Atlanta Braves under investigation John Coppolella resigns

Multiple sources are reporting Atlanta Braves General Manager John Coppolella and Assistant GM Gordon Blakeley resigned this morning due to a breach of MLB’s international signing rules.

As first reported by Ken Rosenthal (Twitter link) Atlanta Braves GM resigned early this morning as a result of breach baseball’s international signing rules.

Special assistant to Coppolella Gordon Blakeley resigned as well per Rosenthal (Twitter link).

The Braves formally announced the resignation midmorning.

What we know

The specific rules involved aren’t yet known and the MLB investigation is still ongoing per Rosenthal speaking of MLB Network’s High Heat just after noon.   Jeff Passan reports (Twitter link) that numerous violations came up as MLB reviewed the situation.

He went on to say someone had filed an anonymous complaint about the Braves with the league. Whether the complaint was the genesis of the investigation is not known at this writing.

About a month ago Alan wrote about reports from Rosenthal of internal unrest. Two weeks after that he Alan wrote in the Morning Chop about changes in the front office structure but the reports still appeared to be just rumors. Today Passan tweeted calling the front office discord “chaos” centered on Coppollela.

Passan’s sources say (Twitter link) that so far there’s been little evidence to back up the accusations against Coppolella adding that the investigation centers on covers both domestic and international drafts as well as allegations about the GM’s treatment of employees. He goes on to say Coppy was very unpopular.

Joel Sherman says other GM’s weren’t his buddies either.