You have to give Scot Boras his due. The super agent isn't much different than the managers who deal with his clients. He has a go-to list for every occasion, especially when he's trying to a make deal for a player as though he were a piece of priceless art going unnoticed at the auction.



In this case, it was right-handed pitcher Max Scherzer, who wasn't drawing adequate attention. Having turned down a six-year, $144 million offer during spring training when Scherzer was still with the Detroit Tigers, Boras naturally figured there was nowhere to go but up once his prized package hit the free-agent market.

Photo Credit: Mitch Stringer/PressBox

Even the most hardened baseball executives used to seeing Boras get his way figured he was trying to draw to an inside straight with this one, much like a year ago when Red Sox shortstop Steve Drew rejected a $14.5 million qualifying offer and was sorting through leftovers the second month of the season.

But Boras does have a track record. He is a patient man and doesn't blink often. In the past, he's had his fallback options, his go-to clubs so to speak -- and one of them, the most recent addition to the club, happens to be the one doing business just 35 miles south of Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Boras delivered top free-agent picks Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper, at considerable expense, to the Washington Nationals and has come calling a few times since, always getting a courteous welcome.

When somebody floated the idea that Scherzer had a $210 million offer from an unknown suitor, with no other confirmed offers on the table, the Nationals didn't figure to be in the conversation. They already had what was regarded as one of, if not the best, starting rotations in baseball -- a potential ace from No. 1 through No. 5, with solid backups available.

Guess what? The "you can never have too much pitching" theory cost the Nationals $210 million.

A seven-year deal for a 30-year-old starting pitcher doesn't make sense for any team. Surely, it doesn't make sense for a team that will almost certainly have to trade a front-line starter (Strasburg? How ironic would that be?) just to create room.

Forget the money. It's the amount of years that doesn't make sense. Not for Scherzer, not for Los Angeles Dodgers left-hander Clayton Kershaw, not for Chicago Cubs left-hander Jon Lester, not for anybody.

Scherzer has an impeccable track record during the last four years -- winning 70 games, tossing more than 800 innings and winning a Cy Young Award. He also has an injury-free background, a major selling point Boras preached to the Nationals. But no matter how clean the X-rays and MRIs might be, it's still a huge gamble. You know why? Because that's what the agent and client pushed for, that's why.

They know the odds, and they know how unlikely it is they could land a contact like this after four, five or six years, so they shoot for the moon.

It used to be that the extra year at $20 million per for five years was the target. Then, it became $25 million for six years for a total of $150 million. Remember, it's not the money -- it's the number of years, currently $30 million for seven years is the new standard. Can eight be far behind?

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Turns out the Ravens and Orioles have something in common.

Manager Buck Showalter is always preaching to the underappreciated, underestimated and /or underpaid to check out opportunities with the Orioles in the land of pleasant living. Meanwhile, Ravens general manager Ozzie Newsome lures in top-grade assistants by showing them an impressive track record of who has moved on with a promotion to head coach.

Former offensive coordinator Gary Kubiak's one-and-done stint is merely the latest example of coaches who have passed through Baltimore en route to a top job elsewhere in the NFL. The list of those who worked in the organization is as impressive as it is long.

In addition to Kubiak, former Ravens assistants Jim Caldwell, Chuck Pagano, Hue Jackson, Rex Ryan, Jack Del Rio, Marvin Lewis, Mike Nolan and Jim Schwartz all moved on from Baltimore and landed heading coach jobs at one point and I'm sure there are others. Heck, you can even throw in Bill Belichick. As the head coach of the Browns the year before the franchise moved to Baltimore in 1996, Belichick was actually the Ravens' first fire, giving way to Ted Marchibroda after the move was announced.

***

There's a lot to like about this year's University of Maryland men's basketball team, and here a couple of first impressions:

• Last year's so-called mass exodus had a lot more to do with the talent coming in than it did about the talent leaving (something you also could have said about last year's football team).

• The best thing about coach Mark Turgeon's well-balanced recruiting class is that there are a lot of candidates to stick around for the duration rather than take an early opt-out and head for the NBA -- although you might want to hope guard Melo Trimble slows down just a bit.

• If guard/forward Dez Wells doesn't fall victim to a case of senioritis and plays up to his ability and within his limits, there's no telling what the Terps might accomplish.

***

You won't find me among those constantly complaining about late starting times of meaningful events, primarily because it doesn't take a geographical expert to realize that two-thirds of the country is west of the Mississippi River. In others words, everything doesn't have to revolve around the Eastern Time Zone.

That being said, the NFL and the lords of TV probably got what they deserved with the lineup of the NFL Conference Championship games last weekend. Scheduling the NFC matchup as the early game made no sense -- unless the size of the TV market was the primary consideration.

With the game being played in Seattle, as far West as you can go and still be in the country, against a team that plays home games in Green Bay, Wis., there was no way they were going to put that game in prime time, even though it did feature the defending champion against a fairly recent Super Bowl winner.

That slot was reserved for the marquee matchup between Tom Brady, the old gunslinger shooting for his sixth Super Bowl appearance and fourth ring, and Andrew Luck, the new kid on the block and legend-in-waiting.

So, in the middle of winter, they played a game in the relative mild climate of the Great Northwest at noon (how do you think West Coast fans felt about that?) and a night game in New England, where the January weather conditions are always dicey.

Oops. How did that work out? Wonder how many more millions of fans might have enjoyed the spectacular finish of the Seahawks-Packers game if it had been in prime time? Meanwhile, I wonder what the ratings were for the re-runs of the "Big Bang Theory" while the Patriots were dismantling the Colts? Just wondering.

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