11/05/24
June 05, 2006
The arm that changed the draft: "I've been through 28 drafts," Scott Boras says, "and Brien Taylor, still to this day, is the best high school pitcher I've seen in my life." Interesting article that makes you wonder what might have been.
This Yahoo! sports guy Passan is delivering the goods this season. I wouldn't have thought a reporter for a website would do such entertaining, thoughtful journalism...
posted by Venicemenace at 04:39 PM on June 05, 2006
I always thought this was the arm that changed the draft, and how players are brought along now. Boras is no saint, however, I'm sure he had his commission in mind primarily. But, this was a good read, and I agree with Venicemenace that Passan has written some very insightful columns this year.
posted by mjkredliner at 05:00 PM on June 05, 2006
Wow, powerful story.
posted by gp_rider at 06:51 PM on June 05, 2006
Passan is getting better, that's for sure. Some of his earlier slag pieces were bad enough that I wrote him about them. This was a good story, is it bad that it made me dislike Scott Boras even more? The guy doesn't see people, he see's paychecks.
posted by fenriq at 10:26 PM on June 05, 2006
Given the image I have of Scott Boras in my head, half of me assumes that his continued praise of Brien Taylor helps him sleep at night, knowing that he exploited and oversold a young man and provided the Yankees a product that delivered absolutely zero return on their substantial investment. The other half of me assumes that Boras sleeps just fine any day he receives a check. This is a great article. As Yogi Berra might say, whether or not Taylor's is a cautionary tale, his tale is cautionary.
posted by BullpenPro at 12:00 AM on June 06, 2006
Passan's columns are really excellent. Check out the one on his thoughts about the amateur draft in general. His story about Brien Taylor is sad, but for me it is sad mostly because of the way he hurt himself, in a ridiculous scuffle with lowlifes. That's too bad that such a talent was wasted on such a trivial thing. I remember when Taylor came out, what a big deal his holdout was and then when he signed. Since then, two of my friends have been top 7 picks in the amateur draft and have collected HUGE bonuses ($700,000 for one and $1.2 million for the other; not bad chump change). Taylor's influence obviously affected their situations. Whether it's a good thing or not, who knows. Still, great stuff from Passan. I always enjoy reading his columns.
posted by donnnnychris at 02:39 AM on June 06, 2006
It was a well written article, except I missed one detail: since he did play at least the two seasons, didn't he get his $1.55M bonus? Even assuming high tax rates (probably near %40) plus the agent cut... the guy still probably pocketed $750,000, plus anything else he earned in those brief stints in the majors after the Yankees released him (which even at the major league minimum salary would be a year's normal pay for most people in a few week's time). While I can understand him working for a living, the writer made it sound like the guy was destitute or something...
posted by hincandenza at 12:29 AM on June 08, 2006
I was so proud of myself when I got a Brien Taylor Topps Stadium Club rookie card...a gem of my collection. I ended up trading it for a Randall Cunningham rookie card (it was a good investment, he told me), which kickstarted my 11 year old love of the NFL and the Eagles - a serious feat, considering I'm Canadian. In retrospect, I got the better of that trade on most levels...I just wish I got a rookie card of a team that didn't taunt me so much. But while he never rocked the world like a Clemens or Maddux, he changed my life completely in quite a bizarre way...Sorry for the derail...but Brien Taylor! Jeez!