Fittingly, Scott Boras pioneered the use of Moneyball-style analytics to cast his players in the best possible negotiating light, now a common practice in the agent industry. His company, the Boras Corporation in Newport Beach, California, and its three subsidiaries employ 80 people, many of them statisticians and analysts whose job it is to crunch the numbers Boras uses to show team owners how his clients compare favorably to past legends, why they’re worth the extra millions, and how owners who are willing to spend big money can make it back and then some.

When Rodriguez was a free agent in 2000, the Boras Corporation produced Alex Rodriguez: Historical Performance, a lavish 70-page book that compared the shortstop to Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo and cost $35,000 to publish in an edition of 100.