Mark Teixeira entered the offseason as one of the most talented free agents in baseball, sure to command a nice salary. He likely will still get paid well, but has Scott Boras once again over-negotiated a star client to the point that they may have to back-track and take a previous offer short of what they wanted?

After getting offers from the Red Sox, Yankees, Orioles, Nationals and Angels, Boras may have already lost two of those offers. All of the offers were reportedly in the neighborhood of eight years and $180 million, give or take.

Last week the Red Sox said they were pretty much out of the running, saying they would be unable to meet the even larger price tag that Boras is asking for. The Red Sox implied that they had been outbid by quite a bit, but no one knows who the mystery bidder is. The Orioles, Angels and Nationals have said what their bids were, and the Yankees promised it wasn’t them who made the huge offer.

Now, the Angels have pulled their eight year offer off the table. And then there were four. That is, if you count the Red Sox as still in the hunt.

If you recall, Boras also overpriced Alex Rodriguez, to the point that A-Rod had to call the Yankees, sans Boras, and negotiate his contract himself, at far under the asking price of Boras.

Now Teixeira may be in the same boat. At some point, you’d think that either A) owners stop doing business with Boras, or B) players stop signing with him. He certainly gets results, but he’s let star prospects miss out on a year’s worth of paychecks by making unreasonable demands on rookie contracts, and now he is making teams afraid to sign one of the top free agents in the game. Something’s got to give eventually.

Now I know Teixeira is a good ballplayer, but is he worth nearly $200 million? Sure he is a switch hitter, which is always good, and he’s just 28 years old (29 in April). Also good. But in reality, he’s at least the third best hitting first baseman in baseball (Pujols, http://www.baseball-reference.com/b/berkmla01.shtml), and I just don’t know if he’s worth $25 million a season.

If these teams have the backbone, they will all pull their offers until the (non-existent) high bidder is revealed. If Boras wants to play games, these teams should get tough and fight back.

Next season is going to be a rough one for baseball, due to the economy. Attendance will likely be down, and so too revenue. Overpaying for players by this much could be the kind of thing that kills a franchise financially. Eight year contracts are just stupid in baseball, and any team that gets suckered by Boras gets what they deserve.

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