With Bellinger signing shorter-term deal, what’s next for Boras and his top clients?

In the bad, old days we’d just call this collusion and be done with it. But this isn’t the eighties. These aren’t the same rubes who were whacked for more than $100 million in damages as a result of baseball’s collusion rulings of the past.

Besides, when a dude signs a contract for $700 million and another dude who has never pitched in the majors signs a 12-year, $325 million deal like Yoshinobu Yamamoto …

Beyond that, it’s not just that owners learned to burn the notes or cover up paper trails — if paper trails even exist anymore. Rather, teams are more inclined to stick with their valuations of players. Owners are less inclined to let agents do end-runs around their front offices. So here we are, with the first of the Boras Four, Cody Bellinger, deciding to return to the Chicago Cubs on a three-year contract that could become a one-year deal.

Score one for Cubs owner Tom Ricketts and president Jed Hoyer, right? They have slayed the dragon that is Scott Boras.

Yeah … I’m not all that sure about that.

I think a savvier read of the situation would consider the uncertainty in the regional sports media market but most importantly, the increased comfort level teams (particularly analytically-inclined teams) have throwing their lot in with younger, cheaper players — a point articulated smartly by The Score’s Travis Sawchik.

I also don’t think there are many players with the kind of star-power to single-handedly drive ticket sales anymore, bar Ohtani; that overall economic environment, ballpark bells and whistles and creature comforts (plus a winning team) will drive sales of those new expensive seats at the Rogers Centre. It’s a different consumer who’s going to be in those seats than those in the upper levels.

I wrote a few weeks ago that despite the presence of Ohtani and Yamamoto on the market, Boras controls the winter and probably will next winter when he represents several free agents of consequence, starting with Juan Soto. First, let’s remember that there’s a difference between controlling the winter and winning every single negotiation. Second, none of Boras’ clients are going to the poor house; in terms of average annual value, Bellinger’s deal — three years, $80 million — is about what most analysts anticipated, although nobody saw it becoming a short-term deal. Plus, Carlos Correa parlayed an opt out in a three-year deal into a long-term contract — although if Bellinger were to exercise the option, it would mean he’d gone into the free-agent market three years in a row before turning 30, which is something. Third, whether Boras’ influence is waning will ultimately depend on the loyalty and happiness of his clients and whether he is able to poach clients from other agents.

That doesn’t mean that there won’t be Boras clients who might feel a little differently about approaching free agency than they did, say, four months ago. I’m not talking about Soto. In particular, I’d love a penny for Alex Bregman’s thoughts as he enters the final year of his contract with the Houston Astros. Same with Gerrit Cole, who will have to decide this season whether, at the age of 34, he wants to leave four years and $144 million on the table and opt out of his deal with the New York Yankees.

And I know we’ll get asked this on Blair & Barker so I’ll get ahead of it: yes, I’d take Matt Chapman back here on a Bellinger-esque deal. In a freaking heartbeat.

I have some other things to get off my chest …

Don Mattingly better be good at this offensive coordinator thing.

I don’t know what surprises me more: the fact that everything we’ve heard about the “new” role being played by Donnie Baseball seems to be more a matter of common sense than some brilliant revelation, or the fact that the Toronto Blue Jays looked around outside the organization for somebody else before asking Mattingly to assume whatever role it is that he has assumed. I mean, I know everything is a process with this management team and they love their due diligence but … man.

Anyhow, Mattingly’s role with this team seemed to be the story of the weekend and I think it was Daulton Varsho who seems to have summed it up on Blair & Barker Extra Innings when he told us he believed Mattingly’s ability to “(speak) the language each hitter will understand,” was significant. Sure seems like one of those can’t see the forest for the trees thing, eh?

A Netflix documentary on the death of the Montreal Expos? Good … providing it doesn’t fall into the old ‘blame Jeffrey Loria and Bud Selig’ nonsense.

Once more for those in the back: the Expos failed to get a ballpark built and left town because of the perfidiousness of local businessmen, compounded by the fact they were way over their skis when it came to running a sports franchise; because the partners were more interested in free trips to spring training than putting a penny of their own personal wealth into the team; and because Loria knew when he bought into the thing that they talked a big game but didn’t have the stones to back it up.

I covered that story and truth is, for their brave words (and endless media leaks), there’s little doubt the local yokels eventually tired of being repeatedly out-maneuvered by Loria and figured they might as well save their reputations by letting the “New York art dealer” take the blame. I’m going to suggest that before they contribute to any further misanalysis of the Loria era, the producers of the documentary study My Turn At Bat by former Expos president Claude Brochu and take note of how his so-called partners’ zest for internal politicking and misplaced sense of aggrandizement killed one ballpark plan, left another D.O.A., but were no match for Loria’s crystal clear, easily-identified desire to leverage control. The producers might want to contemplate thoughts from Brochu such as: “In my opinion, Loria committed to this process (buying the Expos) with a lot of good faith. It was only later, when his relationship with his partners deteriorated, that he was very tough on them.” Or: “Loria quickly figured out he was dealing with partners who were evasive, untrustworthy, and used all sorts of tricks, a lot of smoke and mirrors.”

I have a copy of the book if they want it. The death of baseball in Montreal and the eventual move of the Expos to Washington, D.C., was a Montreal and Quebec-made failure. You needn’t look any place else to find pall bearers …

Everybody looks better in pinstripes and Juan Soto is no different.

In an in-game interview Sunday with the YES Network’s Meredith Marakovits, Juan Soto mentioned that one of the things he wanted to accomplish with the New York Yankees in 2024 was to say at the end of the year he had hit a homer in every park in the Majors. Soto has so far been blanked in Angel Stadium, Guaranteed Rate Field (Chicago), Minute Maid Park, Fenway Park, and Globe Life Field …

If the Baltimore Orioles are the new Tampa Bay Rays when it comes to putting together a bullpen …

Then can we introduce you to Ronald Guzman.

Dumbing down the discourse …

People have the whole Xander Bogaerts thing wrong. No sooner had Bogaerts agreed a move to second base from shortstop to accommodate the San Diego Padres Gold Glove utilityman Ha-Seong Kim than the suggestion was maybe the Boston Red Sox knew what they were doing in letting him walk? 

Nonsense. Bogaerts was likely going to change positions even if he stayed in Boston — we’d heard first base. Giving Bogaerts an 11-year contract was overkill by the Padres but one of the benefits of signing a guy like Bogaerts to a long-term deal is it increases the likelihood the player will accept a late-career move. My guess is he would have done this on a three or five-year deal; and if I’m the Red Sox, I’d still rather have Bogaerts on my team …

Jeff Blair hosts Blair & Barker on Sportsnet 590/The Fan and Sportsnet 360 from 11-Noon ET