Blake Snell Is a Paradigm of the Modern-Day Ace, and It May Be Costing Him

Now available at reduced prices: the new and improved Scott Boras “pillow contract”—extra firm version for 2024.

The agent invented the term in 2010 when Adrián Beltré accepted a one-year contract with the Boston Red Sox after a down year with the Seattle Mariners.

“When you wake up in the morning, it’s soft, it’s there, but it’s not there with you all the time,” Boras explained then. “That’s a one-year contract. It’s a pillow. You use it for a little bit, and you go on.”