New York Yankees Robinson Cano Fires Scott Boras, Extension Likely?

Usually agent, Scott Boras, adds high caliber Free Agents throughout the season. On Tuesday, he lost his biggest one. Robinson Cano fired the super agent and has hired CAA. Reportedly the Yankees’ superstar has been searching around for weeks quietly negotiating with different agents before eventually making the switch official.

CAA is no slouch in the free agent world either. The company already represents: Ryan Braun, Buster Posey, Adam Jones, Ryan Zimmerman, Roy Halladay, Matt Cain, Jake Peavy, Andre Ethier, Matt Garza, Corey Hart, and Ryan Howard.

For what it’s worth: Braun, Ethier, Cain and Howard, signed big contracts with their current teams before considering Free Agency.

For the Yankees, the switch can safely be received as good news. Scott Boras notoriously refuses extensions and ships players off to the highest bidder unless publicly otherwise specified. Players like Jered Weaver have signed “team friendly” extensions despite being a Boras client, but it’s unclear if there was a disagreement between Cano wanting to stay put and Boras wanting to test Free Agency, or solely another factor.

The one public connection to the most recent switch has to do with another New York sports team owner, Jay Z.

The rapper owns a portion of the Brooklyn Nets as well as Roc Nation, the marketing company in charge of Cano. He also plans on starting a sports agency affiliated with CAA, so it’s possible Cano wanted all of his representation under the same umbrella.

Cano will be the first player under the new sports agency, which means the result can go one of two ways. Either Jay Z, a New York native, knows his first player fully intends to get paid and stay put, therefore having a player who becomes a New York icon over the next decade, or he will want to make a splash and go to the highest bidder for a record-setting deal.

Cano is undoubtedly the best Yankees’ player and one of the few stars to be in his prime on the team, so there is plenty of leverage for the second baseman at the negotiating table with New York. As the top second baseman in the game, other big market teams like the Dodgers would be in on the left-handed hitter if he did reach free agency.

Regardless, not sticking with Boras means the end result is a little more ambiguous and on some level, foolish or not, it’s comforting Jay Z has such strong ties to the city. It would be tough to envision selecting Cano as the first player ever for the agency and letting him sign say, on another coast or in the midwest.

This is Cano’s second representation change. Robinson hired Boras after firing Bobby Barad in February of 2011, the agent who negotiated his current team-friendly contract.