Scott Boras has a way of showing up in Yankees storylines at exactly the wrong time for the Bronx. This summer, he’s back in the middle of another one.
The latest wrinkle involves Matt Chapman, the Giants third baseman who had started to look like a natural fit for New York as the trade deadline approaches. The Yankees need help at third, and Chapman checked a lot of boxes: right-handed bat, elite glove, and a profile that made sense for a contender trying to patch a hole. But Boras, Chapman’s agent, may have already shut that door.
In a conversation with John Shea of The San Francisco Standard published July 13, Boras was asked about the chances of a Chapman deal. His answer was direct: “I would say that it’s not something on the radar,” Boras said, adding that a trade had not been discussed.
That matters because Chapman has a no-trade clause, giving him and Boras major control over what happens next. And when the person closest to the situation says a trade isn’t even on the radar, that’s usually not the kind of language a team wants to hear if it’s hoping to make a run.
The Yankees’ interest wasn’t hard to understand. Ryan McMahon, brought in at the 2025 deadline to stabilize third base, hasn’t produced at the plate.
He went into the break hitting .210/.269/.360 with eight home runs, and his defense hasn’t been the escape hatch it once was. Earlier in the year, McMahon ranked near the bottom among qualified third basemen in defensive runs saved.
He’s under contract through 2027, so the club doesn’t have much room to simply move on.
Chapman would have been a cleaner answer on paper. He’s hitting .235 with seven home runs this season and remains an elite defender at the hot corner.
The problem, of course, is the contract: six years, $151 million. That’s a heavy lift, but one the Yankees could handle.
And Boras has already made life complicated for them before.
The freshest example is Juan Soto, who left the Bronx after the 2024 season and landed with the crosstown Mets on a record 15-year, $765 million deal. Soto had just helped the Yankees get to the World Series, so the departure hit hard. Boras was at the center of that one, too.
There’s a longer history here as well. Alex Rodriguez, another Boras client, opted out of his Yankees contract in a move that leaked during the 2007 World Series. But Boras has also done business with the Yankees, most notably negotiating Gerrit Cole’s $324 million contract in 2019.
So this isn’t simply a story about an agent blocking a team at every turn. It’s more complicated than that.
Still, when Boras enters a Yankees conversation, the outcome has a habit of leaning away from the Bronx. Chapman may be the latest example.
For now, the Yankees will keep looking. They’re expected to explore other options before the Aug. 3 trade deadline, and they need to.
New York entered the break at 54-42 and had slipped behind the Tampa Bay Rays in the AL East. With the postseason race tightening, third base remains a clear area to attack.
But if Chapman was the target, Boras’ comment made the path a lot steeper. In the Yankees’ world, that’s a familiar feeling.
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