On March 26, 2020, agent Jim Murray sent a text to Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred urging him to stay strong in a fight with the players’ union. The players and owners were in the midst of heated negotiations over how much players should be paid for a shortened season during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Murray at the time was working for Excel Sports Management, a prominent firm that made its name representing the likes of Derek Jeter and Clayton Kershaw.
Although Murray’s job is to advocate for players, he “acted as a ‘mole’” for Manfred and his top lieutenants, according to a five-page memo and a detailed 71-page disciplinary letter the Major League Baseball Players Association sent to its player leadership on Thursday.
“PLEASE do not give in regarding the [MLBPA’s proposed] October language,” Murray wrote to Manfred, according to the documents. “You will get the deal done without it.”
The union was trying to put flexibility in the schedule for additional games, thereby increasing potential player earnings, the union wrote in the documents, which were obtained by The Athletic.
About three weeks later, the union said, on April 18, Murray texted with one of Manfred’s right-hand men, chief communications officer Pat Courtney.
“Clark saying players should be paid 100% in empty ballparks?” Courtney asked.
“You guys should just ignore,” Murray said. “Let Tony hang himself.”
Tony refers to Tony Clark, the head of the union.
Those messages are a small sample of the hundreds of texts and emails between Murray and MLB that the union said not only reveal a “betrayal” of players, but also provide a reminder that team “owners and their representatives will go to extreme measures to get what they want — including by attempting to corrupt player agents into undermining player unity and the PA as a whole.”
Murray on Wednesday accepted a $100,000 fine and a four-year ban from serving as an MLBPA-certified agent, as part of a settlement agreement that was obtained by The Athletic. He cannot negotiate playing contracts or receive fees from those deals during that span, but the union agreed to allow him to work with players in limited capacities, including managing their marketing affairs.
“James Murray was not banned by the MLBPA; rather, Mr. Murray voluntarily agreed to a resolution that permits him to continue to provide certain services to current and future players, while taking a step back from player contracts for a period of time,” Murray’s attorney Christina Sarchio said in a statement Friday. “Within hours of the resolution — and on the same day that an article about the criminal investigation into the MLBPA was published — the MLBPA distributed selective information to players that tried to portray Mr. Murray as negatively as possible while failing to tell the whole story by providing Mr. Murray’s appeal.”
The union cited “Mr. Murray’s ban” in its memo to players. The union also said Murray became “a de facto member” of the commissioner’s bargaining team. League spokesperson Glen Caplin, however, positioned the league’s dealings with Murray as routine.
“In the history of labor negotiations in baseball, player representatives have often reached out to the commissioner’s office to express their views, and help facilitate an agreement between the parties,” said Caplin, who responded on behalf of the league and its officials, in a statement. “In a similar fashion, players, player representatives and MLBPA officials also have directly communicated with owners during collective bargaining.”
The MLBPA’s memo, attributed to its legal department, describes Murray as building an alliance with the commissioner’s office of “staggering breadth.” The union said the rogue agent regularly discussed sensitive union matters with Manfred, Courtney, and deputy commissioner Dan Halem, as well as other top officials such as Noah Garden, who oversees the league’s media rights; Pat Houlihan, a top labor lawyer; and Morgan Sword, an economics expert who has a hand in virtually every major initiative the league undertakes, including collective bargaining.
“Mr. Murray was stripped of his certification because, as one witness stated and volumes of evidence confirmed, he acted as a ‘mole’ for Rob Manfred … and other high-ranking MLB officials throughout the PA/MLB negotiations that took place during the COVID-19 pandemic,” the memo reads. “For the sake of our bargaining efforts next year and beyond, this can never happen again.”
The union put Murray’s violations into four categories: undermining bargaining positions; encouraging MLB executives to circumvent union leadership; secretly aiding owners’ efforts to “massively” reduce player compensation; and obstructing the union’s investigation.
In June 2020, Courtney asked Murray: “How are players?”
“F the players,” Murray responded, according to the MLBPA documents. “I’m still so pissed off I can’t see straight.”
“We need them to be kissed (sic) off at their leadership,” Courtney replied.
“Believe me, it is priority for me,” Murray said.
Earlier that month, Murray emailed Courtney, who leads MLB’s public relations department, a set of talking points.
“I wrote these late last night,” he wrote. “Maybe they will be helpful to you.”
“Please don’t blame us for salary reductions, please blame the crisis at-hand,” one read.
“The Commissioner did not say he can pay 100% of salaries in an 82 game season,” went another. “The quote was taken out of context.”
Sometimes, Manfred and Murray were at odds. In March, Manfred texted Murray, “So we send you the proposal so you can help and the first call is from STL saying (a redacted name) called to criticize the draft proposal? Not great.”
When the union did not take well to a June proposal from the league, “an irate” Manfred called Murray and shouted at him, per the documents. Although Murray did not approve of Manfred’s behavior, the two quickly reconciled.
Murray offered several defenses during the investigation, the union wrote. Murray said that the MLBPA was ultimately aware of his conduct, and that his supervisor at Excel, agent Casey Close, instructed him to coordinate with the league and approved of it. Close did not respond to a request for comment.
The union said Murray also claimed other agents were engaging in the same behavior but were going unpunished, and that he was ultimately acting in the interests of the players he represents. The union countered that the MLBPA’s executive board is “solely responsible for making decisions for the entire membership, including and especially decisions relating to collective bargaining.”
Murray also said he occasionally embellished his involvement in bargaining, and that he was trying to help baseball generally.
“The MLBPA focused on cherry‑picked, out‑of‑context quotes while ignoring both Mr. Murray’s fierce advocacy on behalf of his players for more than 25 years and the fact that his actions during a tumultuous and stressful time were no different from those of other agents and others,” continued the statement from Sarchio, Murray’s attorney. “Mr. Murray never sought to do anything other than help players get back on the field safely. Indeed, a number of current and former players were prepared to testify on Mr. Murray’s behalf, but Mr. Murray instead chose to avoid the ongoing distraction of having to arbitrate issues relating to events that happened more than five years ago during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is unfortunate that is now being used against him as a way to deflect from what appear to be more serious issues.”
Murray wanted to see the league’s labor proposals before they went out in 2020. Murray told Manfred in May that year not to include a particular piece of a proposal: “Don’t give these idiots a chance to say no.”
“Send me the drafts!” Murray wrote to MLB’s Halem, the league’s lead negotiator, that same month. “I need to get ahead of this with the players ASAP as all of the media leaking is creating a groundswell that we don’t need.”
In a March conversation with Garden, Murray said, “This is insanity. I am so in the middle of this thing. I’ve spent hours on phone with Dan [Halem], Rob [Manfred] etc and I think we are going to get a deal done.
Murray also gave suggestions to the league as to which reporters could best publicize their messages. In one exchange, Murray identifies one writer who “could have a chance to redeem himself,” and another as a “Covid nut, so he may be good too.”
The union said Murray was called a “mole” in a September 1, 2021, e-mail exchange among Excel agents.
“Who’s [sic] side is Jim on? Owners or players? Covid negotiation mole for the commissioner’s office,” asked an Excel agent whom the MLBPA did not name.
That email came to the MLBPA’s attention as part of a different case that was prompted by Murray’s 2021 exit from Excel. At the time of the email, Murray had just left for another agency, WME Sports.
Excel sued WME Sports after Murray helped bring more than a dozen Excel players with him to his new firm. That case ended up in front of an arbitrator, who ruled that Murray owed millions in damages.
The MLBPA then opened a separate case against Murray in September 2023. In addition to the “mole” email, Murray’s testimony in the Excel-WME proceeding also helped key the latter investigation.
“I really took it upon myself to get very involved in doing our best to get baseball back on the field [during the COVID-19 negotiations],” Murray said during the earlier case, noting that “the other guys in the group [at Excel] thought I was trying to do something a little bit more than I should have and ultimately I was taken off that responsibility towards the end of 2020.”
Murray also lobbied MLB to work with Excel in selling advertisements via uniform patches. In April 2020, Murray texted Garden, “Rob [Manfred] is going to talk with you about the patch thing and me/us helping (therefore, I can maybe get a paycheck).”
During his four-year ban, Murray has a carve-out that allows him to advise four of his clients, Anthony Volpe, Austin Wells, Jett Williams and Jack Leiter, “regarding the potential terms of a Uniform Player’s Contract” as long as certain conditions are met — but Murray nonetheless may not negotiate those deals for them or profit off them, according to the settlement agreement. If he reapplies for agent certification at the end of the four years, Murray has to pay an additional $150,000 fine.
The union is using its case against Murray to try to build player solidarity heading into the next round of labor talks. The current agreement expires in December 2026.
“The upcoming CBA negotiations will be unlike any other in recent memory,” the union wrote in its memo to players. “For months, Rob Manfred and owners have been speaking openly about their desire for massive concessions from players, including a salary cap, and the lockout strategy they plan to employ. These concessions are worth billions to owners.
“Players and agents must also remain clear-eyed … (about) MLB and the lengths to which they will go to undermine the unparalleled resolve our fraternity has shown for more than 50 years.”
MLB’s Caplin suggested disputes from 2020 should be considered settled matters.
After the COVID-19 restart negotiations, the league and union filed broad grievances against each other, alleging the talks were held in bad faith. Those grievances, which were not about Murray, were settled three years ago.
“During the 2020 Covid negotiations, numerous player representatives reached out to our office or to our owners to request information about the commissioner’s office’s positions, to express the views of their players, or to provide their views on how to bridge the gap with the Players Association,” Caplin said. “Due to the contentious nature of the 2020 discussions, each party later challenged the conduct of the other in the grievance procedure. These claims were ultimately withdrawn by each party. Considered in context, the communications as a whole were an effort to help the bargaining parties reach agreement at a difficult moment in time.”