Atlanta Braves: International Free Agent Pool Amounts Determined; Rules Explained

Even though the Atlanta Braves are, for all intents and purposes, a “Major Market” now, this new construct will benefit even those in the major market pool.

New International Signing Rules in the new CBA, with numbers for the Atlanta Braves.

Prior to the 2016 Winter Meetings kicking off in the Nation’s Capital, the new Collective Bargaining Agreement was agreed upon.

Baseball America helped us out with a writeup on many of the new provisions of the International Signing Rules.

In a manner of speaking a lot has changed. It appears that bonus slot monies have been relegated into three categories.

Most of the teams fall within the lowest bonus pool.  Atlanta is considered a “major market”, meaning they get grouped with the Dodgers, Yankees, Mets, Cubs, and Red Sox just to name a few.

The idea of an International Draft was a quick game-ender for the players union. In the crucial moments, this seemed to be the hang up that delayed the CBA getting approved.

However, the new International rules went through some pretty substantial revisions.

Bonus Pool

The Braves 2017 bonus pool is $4.75 million. However, they can’t sign anyone for more than $300,000 because they blew past their pool of money last July and will have to deal with that penalty for the next 2 “J2” signing seasons.

This is the lowest amount any team will have to play with. Other amounts are $5.25 and $5.75 Million. Teams in the $5.75 million pool and $5.25 pool are linked below.

What’s important is that the Braves are saddled with the $4.75 limit, along with 15 other clubs. Even more, they can only spend $300,000 at a time. Look to see them possibly trade away some, if not all, their pool money.

Ben Badler of Baseball America has written a very nice piece on the new International rules and also listed every team’s pool amount.

It’s easy to follow and somewhat easy to comprehend. The biggest notes to me are:

• Teams are allowed to trade for additional pool space
• Teams can trade for up to 75% of their pool amount this coming year and next. Afterwards, they can only trade for up to 60%.
• If you are not inclined to spend, then your team is permitted to trade up to 100% of your International monies away.
• Overage penalties seem to have gone away… because you can’t go over.  If you do, there’s the distinct possibility of a ‘death penalty’ that can disqualify you from further International signings for some period of time.
• Offenders from previous years have their penalties carry over.  No ‘get out of jail free’ card.
• Now, if a club forfeits any or all of its pool money is redistributed to all other clubs, equally. Ahh, true competitive balance. (This is huge. Can’t emphasize it enough)
• The age limit for International Free Agents (IFA’s) has risen from 23 (w/5 years pro International XP) to 25 (w/6 years pro International XP).
• Rules apply to all IFA’s, including Japan, Cuba, and Korea.
• Signing bonuses of $10K or less still do not count against your cap.

How this Affects Braves

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Atlanta over spent last July, so they can’t sign anyone for more than $300,000. At least for 2017-18 and 2018-19.

However, they can still spend their full amount or trade it away. This basically means they can still use their $4.75 million, they just can’t blow it all on one signing.

This, of course, stinks, as they made the big splash in July with the signing of Kevin Maitan and other high valued IFA’s. I think they would have been big players again this year.

Had Maitan been eligible this July as opposed to last July, then it would have been disappointing. Knowing the CBA would most likely change in the IFA area, the Braves made a big move to avoid this exact scenario, in my opinion.  At least the timing worked exquisitely in favor of the Braves.

In all honesty, I don’t see this having a major effect on the Braves this summer. They will make up for it in this June’s First Year Player Draft.

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And they will likely use their J2 monies as a tool – whether to acquire prospects of interest by trading away spending rights or perhaps retaining it and signing a bevy of under-the-radar teen prospects.