Atlanta Braves international acquisitions under Coppy may be in danger

As aggressive as the Braves have been in acquiring high draftees via trade, they have been more aggressive internationally.  Perhaps too much so.

On August 4th, the Atlanta Braves traded minor league OF Randy Ventura to the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for the right to spend a whopping $1.25 million Internationally.

About 7 weeks later, they entered into a similar deal with the Dodgers, sending another minor leaguer – OF Connor Joe – to the Dodgers for $500,000 more spending power.

This part is legal – pool monies are allowed to be traded.  The Braves had a spending limit of $4.75 million for this season; those deals raise that figure to $6.5 million – well below the $8.3 million maximum limit allowed (pool money acquisitions are limited to 75% of the original amount).

So the Braves at least had some players in mind to sign with those monies – Korean high schooler Bae Jihwan likely being one of those.  Now it’s completely up in the air about whether those extra dollars even can be spent now.

But that said, the Braves are limited to $300,000 bonuses for any International teen they sign for this ‘signing season’ and next… through June 2019.  Such limitations are what got the Red Sox in trouble a year ago.

What happened in their case was that they ‘bundled’ teen ballplayers in a group with their trainers (probably one or two).  They were targeting one or two ‘better’ prospects in the process – players that normally would be expected to command more money than $300K.

Instead, a group of these players all got $300K… including suspiciously unremarkable players.  MLB’s investigation apparently concluded that the monies were being redistributed amongst those receiving checks in a “wink wink” deal once the Red Sox left the room.

At the time, it was suggested (strongly) from places like Baseball America’s Ben Badler that such practices were not terribly uncommon but that the Red Sox had been fairly blatant about it… nor had they been used to expressly work around penalty restrictions.

Now in the case of the Braves – while we’re fairly certain at this still early hour that some kind of International shenanigans has taken place, it’s probably a bit different from the Red Sox experience.

This is primarily because the Braves (a) have been under investigation for the period before this Summer, and (b) they just now are under the shackles of the penalty – so it would not be evident that Atlanta was involved in the same kind of ‘Red Sox’ problem… not directly, at least.  Fred shared an example about one infraction type that could have happened.

Penalties are Coming

The fact that Blakeley and Coppolella are now out suggests two “knee-jerk reaction” things to me:

• This isn’t a minor infraction
• The decision-making involving the infraction went right to the top

As a result, you can brace yourselves, Braves Country, for what might come.  The Red Sox got slapped down hard.  The Braves don’t think they will be impacted in that way, but there is precedent involved.

However… let me throw out a sliver of hope (based on speculation, but here it goes):

Is it possible that the executives of the Atlanta Braves National League Club, Inc. immediately canned this pair is order to try and throw itself on the mercy of MLB’s court?  Sure.

But it’s also equally possible that those execs had sniffed enough smoke to recognize that there was a fire going on.  Witness this from Jeff Passan:

That sounds like an untenable office situation more than international incidents.  But if you’re investigating… well, let me use the words of my friend Fred to me today:

"“…from experience when an anonymous complaint is made and inspectors start digging they will always find something even if it isn’t regarding the original complaint.”"

One thing for sure, though:  I owe Ken Rosenthal an apology for this post… he was right… I was wrong.

Jeff Wren (yes, Frank’s brother) is also vindicated today:

Next: Well, at least this worked.

Fred is writing about this as well.  We will keep listening and this incident continues to unfold.