MLB drops hammer on ATL

[homer]

https://www.si.com/mlb/2017/11/21/mlb-announces-atlanta-braves-investigation-ruling

[Boomer5]

Good. Lets capitalize and sign Maitan

[And That]

The Brewers should break a bunch of rules and sign all of them.

[adambr2]

Good. Lets capitalize and sign Maitan

 

How much are we legally allowed to give him for a bonus? It's not like we should be restricted by our own financial situation.

[adambr2]

Do all these prospects owe their bonuses back to the Braves? Or is it just their lucky day and they make out like bandits and double dip?

[MillerParkSouth]

Go get them David!

[BrewCrewBlueDevil]

They should put all the players in the Rule 5 draft. If they are not drafted, which none will be because of age, they become minor league free agents.

[DocLuna7]

Do all these prospects owe their bonuses back to the Braves? Or is it just their lucky day and they make out like bandits and double dip?

 

My understanding is that they get to keep their bonuses. I could be wrong but I believe that to be the case.

[OnaBadger58]

Good. Lets capitalize and sign Maitan

 

How much are we legally allowed to give him for a bonus? It's not like we should be restricted by our own financial situation.

Don't teams still have to use international pool money to sign these players?

[KeithStone53151]

Do all these prospects owe their bonuses back to the Braves? Or is it just their lucky day and they make out like bandits and double dip?

 

My understanding is that they get to keep their bonuses. I could be wrong but I believe that to be the case.

 

I think DocLuna is right. Paying back the bonuses would be penalizing the players. Especially if one of the players was a Gilbert Lara situation, where he was absolutely terrible 2 years later and not worth 1/10 of his signing bonus. Mildly annoying that the agent of the players get to double dip on signing bonuses, but it's better than potentially penalizing the player.

[Thurston Fluff]

That is harsh but fair.

I wonder how they plan on treating the players when it comes to signing with other teams. Are they minor league free agents, regular free agents or subject to international rules as though they are first time international prospects.

[adambr2]

They should put all the players in the Rule 5 draft. If they are not drafted, which none will be because of age, they become minor league free agents.

 

Maitan would be drafted in a second, age be damned. He'd be stashed on the deepest recesses of someone's MLB roster for a year.

[clancyphile]

They become free agents, kinda like that Boston situation.

 

Get Maitan, get Gutierrez...

[Thurston Fluff]

They become free agents, kinda like that Boston situation.

 

Get Maitan, get Gutierrez...

 

Thanks. The timing couldn't be better from the Brewers perspective. If there is limited money available I would much rather sign them than spend too much on Arrieta.

[liveforoctober]

A couple of questions: I tried reading into what the Braves did but "circumventing the system" via under the table benefits, tampering, etc was all I could find. Is there more to it than just that? (not to say that isn't a bad offense)...

 

Secondly, I'm assuming international pool money will have to be used to sign these guys just as if they were being courted all over again?

 

Thirdly, does anyone have enough grasp of the Braves system/these prospects to have a read on whether we should be interested in any of them (beyond Maitan)? I feel like the Brewers have made multiple trades in the past 2 or 3 years simply for extra international money... I could be wrong.

[OnaBadger58]

This is the best I could find regarding signing these players:

 

Jeff Passan‏

@JeffPassan

 

Important note: Every team can sign Kevin Maitan. Teams will be able to use money from the current bonus period (2017-18) or dip into next year's pool (2018-19). They cannot combine the money from both years.

3:15 PM - 21 Nov 2017

[madbad2000]

Basically what I gathered is that they circumvented the system by giving a few players a smaller bonus than they normally would have received and in turn gave other, non bonus pool international free agents ( who had the same agent as these under bonus players) significantly higher deals which would then be funneled to the under slot guys. The total value of these deals would have placed Atlanta over their pool by more than 5% which would have resulted in loss of a pick and no international free agents greater than $300k for a few years. Hence why they lost so many. The players that they signed for more than $300k during the period they would have normally been restricted are now free agents again and get to keep their original bonuses.

[ThisIsMyCrew]

At what point do these players become available? Let’s go get em Stearns!!

[JosephC]

I think it's kind of crappy that teams can use pool money from 2018-2019 on these players. Maitan gets to keep his original bonus, and now teams being able to use their 2018-2019 money Maitan will likely get another pretty big bonus. Maybe he wasn't aware of what was going on, but certainly his "representative" was. So why should a player that was involved in a transaction that was clearly against the rules be able to double-dip the system and get another big bonus? It's just like MLB is inviting representatives to keep "bundling" these player when the ramifications result in the players (and likely the representatives) getting paid twice. IMO the league should work towards putting a pretty low cap on a bonus the player can sign for if caught in an illegal transaction.

 

Also, Maitan is still highly regarded but slashed .241/.290/.340/.629 in rookie ball this year and has had some detractors popping up. I'd still absolutely love to see the Brewers land him but he's lost just a bit of luster. The information is a year old now, but the Baseball America 2017 Prospect Handbook had C-Abrahan Gutierrez as the Braves #26 prospect. Gutierrez played in the Gulf Coast League and slashed .264/.319/.357/.676.

 

The Braves got hammered more on the international side than I expected. No surprised that they lost these prospects but I didn't think MLB would come down so hard in limiting their international bonus pool through the 20-21 signing period. On the flip side, I am a bit surprised that they only lost a third round pick in the Drew Waters situation. Since Waters was a second round pick, I figured MLB would take a second round pick away from them.

[reillymcshane]

Former GM John Coppolella is banned for life. Wow. That's an axe - not a hammer.

[jerichoholicninja]

I think it's kind of crappy that teams can use pool money from 2018-2019 on these players. Maitan gets to keep his original bonus, and now teams being able to use their 2018-2019 money Maitan will likely get another pretty big bonus. Maybe he wasn't aware of what was going on, but certainly his "representative" was. So why should a player that was involved in a transaction that was clearly against the rules be able to double-dip the system and get another big bonus? It's just like MLB is inviting representatives to keep "bundling" these player when the ramifications result in the players (and likely the representatives) getting paid twice. IMO the league should work towards putting a pretty low cap on a bonus the player can sign for if caught in an illegal transaction.

 

This is a good point. It takes two to tango. Either the players or at least their agents knew what was going on. No way they should escape punishment. If they do, any time someone gets a PED suspension they just need to say their organization made them do it and they'll get off.

[homer]

So does this mean that maybe guys that would have gone for top dollar might now be had at a lesser price?

[OnaBadger58]

I think it's kind of crappy that teams can use pool money from 2018-2019 on these players. Maitan gets to keep his original bonus, and now teams being able to use their 2018-2019 money Maitan will likely get another pretty big bonus. Maybe he wasn't aware of what was going on, but certainly his "representative" was. So why should a player that was involved in a transaction that was clearly against the rules be able to double-dip the system and get another big bonus? It's just like MLB is inviting representatives to keep "bundling" these player when the ramifications result in the players (and likely the representatives) getting paid twice. IMO the league should work towards putting a pretty low cap on a bonus the player can sign for if caught in an illegal transaction.

 

This is a good point. It takes two to tango. Either the players or at least their agents knew what was going on. No way they should escape punishment. If they do, any time someone gets a PED suspension they just need to say their organization made them do it and they'll get off.

https://www.foxsports.com/south/story/atlanta-braves-mlb-investigation-international-penalties-kevin-maitan-112117?amp=true

In this article they say he turned down a $10 million offer from another team to join the Braves for just over $4 million. If that's the case, it's hard to imagine Maitan not knowing he was getting paid under the table from the Braves.

[MadScientist]

Since the ones who had contracts have been made free agents, will they be rule 5 eligible immediately, or at least eligible for next year's rule 5 draft?

[patrickgpe]

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/11/process-for-signing-prospects-stripped-from-braves.html