Garret and Scott

Garret Anderson has a new BFF.  Anderson has hired Scott Boras as his agent.  Anderson was without a player representative since his previous agent, Chris Arnold, negotiated his contract extension with the Angels in 2004.  To me, Anderson's hiring of Boras means he's serious about his desire to be a fulltime player in 2009 and beyond.  I read a comment that it's now possible for Anderson to get a deal possibly in the 3 year range for a salary of $36M.  I think this is ridiculous...maybe. 

Can an agent create a market?  Obviously, the Angels didn't feel Anderson was worth $14M to return next season, or else they would have exercised the option they held.  Tony Reagins has stated that the Angels might be interested in having Anderson return, but at a significantly reduced salary and role.  Anderson ranked 18th out of 25 in Value Over Replacement (VORP) of the left fielders with at least 400 plate appearances last season with a value of 14.9.  In 2007, he ranked 14th out of 22 with a VORP of 22.1.  In 2006 his replacement value was 9.0, which ranked him 22nd (out of 27).  And in 2005 he was the 18th best left fielder of the 24 who qualified.  I realize it's just one statistic, but I believe it is a very good statistic to show a player's value.  In the last 4 seasons Anderson has never been above average, so why would a team feel he's worth giving significant playing time to?  Probably because Boras will talk them into it.  Boras will tell them last season, Anderson's batting average was higher than Ryan Braun's, Jason Bay's, Pat Burrell's, Adam Dunn's, and Alfonso Soriano's.  He'll tell them that Anderson has never accumulated less than 400 at-bats in 13 years.  He'll add that Anderson provides the type of "veteran leadership" a team requires.  And some General Manager will buy it.  Or I should say, a team's owner will buy it as they're the one's who are responsible for the signings.  So, getting back to my original question; can an agent create a market?  I don't think so.  The people running teams are very smart men and know the same things agents do, but agents tell them exactly what they want to hear.  Or at least what they think their fans want to hear.  If you're reading this blog, or any of the Angels' fans sites, you're not the typical fan.  If you stand out front of Angels Stadium and ask 20,000 of the fans going into the game if they think Garret Anderson is a good player, I'd bet at least 15,000 of them will say "yes".  And those are the fans that team owners cater to, not the few hundred die-hard fans who know the meaning of VORP or realize OPS is a better indicator of a player's hitting ability than batting average.  This is the only logical explanation I can come up with as to why a team will sign a player like Anderson.  They have the stats, and scouting reports, and people analyzing player performance to know who's valuable and who's not.  So I think a better question to ask -- Do teams sign players based on fan popularity rather than expected performance?  If so, that's the market a player's agent will exploit.  A market that doesn't need to be created, because the market is already there.

Daily Notes:

• Mark Teixeira has stated he'd like to sign his next contract before Christmas. 

  "I don't want to put a timetable on it, but Christmas morning, I want to know where I'm going to be for the next couple of years, so hopefully, by Christmas it will be done," Teixeira told ESPN sideline reporter Erin Andrews during the Miami/Georgia Tech football game in Atlanta on Thursday.

  This is good news for the Angels, and any other team looking to sign Teix, as an early signing will allow teams to move on to their Plan B options.  According to