Back in 2001, Barry Bonds accepted the San Francisco Giants’ offer of salary arbitration — a move that was unexpected, risky, and a sign that other teams had not presented him with attractive offers. By doing so, he gave up his ability to negotiate with any other club as a free agent.
Scott Boras, Bonds’ agent at the time, negotiated the deal with the Giants. However, after three years, Bonds and Boras had a falling out. In an interview, the latter discussed the deal that likely saved the baseball player’s career at the time.
Scott Boras Talks About Barry Bonds and His Arbitration Deal
In an interview with Graham Bensinger on the “In Depth with Graham Bensinger” podcast, Boras was asked about his perspective on his relationship with Bonds over the years.
“Barry’s a baseball genius, so I enjoyed it,” Boras said. “The unique thing about Barry Bonds was that I grew to know that his comfort in San Francisco was the place to be. Free agency, ironically, was not the best. To move was not the best path for him at all.
“And in the free agent market, people wanted his performance, but they were very concerned about him individually. And I just heard and heard and heard it, and really, the free agent market didn’t really respond to him. And I said, ‘Barry, that’s okay. You have other rights to use. I’m gonna use arbitration to illustrate your value.’”
As a result, the player who hit 73 home runs the season before — setting a single-season record — and claimed he intended to surpass Henry Aaron’s all-time record of 755, stayed in San Francisco for at least another year.
Boras said at the time that Bonds did not want to be the highest-paid player in baseball. Alex Rodriguez, a shortstop who signed a 10-year, $252 million contract with the Texas Rangers the previous winter, was another of his clients who held that distinction.
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According to Boras, Bonds only wanted to be “correctly situated among his peers” on the financial scale. That included former Oakland Athletics first baseman Jason Giambi, who inked a $120 million contract with the New York Yankees, averaging $17.1 million per season, and Chicago Cubs right fielder Sammy Sosa, who made an average of $18 million annually.
Bonds’ choice pleased Giants officials, who faced the public relations nightmare of losing one of the greatest players in sports after he finished one of the greatest seasons ever.
