International Market: Atlanta Braves, Others Getting an MLB Chill

MLB investigating certain 2015 International player signings; could suddenly change 2016 market

Baseball America’s Ben Badler, who does an outstanding job of monitoring the state of baseball prospects in Latin America, published a story today that is certain to send shudders up the spines of many baseball executives.

The new tricks and deal-making of the International (“J2”) Market are well known to teams.  They are also well known to writers, as Badler has discussed the practice here and in the past.  Certainly the Braves are also well aware of this:  Kiley McDaniel now works for them and also wrote about it.

In short, it’s about trying to (a) maximize the dollars available to spend; and (b) work around the rules that are intended to limit spending.  Since baseball has no draft (yet) for players who originate from outside the United States, these rules – loopholes and all – are an attempt to lend some semblance of balance to the process.

It hasn’t worked, but even aside of that fact, teams continue to push the envelope as far as possible.

Now They’ve Noticed

It could be that Badler’s work in April got baseball’s attention.  Fact is, it should not have taken this long.   But according to baseballamerica, the Boston Red Sox are now under investigation for what should probably be described as ‘breaking the rules too overtly’.

Overspending during the2014-15 season (i.e., Yoan Moncada) meant that the Red Sox were forbidden from signing any bonus-pool-restricted International teens for more than $300,000 apiece for the next 2 years.  However, last Summer they ended up landing 2 top prospects – ranked 15th and 24th at the time – each for the $300K limit.

Each player was also accompanied by multiple “stable-mates”:  additional signees who were represented by the same trainer.  Some of these lesser-thought-of players were also receiving the same $300K.

In the ploys exposed by Badler and McDaniel, this is the classic trick:  go to a trainer who has one stud and several lesser players and offer him a $1 million or more for the entire group.  The contracts will all show $300,000 or less, but then the money is passed around so that the player who is deserving of the bonus gets it.  Then the (restricted) signing team gets their prize and the trainer gets his ‘commission’ on the deal.

Given the penalties that the Red Sox were under, there’s no way they should have been able to sign these players alone for that kind of money.  Badler’s piece is focusing in part on the “shakedown” treatment that MLB investigators are doing in trying to get testimony from the players involved against the Red Sox, but it seems pretty obvious that something hinky was taking place.

As a result, we will probably see significant additional penalties against the Red Sox, but the fact that this is happening now is the point of this particular topic today.

Next: The 'Uh Oh' Moment