Dodgers’ No. 1 Pick Throws a Changeup

The Dodgers hold a document they believed had all but completed their negotiations with Luke Hochevar, their first selection in the June draft, in a $2.98-million proposal that bears Hochevar’s signature.

It was delivered last Friday night, and promised a conclusion to 2 1/2 months of talks that ran unrestrained from stagnant to chaotic, pitting the Dodgers against agent Scott Boras, dragging along the Tennessee right-hander.

In the hours that surrounded that agreement, however, Hochevar changed agents, changed back, aborted the deal and publicly accused the Dodgers of unfair tactics, smearing an already trouble-laden process.

Even as Dodger management, Hochevar and the player’s family celebrated the end of more than two months of arduous negotiations, meaning Hochevar would be both rich and under contract in time to pitch for the Dodgers’ Instructional and Arizona Fall league teams, Hochevar was having second thoughts and Boras was working to retake his client.

The Dodgers won’t hold Hochevar to the agreement. Hochevar is again a Boras man. The agent who struck the deal -- Matt Sosnick -- has stepped aside. The Players’ Assn. is investigating. And negotiations have stilled, with those involved hoping a few days of calm following those few frantic hours might bring rationality to future dialogue. It is possible the Dodgers will not again approach that near-$3 million commitment.

Hochevar, who will be 22 next week, admits to being overwhelmed and shaken by the events, sounding every bit stuck in the middle.

“All I know how to do,” he said Thursday, “is throw the baseball.”

Hochevar says he was duped by Sosnick and Dodger scouting director Logan White, who he believed were trying to outmaneuver Boras.

Hochevar said Sosnick told him Friday evening the Dodgers would increase their offer by nearly $700,000, to $2.98 million, before he had officially transferred negotiating authority from Boras to Sosnick, suggesting prior contact between Sosnick and the club.

Hochevar also claims he was told the $2.98 million was available only in a package deal with Sosnick and that he would have 10 minutes to decide. Hochevar said his mother, Carmen, was told Saturday by White that the more lucrative deal might not be reachable if Boras were involved. Finally, Hochevar said Sosnick told him, “Contact Scott Boras and I’ll deny everything. So will the Dodgers.”

Sosnick denied saying that, asserting in an interview Thursday that Hochevar’s version of events is untrue.

Sosnick, a Bay Area-based agent whose best-known client is Florida Marlin pitcher Dontrelle Willis, said Hochevar is a good kid who is being bullied and lied to by Boras.

Boras said he has acted properly throughout.

The Dodgers say they, like Hochevar, were simple bystanders in an old-fashioned agent war, that White had no stake in the identity of Hochevar’s advisor, and that they might have reached their ceiling offer in the coming days regardless of who was representing the player. Sosnick and a Dodger source said White refused to discuss Hochevar’s signing bonus with Sosnick until he had been designated by the player as his advisor.

Only then, after a short negotiation, did the two arrive at the $2.98-million figure, which was approved late Friday night by Dodger owner Frank McCourt. Boras, according to several sources, had never countered the Dodger offer of $2.3 million.

White says the accusations by Hochevar are baseless: “I won’t dignify [them] with a response. I don’t want to put Luke and his family in a bad position. ... It’s never been about the agent.”

Dodger General Manager Paul DePodesta met for two hours at Angel Stadium with Boras on Sept. 1, the night before Hochevar was to return to the University of Tennessee. Negotiations between Boras and White had stalled. If Hochevar attended classes the next morning, the Dodgers would have lost their rights to him. As it is, he can’t return to college because on Sept. 2 he signed a form making Sosnick his agent, forfeiting his amateur status.

Talks between DePodesta and Boras generated enough optimism to convince Hochevar to skip the fall semester.

The next day, rather than go to class, Hochevar played golf with Eli Iorg, his best friend and former teammate at Tennessee. Iorg, an outfielder, had been drafted by the Houston Astros and signed for $900,000 in late July. Eli’s father, Garth, played nine seasons in the major leagues with the Toronto Blue Jays.

Eli’s agent is Matt Sosnick.

Hochevar says Sosnick had badgered him for months to leave Boras, and that he weakened in a moment of confusion.

Garth Iorg says Hochevar became disillusioned with the slow pace of negotiations and on Friday night, after first resolving to accept the Dodgers’ initial offer of $2.3 million in spite of Boras, acceded to Eli’s suggestion to at least talk to Sosnick first.

Within hours, White and Sosnick hung up their telephones believing they had forged a deal, pending a physical examination in Los Angeles this week. White dispatched scout Marty Lamb to Knoxville, Tenn., to Iorg’s home, where Hochevar was staying, with a contract in hand.

Sosnick said that, hoping to notify Hochevar of Lamb’s arrival, he called Hochevar’s cellphone a dozen times, but Hochevar did not pick up. About 2 a.m., he called the house phone, awoke Garth Iorg and asked him to check on Hochevar. Iorg went downstairs and found Hochevar on the phone with Boras, who had been notified by Brian Hochevar, Luke’s father, of the change in agents and the deal with the Dodgers.

“That is when Luke’s attitude changed from being happy to being scared and timid,” Iorg said in a written statement.

Hochevar says he was rushed into the deal, swayed by Sosnick and fearful the money might not be guaranteed. By Thursday morning, joined in a conference call with Boras, Hochevar expressed confidence in his agent.

“As it went on through the night, I got my wits about me,” he said. “There were a bunch of red flags standing up everywhere. I truly and deeply regret my move and my acting upon it. ... I realized and found out what was going on. I was blinded.”