After 'I gotta get my money' rant, Rays LHP Blake Snell drops agent for Scott Boras

Tampa Bay Rays ace Blake Snell has swapped agents, and his choice for new representation is pretty in line with a person who just made headlines for a rant about refusing to take a pay cut.

Snell has hired Scott Boras as his new agent after being previously represented by Apex Baseball, according to the Tampa Bay Times’ Marc Topkin.

As many baseball fans are aware, Boras is typically the favored agent for players looking to maximize their free agent paydays. Of the 12 biggest deals signed in free agency last winter, seven were negotiated by Boras and totaled more than $1 billion in guarantees (including a record $324 million for Gerrit Cole).

As Topkin points out, Snell’s change in representation is oddly timed given that he signed a five-year, $50 million extension with the Rays a year ago. Most agent changes come as a new deal is approaching, though this could just be a reflection of the environment Snell is seeing before him right now.

He made that outlook very clear during a Twitch stream a couple weeks ago.

Snell drew criticism for comments on Twitch

Snell became the avatar for player demands in the eyes of many casual observers when he tore into MLB’s insistence on further reducing players’ salaries as it attempts to play a season amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Specifically, Snell wasn’t happy with the idea of risking his health and future career for significantly less money than he agreed to.

The meat of Snell’s comments:

Those thoughts were more or less endorsed by the likes of Bryce Harper and Nolan Arenado, though they still caught plenty of flak from those who view the current labor impasse as the players being greedy in a pandemic.

Of course, the criticisms of Snell and the players have mostly ignored that he has a job where long-term lung health is key, that the long-term effects of COVID-19 (a lung infection) are still unclear and that leagues have seemed willing to accept a few coronavirus cases as the cost of doing business.

MLB owners have made clear how uninterested they are in playing a season in which they supposedly lose money, while players are skeptical of that claim as long as the league keeps its books closed. The owners aren’t the ones facing the physical risks of playing the season during the pandemic, but their insistence on profiting from it — while preaching the country’s need for baseball’s return — has helped spark a labor battle.

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