Scott Boras defends the Nationals decision to shut down Stephen Strasburg at some point this season. Boras also takes some credit for helping build the team into one that’s contending for a championship:

The truth: Rizzo placing a player’s health concerns over a series-or-bust, win-now mentality won over Boras early on in their relationship, and it’s the primary reason the Nationals have the players they do now.

“The good thing about Rizzo, when I had Strasburg – and you know he was a 20-year-old draftee, a year early — I said, ‘Look, you want to draft these players? Great, but you know what, I’m not on board,” Boras said he told Rizzo. “We won’t sign and I’ll send them back to college. I want to make sure we have an organization that will put the health of these players first.”

So by the Nationals agreeing to take care of players, well before anyone got hurt, Boras will let Washington work deals with his players.

Stories circulated over the years of teams not wanting to deal with Boras clients, to not drafting them to not wanting to sign them as free agents. I’ll suggest Washington played a little Moneyball here, and exploited a market inefficiency by signing Boras clients. They’re not cheap, but so far they seem to be paying off. The whole article is well worth the read.