Boras: MLB needs more incentive to win

NEW YORK — Agent Scott Boras says the number of major league teams rebuilding with younger, lower-cost rosters has become a cancer to the sport, attributing behavior to the strengthened luxury tax combining with restraints on draft-pick salaries.

Boras attributes baseball’s attendance drop to an increase in non-competitive teams, predicts fans from perennial losers will increasingly stay away from ballparks until ticket prices are cut and says regional sports networks will negotiate lower rights fees with teams going into rebuild cycles. J.D. Martinez, Mike Moustakas, Eric Hosmer and Jake Arrieta, all Boras clients, remain unsigned 10 days before spring training in a historically slow market. He says the luxury tax, envisioned by Commissioner Bud Selig to increase competitive balance, is having the opposite effect. He claims incentives are needed to winning, such as increasing draft-pick money based on victories.

“They decided we’re going to have the 12 teamsa-tanking, if you will, and therefore you’re got a noncompetitive cancer and this is completely opposite of what Commissioner Selig in good-faith sought in bargaining,” Boras said Monday.

Competitors watched a pair of successful rebuilds in the past two seasons. The Chicago Cubs won the 2016 World Series four years after losing 101 games and Houston took last year’s title four years after losing 111.