Some teams skip draft picks because his name is attached to them. That’s because sports agent Scott Boras always demands the highest of price tags and isn’t afraid of an ugly negotiation to get it. Yet the Kansas City Royals, of all teams, don’t seem to mind Boras’ attachment to a prospect. In fact, they’ve been linked to a surprising number over the years — good news for fans wanting to know if they’ll find a way to officially sign Bubba Starling rather than lose him to the Nebraska Cornhusker football program.
Both Mike Moustakas and Eric Hosmer are the cornerstones of the infield for most of the next decade for the Royals, and both were represented by Boras in their negotiations after coming out of high school. The Royals successfully coordinated successful deals for both players and certainly Boras and Dayton Moore have gained some familiarity by this time. Thus, it’s not big news that the Royals hadn’t even extended Starling an official offer within the last few days.
The Royals and Boras both know how this works — they let the hourglass drip down to the point of a few sands left and then they strike a deal. It will be somewhere in the range of $7-10 million, and the better guess is somewhere toward the latter. Starling can use the leverage of going to Nebraska as a quarterback as his leverage, so he’ll most likely get $9 million at least. For the Royals, they knew what they were getting into when they submitted his name in the first place.
The expectation is that the Royals will have a quick announcement on Monday that they signed a deal and an official press conference on Tuesday. Until then, just expect silence to be the answer given the history between the two. Luckily the Royals are comfortable with that silence, unlike other teams.