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For David Pasti, Persistence and Faith Supported His Quest to Become a Baseball Agent
June 16, 2026
David Pasti's memoir, Worth the Risk: Discovering God's Purpose for My Dreams as a Baseball Agent, reflects on the ups and downs of a legal career in which he sought to balance the practical needs of finance and family with a passion for baseball, often turning to his faith for guidance.
Pasti enjoyed success as a certified Major League Baseball agent, but many aspects of the work presented challenges. His story candidly recounts the financial uncertainty and demanding travel schedule that, at times, caused him to doubt whether he made the right decision to follow his heart in choosing his profession.
Early chapters provide the context that helped establish Pasti's values and ambitions. His mother was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis during his childhood and died during his sophomore year at the University of Maryland. Pasti continued to pursue his teenage ambition to become an attorney, attending the California Western School of Law in San Diego, where he was impressed by a roommate's Christian faith. Following his graduation, Pasti returned to Maryland and passed the bar in 1988.
Soon after, Pasti met his future wife, Marie, at a singles group organized by the Fourth Presbyterian Church. He committed himself to the Christian faith, which serves as a touchstone for many of the decisions that have since shaped his life and career.
The death of Pasti's father in 1995 had a profound impact on his decision to pursue his interest in becoming a sports agent. Pasti was early in his career as an attorney, with a wife and young children, when his father's health began to fail. The family moved Pasti's father into their home six months prior to his death.
The evening before his death, father and son went out to dinner. Over an uncharacteristic mai tai, Pasti's father spoke about having felt trapped in a career that he hated, a reflection that fueled Pasti's subsequent determination to surmount the many obstacles that presented themselves in pursuit of his dream career.
Several years into developing a successful solo practice, Pasti decided to lean into his ambition to become a sports agent, combing local college and high school markets for prospects. There were early missteps. Pasti explains that, with rare exception, a player starts in the minor leagues and works their way up from rookie ball to Low-A, High-A, AA, AAA, and then the Majors. Normal progression is a level a year for high school players, though college players may skip a level. On average, he says, a player destined for the Majors will spend four to six years in the minors.
There is little money to be made by individuals at that point in their career and, unbeknownst to Pasti in his early days as an agent, most minor league players are not considered prospects. As such, many of his early clients had little or no chance of signing with a Major League team.
Even when an unrepresented prospect for a Major League team can be located, there is still a significant amount of work before it is possible to earn a fee. The baseball draft occurs once a year, and even when this all-important event occurs, a player may fail to be signed for a variety of unpredictable reasons.
Pasti spends a significant space in his book discussing what he considered as an agent, how he assessed a player's potential, and how he guided prospects through the draft process. If the stars aligned, a contract would be offered and accepted, and Pasti would earn a fee. In the end, Pasti represented a total of four players who made it into Major League Baseball.
The uncertain and speculative nature of the job introduced tensions in Pasti's personal life. At several junctures the desire for a more reliable source of income caused friction between Pasti and his wife. Pasti describes himself as a "get-it-done person" and Marie as a "get-it-right person," and Pasti's work was, at various points, the family's sole source of income.
Pasti describes several line-in-the-sand moments in which he agreed to leave his work as a sports agent to take a salaried position if benchmarks weren't met — though he navigated those moments with prayer and good luck. At other times Pasti solicited investment from friends and family to cover the periods in which his representation required capital outlay in hopes of securing a contract and fee. Pasti traveled to attend industry events, such as spring training, to meet with scouts, and to watch his players at key games.
Over the course of Pasti's memoir, it becomes clear that work as a sports agent is a feast-or-famine proposition. A person might make tens of thousands of dollars one day without an enormous amount of effort, and might, at other times, toil and expend capital for years without earning a cent.
Pasti last represented a Major League player in 2015, though he continued to represent minor league players from 2016 to 2022, during which time he returned to full-time practice as an attorney. He ran for a position in the Maryland House of Delegates in 2018 in a failed bid to pursue a secondary ambition of becoming a politician. Pasti also works part-time with Christian Legal Aid of DC.
Worth the Risk offers some valuable insights into the work of a sports agent, providing a candid look at the pressures faced in a profession that might appear to be more glamorous or lucrative than it is in reality. It is also a story about faith. Pasti's longtime business partner at Diakon Baseball Group, now an ordained Anglican priest, writes in the book's foreword that Pasti views his clients "as people first, as sons and husbands second, and as baseball players third." He goes on to say that Pasti helped him become a better baseball player and, more importantly, a better person — a statement that perhaps best summarizes Pasti's memoir and his life's values and intentions.
Worth the Risk, published by Ark House, is available through major retailers.
