Cardinals outfielder Matt Holliday was deep into his second month as the highest-paid player in franchise history and his average was less than .280 for the last time this season when his agent called.
Scott Boras wanted to have breakfast.
"I figure I was getting a talking-to," Holliday said.
He figured right.
With the Cardinals in San Diego, the superagent swooped south from his Los Angeles-area offices and took the $120 million outfielder out for the same talking-to he has with other megabuck stars. This week at the All-Star Game, Boras called it the "post-contract conversation" and he described how it's impossible to have it before a season starts or even in the opening weeks. It takes a player experiencing the new reality of a big contract for him to understand how to react.
"I usually let them get four weeks, five weeks into the season and then we have the conversation," Boras said. "There is no way to prepare an athlete for this because so few athletes ever get there. ... It just takes acclimation. A contract like that is a new world, and a conscientious player like Matt is going to take his responsibilities very seriously. I would expect that from him, and really that's a good thing. We just have to know how to manage that in uniform."
Holliday was the lone free agent to sign a contract worth more than $100 million this past winter. The deal was for seven years. Two other players, Minnesota catcher Joe Mauer and Philadelphia first baseman Ryan Howard, signed extensions worth more than $100 million earlier this season. All three players appeared in the All-Star Game this week, though all have had their problems in the first year since joining the elite nine-digit club.
Howard's .509 slugging percentage at the break would be a career low, well below the .543 he had in 2008. Mauer, last year's American League MVP and batting champ, is batting less than .300 at the All-Star break for the first time in his career, and his slugging percentage has slid from .587 to .424.
Booed once this season by the congenial home crowd for failing to drive in a key run, Holliday has found traction on his season, surging with a .316 average, 11 homers and 32 RBIs since — well, since that breakfast in San Diego.
Connecting anecdotal evidence or statistics to the number of zeroes in a player's paycheck can be a faulty enterprise. There have been 21 players in baseball history, from the Cardinals' Albert Pujols to the Yankees' Alex Rodriguez, to receive deals worth at least $100 million, according to Cot's Baseball Contracts, a website that tracks baseball deals. The experiences those players have had differ as greatly as their salaries.
Fresh from his $160 million deal, CC Sabathia won 19 games and a World Series last summer with the Yankees. Colorado's Todd Helton hit better than .320 and had a 1.000 on-base plus slugging percentage in four of the first five seasons after his $141.5 million deal. Toronto's Vernon Wells went to the other end of the spectrum, hitting a career-low .245 with half as many home runs — to 16 from 32 — in the first season after he agreed to a seven-year, $126 million extension.
Yet, all three echo Wells' belief that the first year is the worst.
"I think you have to separate the money from the game," Wells said at the All-Star Game this past week. "It's easier said than done. We're all in a position because we're talented enough to be there. You don't need any more pressure from a dollar figure to wear on you. ... The first year is the most difficult year. Once you moved past that, it's just a matter of playing the game and not forgetting why you got the money in the first place.''
A slump weighs heavier "in that first year," Wells continued, "but after that it's just another slump."
Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak said he talks to players after they agree to deals about how to best "manage expectations," and he did so with Holliday this past winter. Mozeliak said that one of the reasons the Cardinals felt confident Holliday could handle such security, wealth and higher expectations was because of how he played through trade rumors and related scrutiny for not accepting an extension from the Rockies.
Holliday "had already passed those tests before he even got to us," Mozeliak said.
Mauer said this past week that no one talked with him about what would change with his eight-year, $184 million deal, though the Minnesota native has heard more criticism "from the outside." When Helton signed his nine-digit deal in 2001, the Rockies pulled him aside to stress the deal didn't change their demands.
"If they pay you all that money, sometimes it's hard not to do too much and actually regress," Helton said. "I remember the Rockies had to emphasize to me that you don't try to do any more than you're doing right now. ... Look, you're not going to get a hit every time up, and it doesn't matter what they pay you."
Echoed his manager Jim Tracy: "If you get to the point where you feel like you're in justification mode, you get out of the realm of what makes you good. You start trying too hard. Instead of shallower, that hole gets deeper."
Before that happened, Boras wanted to step in with Holliday.
The agent said he has about 15 suggestions for his high-salary players. He joked that 20 years from now he'll publish "The Superstar Encyclopedia," but in general terms the suggestions are drawn from his experience with his other clients and their experiences in their nine-digit crucible. Boras took Holliday through the various career milestones for a player, from arbitration to megadeal, and discussed ways to respond when expectations soar at twice the inflation rate of salary.
"He was just talking about dealing with what comes at the levels of your career," Holliday said. "You get to certain points where you're trying to get to arbitration, where you're trying to get to when you can sign a long-term deal. ... We were talking the levels of career and all of the expectations that come with each level, and then how you deal with them."
Helton suggested that a lot of the outside stresses change from franchise to franchise. Sabathia embraced the added burden of his new tax status, though he offered one caveat: It helps him that he's the fourth-highest paid player in the infield on his starts for the Yankees. Helton, a former teammate of Holliday's, said the Cardinals' outfielder has the added dimension of playing beside Pujols, whom Helton called the "face of the franchise" and "face of MLB."
Members of the nine-digit club all said a new member has to cling to what got them the salary: talent. If the paycheck is the reward for years of playing well, then added expectations are the price of being paid well.
"I think Matt's been very realistic," Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said. "He's a high-profile player. He signed a high-profile contract. He pressed to make that contract look good, which is human nature. He's on his way to having a solid year. When you sign a deal like that you're going to have some added pressure. It just comes with it. ... Ain't no free lunch."
Just the breakfast.
Brad Hawpe, a Colorado teammate who came through the system with Holliday, said his friend's hallmark is persistent preparation "for every game and every at-bat." Holliday has clung to that throughout his season, even as he hit .211 with runners in scoring position for the season's first three months and once went 51 games with only two homers. The trip to San Diego came in the middle of that drought, and whatever it was that tipped Boras — the calendar, the numbers, the comments — it was time for the talk. A shift in his stance at the plate and the law of averages have escalated Holliday's production — only four outfielders in the NL had a higher OPS than Holliday's .902 — and that was sort of Boras' point during breakfast.
Focus on the swing, not the salary.
"It's just how he responds to the game," Boras said. "If you're a guy who is able to get this (kind of) contract, you always have to deal with these kind of issues. ... And at the end of it, Matt Holliday is trying to beat the game. It's not the opposition. It's not the media. It's not the contract. It's the game."
