Jeff Berry (baseball agent)

Jeff Berry
Occupation CAA Baseball co-head

Jeff Berry is an American attorney and sports agent.

He is Co-Head of Baseball at CAA Sports.[1] CAA Sports is a division of Creative Artists Agency, an entertainment and sports agency, and represents more than 1,000 of the world's best athletes in baseball, football, hockey, basketball, soccer, tennis, and golf, in addition to icons in individual sports, Olympians, coaches, broadcasters, and other sports personalities.[2]

Background

Berry was born in Owensboro, Kentucky. He attended the University of North Carolina at Charlotte,[3] where he was a catcher on the baseball team. After graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, Berry signed with the Boston Red Sox, and spent one season as a catcher in their minor league system.[4] Following his playing career, Berry was a Graduate Assistant Baseball Coach at Oklahoma City University, from 1995-1998. While at OCU, he earned his Juris Doctor from the University's School of Law, graduating cum laude in May 1998. Berry is a member of the Oklahoma Bar Association and a certified player agent with the Major League Baseball Players Association.

Sports agent career

Berry is a Co-Head of CAA Sports' Baseball division.[5] Forbes ranked Berry as one of the world's most powerful sports agents[6] and called CAA "the undisputed king of the sports agency business.".[7] CAA Baseball clients have combined for 109 All-Star selections and won 29 Silver Slugger Awards, 17 Gold Glove Trophies, eight Rookie of the Year Awards, six Cy Young Awards and five Most Valuable Player awards. CAA Sports has advised 57 First-Round draft selections since 2005 and has negotiated more than $180 million in amateur draft signing bonuses.[8]

For the 2012-2016 seasons, CAA negotiated more than $1.76 billion in contracts, more than any other agency. That includes 14 deals of $50 million or more (Buster Posey, Ryan Braun, Matt Cain, Ryan Zimmerman, Adam Jones, Andre Ethier, Yoenis Cespedes, Rusney Castillo, John Danks, Mark Buehrle, Ryan Howard, Robinson Cano, Phil Hughes and Matt Garza.) It also includes six contracts worth $100 million or more (Howard, Cano, Posey, Braun, Cain and Zimmerman).[9]

Since the end of the 2011 season, Berry has negotiated more than a half-billion dollars' worth of contracts, including record-setting deals for Posey (nine years, $167 million with the San Francisco Giants, the longest contract ever for a catcher and richest ever for a player with fewer than four years' service time[10]) and Cain (six years, $127.5 million deal with the Giants, which set a record guarantee for a right-handed pitcher;.[11]

In August 2014, Berry and fellow CAA Baseball co-head Brodie Van Wagenen negotiated a $72.5 million contract for Roc Nation Sports client Castillo with the Boston Red Sox, the largest contract ever for a player of Cuban descent.[12] It was also the record for any amateur player and any international free agent.[13] According to WEEI.com, "Instead of defining Castillo's value relative to that of other players from Cuba, the agent used past free agents with comparable skill sets to define what kind of financial guarantee Castillo might deserve."[14]

Berry has been active in many MLB contract arbitration negotiations over the past 15 years, most recently arguing for Andrew Cashner when he won his case vs. the San Diego Padres in 2014.[15][16][17]

Since 1999, Berry has been advising families through the MLB amateur draft process, personally working with more than 20 first-round selections, including two in 2014 as CAA led all agencies by advising six first-round picks. In 2008, Berry negotiated the largest signing bonus in baseball draft history, Posey's $6.2 million deal with San Francisco.[18] Berry has negotiated other precedent-setting draft deals: for Wil Myers of the Kansas City Royals ($2 million, a third-round record),[19] A.J. Cole of the Washington Nationals ($2 million, a fourth-round record) and Dillon Maples of the Chicago Cubs ($2.5 million, a record for anyone picked after the third round).[20]

Berry's advocacy on behalf of players has led to multiple rule changes in baseball. Former major-league General Manager Jim Bowden, writing for ESPN.com, described Berry as "an attorney who has a direct and no-nonsense negotiating style and vehemently fights for his clients. He is hard-nosed, at times stubborn and prefers to stay in the box in terms of negotiations."[21]

Following Posey's season-ending injury in May 2011, Berry lobbied Major League Baseball and the players' union to limit home-plate collisions, telling ESPN.com, "You leave players way too vulnerable. ... I don't know if this ends up leading to a rule change, but it should. The guy [at the plate] is too exposed. ... I'm going to call Major League Baseball and put this on the radar. Because it's just wrong."[22] Eventually MLB added Rule 7.13 to protect catchers,[23] and that precedent in player safety led to a 2016 rule change protecting middle infielders.[24]

In 2014, word leaked that shortstop prospect Trea Turner was the player to be named in a trade between the Padres and Nationals but could not actually be traded, by rule, for six more months. Berry told foxsports.com, "Given the circumstances and the undoubtedly negative impact on Trea Turner, for the teams involved and Major League Baseball to endorse and approve this trade is not only unethical, but also goes against the very spirit of the Minor League Uniform Player Contract that players sign when they first enter professional baseball."[25] In May 2015, MLB revised its rules and allowed players to be traded in the fall after they were drafted.[26]

In June 2015, Berry successfully appealed an eight-game suspension of client Will Smith (baseball) of the Brewers for having a foreign substance on his arm, getting the suspension reduced.[27] Smith credited Berry for the victory, saying, "My agent did his homework and cracked down on it. I felt comfortable leaving the meeting very well-represented."[28]

Personal

Berry and his wife Sarah have three children, two sons and a daughter. Berry is a frequent speaker at colleges, law schools and other events.[29][30] In 2016, Berry appeared on the Dick Vitale Telethon to benefit pediatric cancer research for the V Foundation.[31][32]

References

  1. ↑ http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Issues/2011/02/Feb-23/Labor-and-Agents/Close.aspx
  2. ↑ http://www.sports.caa.com/
  3. ↑ http://www.fanbase.com/UNC-Charlotte-49ers-Baseball-1992
  4. ↑ http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=berry-001d--, Jeff Berry page at Baseball Reference
  5. ↑ http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2012/04/09/Labor-and-Agents/CAA-Baseball.aspx
  6. ↑ http://www.forbes.com/profile/jeff-berry/?list=sports-agents
  7. ↑ http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbelzer/2015/09/23/the-worlds-most-valuable-sports-agencies-2015/
  8. ↑ http://sports.caa.com/baseball.aspx
  9. ↑ http://yankees.lhblogs.com/2013/04/02/cano-leaves-boras-joins-jay-z/
  10. ↑ http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20130329&content_id=43494674&vkey=news_mlb&c_id=mlb
  11. ↑ http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2012/04/giants-to-extend-matt-cain.html
  12. ↑ http://espn.go.com/boston/mlb/story/_/id/11392841/boston-red-sox-add-cuban-rusney-castillo
  13. ↑ http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2014/08/22/red-sox-make-bold-move-with-signing-rusney-castillo/O5wtXHDgFdrwabOPGQFGJL/story.html
  14. ↑ http://fullcount.weei.com/sports/boston/baseball/red-sox/2014/08/23/agent-brodie-van-wagenen-interest-in-rusney-castillo-really-extraordinary/
  15. ↑ http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/38925079.html, "Hart could be headed to hearing"
  16. ↑ http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100212&content_id=8065652&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb, "Hart tops Brewers in salary arbitration"
  17. ↑ http://m.mlb.com/news/article/67570428/padres-pitcher-andrew-cashner-wins-arbitration-case
  18. ↑ http://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/draft/2008/08/poseys-bonus/, "Posey's bonus"
  19. ↑ http://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/draft/2009/08/royals-myers-agree-on-2-million/, "Royals, Myers Agree On $2 Million"
  20. ↑ http://fayobserver.com/articles/2011/08/16/1115934?sac=Sports, "Pinecrest's Dillon Maples signs with Cubs for $2.5M"
  21. ↑ http://insider.espn.go.com/blog/the-gms-office/post?id=1460, Scouting the agents of the free agents
  22. ↑ http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=6592212, Buster Posey's agent: Eliminate collision
  23. ↑ http://m.mlb.com/news/article/68267610/mlb-institutes-new-rule-on-home-plate-collisions
  24. ↑ http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/just-a-bit-outside/story/ruben-tejada-slide-chase-utley-new-york-mets-los-angeles-dodgers-rule-nlds-101115
  25. ↑ http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/washington-nationals-trea-turner-draftee-san-diego-padres-ken-rosenthal-121914
  26. ↑ http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/mlb-fixes-the-trea-turner-problem-for-everyone-else/
  27. ↑ http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/306306951.html
  28. ↑ http://www.jsonline.com/sports/brewers/decision-on-will-smiths-appeal-could-come-friday-b99510917z1-305787001.html
  29. ↑ http://mediaocu.com/2011/09/14/sports-agent-alumnus-to-speak-at-law-school/
  30. ↑ http://www.kidcentric-sports.com/news.html
  31. ↑ https://twitter.com/raycoletv/status/725798982224584704
  32. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7dbIUF5Nsk

External links

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