The Morning Chop: Atlanta Braves’ scandal hinting deeper, wider, dirtier
We have at least two-and-a-half more weeks before anything comes from MLB’s investigation into the behavior of several Braves’ employees. But what information is being leaked continues to get uglier by the day.
What is clear at this point is that it might require a very large broom for Major League Baseball to sweep the totality of this still-burgeoning Atlanta Braves scandal under the rug…if they can find a big enough rug.
Writing in the Macon journal on Saturday, Bill Shanks adds several elements that calls into question how this club will be able to conduct anything more than the most basic day-to-day business operations while this investigation continues.
Fred gave us a more complete update on the investigation last night, so I’m going to narrow the landscape to two people this morning: Coppy and Hart.
Quickie Timeline
- Sept 25-27 (Mon-Wed): Coppy is interviewed at MLB office in New York in conjunction with the Braves’ road trip to play the Mets.
- Sept. 30 (Sat): Coppy is summoned from Miami in another interview held at his Atlanta home.
- Liberty Media has a lawyer on hand to monitor the interviews and report back to CEO Terry McGuirk. It is not clear whether that happened for Coppy’s New York session, but very likely that it did for the Atlanta inquiry, plus subsequent interrogations of all other team personnel.
- Between then (Sept. 30) and Oct. 2nd, it was made clear to Braves’ executives that Coppy would not be able to survive this, based on information they already had at that point. Coppolella resigned under fire on October 2nd.
Compensation for…?
Now here’s a curious sidebar. Coppolella was hired as GM on October 1st, 2015 and spent 2 years + 1 day on the job. His contract was said to run through 2019.
When a large-ish company lets an employee go for reasons related to the economy (a ‘reduction in force’ downsizing or some such thing), the company will commonly offer some sort of severance package to the impacted employee(s).
However, there are conditions that are often attached to said severance – namely that you will agree not to pursue legal action against the company for what they are doing to you. For people like you and me, that is pretty much the end of it – no negotiations… take the offer or leave it.
When you are dismissed for cause, i.e., as a response to your own actions, there is no severance, and you’re often given the opportunity to leave quietly lest the authorities be called.
In this situation, Coppolella has a work contract – he was not a typical employee. As such, there are probably some stipulations that are unique to his situation, but getting caught breaking MLB’s rules was probably one of the things that could get him fired outright.
Hence: he was dismissed “for cause”.
Since the investigation was going to take a while to complete (though the hand-writing was already on the wall) and because the team didn’t want to keep Coppolella in a position of authority that could compromise the team further, it is apparent that they came to some sort of agreement that allowed him to resign rather than be fired outright.
But now, there is some push-back that might be coming from Coppolella’s camp.
Shanks is reporting that Coppy was offered a contract buyout of some amount, but that he has turned it down. Moreover, Coppolella has also hired an attorney – presumably to push for either an increase to the settlement price or perhaps as a means to … I don’t know: maybe an attempt to clear his name somehow?
Admittedly, Coppolella is going to be in a bad situation personally and professionally: he’s 39 years old and is suddenly a pariah in the industry that was his chosen profession. That’s going to make finding new work difficult, and he’s a long way from retirement.
The cynics would argue back (I can hear them already) “He deserves it for breaking the rules!”
Well, maybe, but this now encompasses basic things like ‘earning a livelihood’, and taking fandom out of the equation for a moment, he’s got 20+ years to cover for his family. There’s real-world considerations to think about here.
And yet he declined the buyout offer – perhaps because of the strings attached, perhaps for other legal reasons.
One possible reason for pursuing legal action (pure speculation follows in the next couple of paragraphs): Coppy might feel like he’s the ‘Fall Guy’ – being scapegoated for the actions of others… and Shanks repeatedly raises the suggestion that Coppy’s boss John Hart either knew everything that was going on or at least was complicit in some manner.
But if you’d like to go “all in” on a conspiracy theory, that would be a reason for a buyout… incentive for Coppy to stay quiet while others – Hart? – skate on the responsibility for what took place.
Another possibility? We don’t know the order of events here, so the Braves’ offer might have come after Coppolella hired a lawyer… and in this case, the intent of the offer would have been a ‘pre-settlement’ intended to reduce costs by keeping the braves out of the courtroom.
The Absent Witness
Curiously, John Hart has reportedly not yet been interviewed by MLB… even while many other staffers – Billy Ryan (former baseball ops director), Chad McDonald (scout), Brian Bridges (scouting director), and Dave Trembley (was farm director). Multiple International scouts are reportedly also being brought in for a chat.
That won’t be the extent of it, either: agents and other business partners of the Braves are chiming in with anecdotal evidence of dealings with Coppolella.
In all honesty, the scope of this investigation is making me believe that we could be into the next calendar year before this is wrapped up… if MLB really was being thorough.. but as Fred reported via a Dave O’Brien tweet, the league could be wrapping it up fairly quickly.
So there’s another head-scratcher.
How Long?
Of note, it took 19 months before MLB finally assessed penalties for the Cardinals’ role in the ‘hacking’ case.
Compared to this, that investigation was a piece of cake: the only reason for a delay there was presumably that the perpetrator was involved in a criminal trial for his actions… still, it didn’t appear that there was a whole lot of urgency going on with the hacking case.
If O’Brien’s read is correct, there’s a whole lot more urgency now.