The MLPA Mole

 It has recently come out that a player agent, Jim Murray, was banned for double-dealing with the MLB in 2020. What happened, what are the consequences, and what will happen in the future? 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:11):
The MLBPA mole. So recently, just a couple of weeks ago,
an article came out from Evandrelik, one of my favorite
guys over there at the Athletic, where he broke a
story about Jim Murray, a former player agent that was
banned for double dealing with the MLB with MLB during
the twenty twenty COVID negotiations, something I lived through and

(00:33):
I remember vividly. Now this thing is horrifying. Moles are
so cute until you see their horrible, horrible, horrible faces
and their horrible, horrible clause. But other than that, yeah,
I can't look at this photo anymore. So again, two articles,
evand Relic. We have band's agent, Jim Murray, over double dealing.

(00:55):
I just mentioned that, and then the next day we
have this awesome photo of our man Rob. Next inside
the text messages of the agent who became the mole
for Rob Manfred and MLB direct text messages. It's gonna
get spoyicy and we're gonna be doing the whiteboard once again.

(01:17):
But okay, so real quick, let me give you a
rundown of what happened to twenty twenty. Refresh your memory
after I drink this water, all right. So there was
a lot of heated negotiations during the twenty twenty COVID negotiations.

(01:39):
So we are the game is shut down. We are
trying to negotiate if there's pro rated pay, if we're
getting full pay for games, all the games as if
they were played. How many games are gonna play in
the season. I remember that the players would be like
one hundred and ten, and then Rob would be like sixty,
and then we'd be like eighty big sixty, and then
we'd be like seventy Big sixty because that's how much
they had to continue to not lose money on the season.

(02:01):
Basically what have come down to. That's what it ended
up being. So but it got really testy, which was
then a prerequisite or maybe a prequel to the twenty
twenty two lockout, which then turned in the CBA negotiations,
which did not go any better. Okay, So this is

(02:23):
the man who was in the middle of this, and
I'm gonna explain his story in a moment. This is
Jim Murray. Did you take it in? Okay? Got it? Okay?
So here's the skinny. The Major League Baseball Players Association
is in charge of certifying Player Association players agents. So
basically the PA has to say, you have to register

(02:45):
with us to be the agent to represent your your
player in contract negotiations and anything else. So if you
want to speak on behalf of your player, you have
to register with the PA. That that's standard practice for
every league. That that makes sense. You want to you're
all this together, or you're supposed to be. But we're
going to see why. Maybe Jim wasn't in a moment. Okay,

(03:08):
so he was most recently w MIA Sports and for
multiple years they find him for double dealing with the
Commission's office during sensitive labor negotiations meeting. He was going
back and forth and giving information to both sides. He
was playing both sides. Okay, this is not as uncommon
as you think, at least the common communication, but it
usually isn't done this way. So here is the punishment.

(03:29):
He is decertified for four years. He can't do what
I just said for the next four years, but he
can re certify, try to get recertified after he was
also fined one hundred thousand dollars and if he wants
to get recertified in four years, it's going to cost
him an additional one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to
pay for that. Now, these guys take percentages of contracts.
They have plenty of money. That sounds like a lot
of money. It's really really, really really not. My agent

(03:53):
that I had had had did Mookie Betts's contract and
he was His cut of Mookie Bets's contract was more
than I was making. So they're good, they're doing great.
They're they're the good ones are doing really good. And Jim,
Jim Murray had lots of big, big clients and uh
so he can also do other work for other clients,
so he can like do like marketing work for people

(04:14):
like media personality and stuff that are adjacent. But he
just can't do the direct negotiations, the big payout stuff. Okay, okay,
So that's he's been punished. He's been accused of that.
So let's talk about what he what happened, What did
he do? What happened? Why are we mad at Jim Murray? Hey, Jim, okay,
let's get you off the screen, all right, Jim Murray,

(04:36):
he is the center of our story. We have the
MLBPA on the top left, and we have the Commission's
office on the top right. These are this is where
they're all connected. Okay, so, just like in politics, there
are things called back channels. So you if you watch
any political show or god forbid, any political commentary on TV,

(04:57):
you know about back channeling. Basically, it's another person that
knows both parties that can facilitate a negotiation back forth
because the two parties don't like each other very much.
So instead of the PA Tony Clark needing to talk
directly to Rob, they don't seem to. If it's heated
and they're getting really frustrated, then maybe we add someone

(05:18):
in between. This is pretty common practice for players, especially
because player agents know both and they can act as
a liaison if both sides like that person. Jim Murray
was one of them. There was others. So in the
past it's been like hey, you know, like they'll be like, hey,
we were thinking about proposing this thing. What do you
think based on what you know? And then he'll be like, hey, guys,
were they kind of floated this thing? How we're there?

(05:40):
So like it's not an official negotiation, but it's a
little bit less like it's a little bit more tow
in the water. You don't need to be official so
they don't get themselves stuck. This goes well. This works
best when there's more good faith going on the reason
it doesn't work very well is because there's not very
much good faith negotiation going on. So that is what
Jim Murray was supposed to do. He was supposed to say, Hey,

(06:01):
what do you think of this? Blah blah blah. Instead
he was just telling the Commissioner's office what the PA
was doing and what they would take and advising the
Commissioner's office on how to put pressure on the players. Allegedly,
that is what is being alleged in the document put
out by the MLBPA. And that does not make me happy.

(06:28):
But I will say caveat. I do not know Jim. Okay,
I do not know Jim personally and I have never
interacted with Jim. But like, if true, me no happy.
So moving forward, there was a comment asked for by
so they reached out for comment to ask Jim, hey,
what is your comment on this stuff? And they received

(06:50):
a response from Jim's Jim's lawyer. Her name is Christina g.
Start you okay, this is his personal lawyer and she
gave a statement, and I'm going to read both of
her statements because they are the most lawyer jargon crap
I've ever read, and I just I just have to

(07:11):
do it. Hold on. This is a quote from Gina
about the situation. So now, so you know, this is
a settlement. Jim decided to settle. They settled. They said, okay,
I'll take the punishment. We're good. And this says, rather
than continue a very expensive and time consuming dispute with
the Players Association related to the allegations from five years ago,

(07:32):
so we're downplaying it because it was a long time ago,
doesn't matter. Arising out of COVID nineteen pandemic, the party's
reaching agreement yesterday with no admission of wrongdoing by James
Murray that allows him to continue guiding clients by putting
his tracks behind him. Okay, I just want to put
this out here. No matter how many times you say
no wrongdoing admitted, if you settle and you accept the punishment,

(07:57):
that is an admission of guilt. I don't care legally
or not legally. It's called human beings. That is what
it is. You are accepting that you did a measure
measure of the things that are being alleged save it. Okay,
I will say that, as someone who has a player
and is supposed to trust these people, that that's not

(08:18):
good enough. So I will say that she has another one.
Later we will cover that.

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Speaker 1 (09:25):
This isn't the first time Jim has been in trouble. Okay,
so in the years since twenty twenty one to twenty
twenty four, or in twenty twenty four, there was another
dispute he was in between Excel, his prior agency, and WME,
his current agency, because it turns out that he when
he left Excel and breached his own contract, he took

(09:48):
thirteen clients with him, which is poaching clients, which is
contract in most contracts not allowed. And he did it anyways,
and WME recruited him knowing that he was going to
do that any they did it anyways. So like doing
premeditated breaking up contracts is usually a no no. And
that's how a lot of this stuff was found out

(10:09):
about because that that proceeding happened and there was a
lot of documents but forward for that. So the WME
to Excel problem. Excel had a problem with him leaving.
He was sued and he received a sizable punishment, but
that is undisclosed at this time as well. So evidently
he got in trouble for that. A lot of the
documentation in that proceeding was what led the PA two

(10:34):
bring this one forward. And they don't have to actually
take it to court unless it's not settled, for which
it wasn't because it's a it's an internal thing. So okay,
now let's get through the text messages because there's a
bunch of texts between these two text messages spicy actually
not just not just rob because any story like this

(10:57):
wouldn't be wouldn't be a complete without our favorite character,
Robert Cornelius Manfred. Okay, he is part of this BESO
or some of his lieutenants. We're gonna talk about them.
So there's a series of text messages sent that prove
that Jim was doing the things that he was doing allegedly. Again,
this was I mean, this isn't going to be proven

(11:18):
in court. So actually with the settlement, I can just
say this is what was reported. Take that with what
you will. Okay, So there were reported one hundreds of
the messages, but we only Dreulic only used a few,
he said. March twenty sixth, twenty twenty, Murray texted Manfred
to urge him to stay strong in the fight against
the players Union. This is the quote. This is what

(11:39):
it said. Please in capitals, do not give in recording
to the mlbpa's proposed October language, you will get the
deal done without it. Basically said, do not capitulate. You
will win no matter what. That is a player agent
saying that to the commissioner. That is a uh uh.
You are not working for him, Jim, What the hell? Okay.

(12:06):
Three weeks later, in April eighteenth, Murray texted with the
commissioner's chief communications officer, this is like the press secretary
for the Commissioner, Pat Courtney, saying the following. This is
a quote from Courtney, said Clark saying players should get
paid one hundred percent of empty ballparks. Question Mark, He's
asking should they do they think they should get paid
one hundred percent of their salary even though there's nobody

(12:27):
in the ballpark. And then Murray replied saying, you guys
should just ignore. Let Tony hang himself. So right now
Jim is arguing for actively paying players less, which is
his main job. Is doing the opposite of that, Okay,

(12:50):
what the hell? Then in June twenty twenty, Courtney and
Murray spoke again, Murray said this f the players. I'm
still so pissed off. I can't see straight. We need
them to be pissed off at their leadership. Believe me,
it's a prior or. We need them to be pissed
off at their leadership, said Courtney. So Courtney's like, hey, man,

(13:10):
come on, turn the players against the players of social leadership.
And Murray said, believe me, it's a priority for me.
Give me a second. Okay, last few things here. Earlier
that month, there was also an email sent from Murray

(13:31):
to Courtney, same thing, where he wrote a bunch of
talking points for the Commissioner's office to say. He said,
I wrote these last night. Maybe they'll be helpful to you.
Please don't blame us for the salary reductions. Please blame
the crisis at hand. Don't blame us, blame COVID. Nice
the Commissioner's off. The commissioner did not say you can
pay on hundred percent of salaries in an eighty two

(13:51):
game season. When another the quote was taken out of context.
These are the most simple spin quotes ever. So firstly,
why are you saying and why are you writing talking points?
And secondly, these are obvious they don't need you to
tell them. These are the most obvious talking boys I've
ever seen. Like, of course, that's if you want to spin,
that's what you're gonna sy. You're gonna say nuh uh.

(14:11):
Like that's just say nuh uh. Like was his advice,
which is I'm just kind of now making fun of
him because this whole thing's so stupid. And there were
also evidently text between Murray and also Rob Manfred Murray
alleged told allegedly told Manford to send him proposals. So
he's like, send me proposals. Send them. And then whether

(14:38):
or not Rob did it, we don't know, but he
asked for it a couple of times. Rob also texted
him to scold him for something that was said in publicly,
not that Jim said, but a client maybe or a player,
and he's like, hey, man, get this under control. So
basically Rob was trying to wield control over some a
group of players and drive a wedge using one of
the player agents who was very, very eager to do so.

(15:00):
Now we don't know why, Like I don't know why
Jim wanted to do this. I didn't know what Jim
hoped to receive but it's baffling to me. So now
there was another comment. Okay, I got to read this

(15:20):
before we get into the conclusion. Here another comment from
Christina Christina Succio. Another comment says this is her next
relief press release or her next response. The MLBPA focused
on cherry picked out of context quotes while ignoring both

(15:41):
mister Murray's first advocacy on behalf of the players more
than twenty five years in the fact that actions during
commutual spress with the time were no different from those
of other agents and others, so there's no proof that
anyone else did anything like this, So that's just what
we call not true. And then the second part is
ignoring Murray's a freerce advocacy on behalf players more than

(16:05):
twenty five years. I'm going to say this one time
takes twenty five years to build trust, it takes one
second to break it. So you don't get a complain
about that. Okay, Yes, one event like this, an egregious
breach of trust, can undo twenty five years of goodwill.

(16:28):
Even if it was goodwill, which Bio counts, there was
other things going on, so like that's not fully true,
but like that is not good enough. Respect is constantly earning.
You don't just get it one time, then you get
it in perpetuity. That's not how it works. Anything works,
So don't try to convince me of that. No one's stupid.
Mister Murray never sought to do anything other than help

(16:50):
players but get back on the field safely. Indeed, a
number of current and former players are prepared to testify
on mister Murray's behalf of Miss Murray instead chose to
avoid the ongoing distraction of having to our issues related
to events that happened more than five years is again
more than five years ago. If it was a long
time ago, it no longer matters. Is unfortunately now being
used against him in a way to refflect him what
appeared to be more serious issues. I don't know what

(17:11):
more serious issues mean. I don't know what she is
referring to in that moment, but basically it's just saying, hey,
it's not that big of a deal, but it is.
It is a big deal, and I don't like it.
So they're built on trust, right, You've got to trust
the people that you work with, and that was not
very good. So that's that is that's the Jim Murray situation.

(17:36):
And right now he is currently suspended and he will
be suspended for the next four years. Fortunately, he will
not be part of any negotiations moving forward with the PA,
or he won't be involved in the next CBA negotiations,
so at least we don't have that to worry about.
But again, like I said, a lot of this stuff
has been alleged by the PA. It was settled on, which,

(17:57):
in my opinion, is a level of of of admission
of guilt. You know, are there maybe some contextual circumstances
that make softeness a little bit? Sure? Maybe, But at
the end of the day, any single one of those comments,
if I found out about my agent was doing it
fired like fired out. You're done if you're going directly

(18:17):
against the things we are talking about, right if if, if,
if I realize that you are undermining us in any
meaningful way, then I'm gonna be really frustrated. A little
last little part here too. It turns out he was
trying to lead the charger and getting patches on the
on on shirts or on the jerseys. I don't know

(18:40):
if there was a financial thing there, but I think
that getting getting players to go back and play as
quickly as possible. Leads leads to the agencies getting paid
their due that year. I don't know how much they
had to do with it. It's really hard to tell
what the motivation behind a lot of this stuff was.
It could have just been wanting to be in the
good graces of the guy that makes the decisions that
would be understandable but not not respectable, but understandable. So

(19:04):
you know, I I don't know this person as a person.
I just know that based on what I've read and
based on the research that I've done that as an
ex player. I don't appreciate it very much, but I
want to know what you guys think. John. The comments
in the field

Speaker 2 (19:24):
M