Question for Matt's Uncle

[Answerman]

I am always curious to know about the process of selecting an agent. How did it work in Matt's case. Does this happen in his senior year or sooner? Do they come wooing him, or does he have to seek one out. Does the agent have to go through the high school coach/AD to get to the student? Did Boras try to recruit him? If he did, why did Matt choose not to do business with him? If that is confidential, then I'll understand.

How about you, Tony? Or anyone else? Any insight into this process would be appreciated.

[Crazysilver03]

Regarding the terminology at least, college students can't have agents, only advisors. So Scott Boras was Strasburg's advisor until he was selected and then became his agent.

[allstar1579]

Regarding the terminology at least, college students can't have agents, only advisors. So Scott Boras was Strasburg's advisor until he was selected and then became his agent.

Well technically he still has an advisor since he would lose his NCAA eligibility and not be able to go back to school if he hired an agent, but he will have an agent as soon as the contract is signed.

[allstar1579]

I am always curious to know about the process of selecting an agent. How did it work in Matt's case. Does this happen in his senior year or sooner? Do they come wooing him, or does he have to seek one out. Does the agent have to go through the high school coach/AD to get to the student? Did Boras try to recruit him? If he did, why did Matt choose not to do business with him? If that is confidential, then I'll understand.

How about you, Tony? Or anyone else? Any insight into this process would be appreciated.

It depends on the agent. Most of them do their homework and scout like we do, they know which ones are going to possibly make money and which ones they should shoot for. Sometimes players can contact them looking for advisors and "sell" themselves so-to speak, but usually it's the agents that go looking for the talent since it is their livelyhood to do so.

[Answerman]

Interesting. What about the late round picks and the undrafted? Do they have agents and advisors? If not, I'll bet they get swarmed right after being drafted.

[allstar1579]

Interesting. What about the late round picks and the undrafted? Do they have agents and advisors? If not, I'll bet they get swarmed right after being drafted.

Some yes, most no. A lot of the time teams will come with offers for the players and then they will try to secure an agent or sports lawyer to handle the contract signing. Some times it's just here's a contract, sign this, ok, see you in a couple months.

[Matt's Uncle]

I had to defer to my sister for this question since I wasn't involved in any way with the process. Having said that, Lenny is a gentleman and has always been friendly to me and everyone else associated with Matt. It's nice to know Matt's surrounded by good people.

So here's my sister's response...(all her words, not mine, and she gave me permission to post)

Matt started receiving a fair amount of attention from scouts during his junior year, and by the end of that year, a scout actually told our high school coach that we should consider getting an advisor. At least in CA, an advisor is not required to go through anyone to contact a player, but we did happen to meet ours through our HS coach.

Our coach had played college ball with a guy who at the time was an associate of agent Lenny Strelitz (Wasserman Media Group), and he contacted our coach to say that Lenny had been following Matt and was interested in meeting him to discuss representation.

At the time, we had been approached by about 10 different advisors, most of whom we were at least familiar with from seeing them at the various events. For right or for wrong, we had formed an opinion about some of them (I affectionately call one "Jerry Maguire"), and had decided some wouldn't be the right fit for us, but more importantly, we just had a lot going on at the time and hadn't put much thought to meeting with any of them.

After meeting with Lenny and his associates, Matt just felt that Lenny was the guy he wanted on his side.

Before Lenny became an agent he had been a pitcher in the St. Louis Cardinals organization, an area scout, a national crosschecker, a scouting director and even a general manager of a major league team, and those are only the jobs I can remember.

Lenny's qualifications were impressive to say the least, but equally important was his attitude and approach to representing ballplayers that fit with our way of thinking, and he just seemed to be the natural choice, even though we never officially met with any other agencies as a comparison.

As we spent the last year meeting with all 30 teams, it became even more evident that we had chosen the right person to represent Matt, as we were unanimously told what an excellent choice we made and how Lenny is very well respected by the various teams.

In regards to Scott Boras, Matt actually met him on a casual basis once, but we were already happily committed to working with Lenny, and we were never approached by Mr. Boras from a business standpoint.

Matt and Lenny have enjoyed a close working relationship over the past year, and I think Lenny will always be Matt's advisor (he can't call him his agent until he signs a professional contract). I cannot say enough good things about how much he has helped our family through this process.

Go Matt! Go O's! (I wrote that part!):clap3:

Matt's Uncle