten, is money." 

That's where Boras comes in. 

In the profile, Boras offers a bizarre analogy that laps my cognitive capabilities. (I'm still recovering from the Joe Namath Medicare Hot-Line commercials, where he shouts, "Call now! IT'S FREE!" as if long-distance rates from 1975 remain in effect.)  Boras says: 

“When you’re the thermometer, you’re not the turkey. We put the thermometer in, and the turkey tells us when it is done. That’s kind of how the winter meetings work. Sometimes the turkey is done rather quickly, because the heat is high early. If the temperature is low, then obviously the turkey takes longer to cook.”

If anybody can interpret this, go for it. I never went to law school, but I did once stay at a Holiday Inn Express, so here's my take: 

Out there in California, Boras smokes some damn primo ganja, and one part of his soul is still riding the Further bus with Kesey and Cassidy. (Didn't Kesey say he'd rather be a lightning bolt than a seismic needle?)  Far out, man. 

Elsewhere in the article, Boras maintains that - contrary to the sing-song consensus of loyal Gammonites - MLB owners did NOT lose money last year. 

Although commissioner Rob Manfred has said the 30 MLB teams lost $3 billion this season, and although Dodgers president Stan Kasten has said his team lost “well north of $100 million,” Boras said teams collected postseason national television and in-season local television revenue while paying 37% of salaries in the pandemic-shortened schedule.

Says Boras: "There's no team in baseball that lost money last year."

These days, as we've painfully learned, anybody can say anything. All you need is a cable network, and Hal Steinbrenner has one. In fact, Hal's greatest superpower is not his money; it's his ability to poor-mouth. He's better than those ads with the shivering puppies. The conventional wisdom says the pandemic cost the Yankees more money than any other franchise. Thus, we should show a little gratitude; be thankful for whatever shekels that Generous Hal tosses our way.

Well, here's what I think I know: 

The Yanks will make a Joggy Cano-style run at keeping DJ LeMahieu. But they won't outbid the rest of baseball. They'll hike to a certain precipice and then turn back. Supposedly, LeMahiue wants to stay a Yankee. The question: How much would he leave on the table to make that happen? 

If LeMahieu walks, the Yankees will go to Plan B. (I'm sure they have one.) My guess: They'd re-sign Masahiro Tanaka, and find a defensive SS and a lefty bat. (Or one, in the form of Didi.) So... the remaining questions: Who will be the turkey? And where does the thermometer go?