Schilling's agent skills don't match pitching prowess

Curt Schilling probably has pitched well enough to earn an extension with the Red Sox -- unless he wants to go elsewhere. AP

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After years and years of trying to figure out what makes that fascinating, hard-throwing blowhard Curt Schilling tick, I think I am finally on to something.

He's nuts.

OK, maybe he's not insane in any clinical way. But insane nonetheless. Insane in his own way.

There can be no other good explanation as to why he would say aloud that he might like to join the Devil Rays next year as a free agent. The D-Rays. Think about that. No two-time World Series champ and borderline Hall of Famer with a massive ego and thirst for the spotlight willingly signs up to pitch his last season in Tropicana obscurity.

"It's one of those situations you'd certainly have to look at,'' Schilling said on his weekly radio spot on Boston radio station WEEI. "Knowing that I'm probably going to spend one more year playing, if circumstances happen and things happen and they made some moves that were positive, I'd love nothing more than to finish my career working on a pitching staff where I know that there are young guys that are going to be positively impacted by me being around [after] I was gone. I enjoy that. I love working and talking and being around young pitchers."

Schilling, who is 7-5 with a 4.25 ERA, went on to speak fondly of having a home in the area at one time, as reported in the Boston Globe.

"I love Tampa, I love the area, I love everything about it," he said. "I loved living down there."

Putting aside the fact that Tampa Bay is trying to build for the future and has virtually no chance to win next year (it's never won more than 70 games), and would have no good reason to pursue an attention-starved 40-year-old pitcher, it makes no sense for Schilling to say such a thing from a business standpoint. As a negotiating ploy, it is nothing short of idiotic.

Of course there is one other possibility, and that is Schilling is simply the world's worst agent. Schilling, along with Gary Sheffield and Jamie Moyer, are a few of the very rare major leaguers who represent themselves. That's never a good idea, though Moyer manages to do it without making a spectacle of himself.

Presumably, the reason players represent themselves is either because they are cheap, or because they think they know better. In Schilling's case, of course, it has to be because he thinks he knows better. Because he thinks he knows everything.

After being ably represented for years by competent and accomplished agents Dennis Gilbert and Jeff Borris, Schilling decided to do it himself in recent years, and, ever since, all heck has broken loose. For his first deal with Boston, to get four years, Schilling put himself in position of having to win the World Series -- not a great bet since Boston hadn't won for 85 straight years. Yet, his pitching is a lot better than his agenting, and he helped them do just that, which guaranteed the 2007 season at $13 million, plus incentives. That brings us to today.

Just because you can throw a fastball and splitter at world-class proficiency -- not to mention become a World Series hero in two cities -- that doesn't make you an agent. Or even particularly sane.

Regarding Schilling's negotiating skills, one general manager said yesterday, "He apparently didn't go to Agent's University.''

Not only has Schilling put the D-Rays into play, but worse, he's taken the Yankees out of the mix, saying they are the one team he would never, ever play for. And, of course, as everyone knows, the Yankees are the one team that could make the Red Sox sweat.

Instead of making Red Sox people sweat, Schilling made them laugh. These are the dog days of the pennant race, and even the executives of baseball's best team need a tension breaker at this time of the year. And this was theirs.

When Red Sox higher-ups finally stopped cackling at Schilling's latest D-Ray claim, I did get one of them to come to the phone. Red Sox GM Theo Epstein would only say that "out of respect to the player concerned,'' he wasn't going to talk about this. Epstein also said, "Our consideration now is to win the World Series.''

That makes sense. While Schilling dreams of the D-Rays, Red Sox people are thinking of October glory.

While Schilling makes a mess of this, Boston people play it perfectly.

In reality, Schilling should be the one with bargaining strength here. If he were half as smart as he thinks he is, he should know he already has the advantage. Through the sheer luck of good timing, he is one of the better free-agent pitchers -- if not the best pitcher -- out there in the world's worst free-agent pitching class.

But instead of understanding that silence is golden, Schilling has done what he does incessantly, which is to talk. Schilling already has come down from a two-year request to one (at least he has on the airwaves).

Meanwhile, Red Sox people have waited and watched. By waiting, they didn't risk wasting future payments to a 40-year-old pitcher who was overweight in spring training. By watching, they learned that he appears desperate to return (why else start talking about the D-Rays?).

Though he missed seven weeks with a shoulder concern, he has pitched well enough to earn a new deal. Boston has two excellent pitching prospects, Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz, waiting in the wings, but the guess here is, assuming Schilling suffers no more shoulder problems, they'll bring him back for another season for something around the $13 million guaranteed he made this season.

If they do, they're signing up for a rerun of the very same nutty soap opera.

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