MLB drops hammer on Atlanta Braves John Coppolella banned
The thing Atlanta Braves fans simultaneously wanted to see and dreaded arrived today as MLB formally announced punishment for John Coppolella’s rules violations.
This afternoon MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred released a lengthy statement giving details and rational for the punishment; the full text on the preceding link. The greatest impact comes from damaging to the lower levels of the Braves system and restricting rebuilding it through international signings.
While what you’re about to read sounds pretty bad, it could well have been worse.
Atlanta Braves side-load money to sigh prospects
Side-loading is the process of loading an app on your phone that the operating system doesn’t normally allow. Side-loading also describes how Atlanta Braves former GM attempted to bypass the rules and get what he wanted. The following is extracted from the Commissioner’s statement with my attempt to remove the stilted wording so it’s easier to understand
“. . . The Braves cooperated throughout the investigation . . . senior Baseball Operations officials responsible . . .are no longer employed by the Braves. I am confident that Terry McGuirk, John Schuerholz, Alex Anthopoulos and their staffs . . .(will) ensure that this . . .never occurs again . . .”
McGuirk kicked out the crooks and ask that doing so be taken as a mitigating factor.
. . .the Braves circumvented international signing rules from 2015 through 2017 . . .(signing) five players . . . (for) bonuses lower than . . (the Braves) had agreed. . . (the Braves added the missing money by) inflating the signing bonus to another player. . . exempt from their signing pool because he qualified as a ‘foreign professional’ . . . the Braves could have signed all of the 2015-16 players . . . (for the money promised but) would have exceeded their signing bonus pool by more than five percent . . . (restricting them from providing) contracts with bonuses greater than $300,000.
The Braves promised five players more than they could give within the rules. Then they signed a player who otherwise would not have been signed and had him slip money it to the other five signees under the table. This was designed to circumvent the MLB rules.
“As a result . .(the Braves signed) nine high-value players. . . who would have been unavailable. . .(if) the Club accurately accounted for its (2015-2016) signings . . . These players were Juan Contreras, Yefri del Rosario, Abrahan Gutierrez, Kevin Maitan, Juan Carlos Negret, Yenci Peña, Yunior Severino, Livan Soto and Guillermo Zuniga. . . (they did it again) in 2016 and 2017 . . . (and) signed Brandol Mezquita, Angel Rojas and Antonio Sucre . . . (sending) additional money to those players’ agents by signing other players affiliated with their agents to contracts with inflated bonuses . . .(here’s the punishment) I am releasing these players from their contracts . . .and declaring them free agents . . .
Simply their plan went undetected in 2015-16 so they did it again. Since the signings violated MLB rules the players are free agents. In the Red Sox incident the players were seen to have done knowingly done nothing wrong so they were allowed keep the money. This is likely the case for these prospects as well.
Atlanta Braves conspire with a really corrupt buscone.
If you thought things couldn’t worse, how about conspiring to guarantee the signature of a player two years before he’s eligible top be contacted? More bad news from the statement follows.
“. . (the Braves) agreed to sign six players to inflated signing bonuses . . .(in a deal with) Robert Puason’s agent . . . (so he would guarantee) Puason . . .(signing with the Braves) on 2019-20. . .
Puason is the 14-year-old prospect mentioned in stories about the violations when news first broke.
““. . .offered prospect Ji-Hwan Bae extra-contractual compensation. . . .(as a result the Braves are banned) from signing Robert Puason . . . the contract between Bae and the Braves (is not approved.)
The Braves proudly paraded Bae before the home crowd at the end of the season. The investigation was underway at that point and the Commissioner sat on the contract knowing it might be poison fruit as well.
“. . . additional sanctions are warranted. . .for the violations committed by its employees. . . the Braves will be prohibited from signing any international player for more than $10,000 during the 2019-20 signing period. . . the first signing period. . .the Braves are not subject to any signing restrictions under our rules; and the Braves’ international signing bonus pool for the 2020-21 signing period will be reduced by 50 percent.
Pretty straight forward. Puason will never be a Brave and Bae goes back to Korea. The Braves are already prohibited from signing players in the 2018-19 round and can’t pay more that $10K as a signing bonus in the next. Effectively restricting them from signing a good prospect in the 19-20 round. The 20-21 bonus pool will now be half of whatever that amount would have been; they’ll calculate then divide by two to get the final amount.
“. . .the Braves offered impermissible benefits, which were never provided, to a player they selected in the First-Year Player Draft in an attempt to convince him to sign for a lower bonus. As a penalty for the Club’s attempted circumvention involving a draft selection, the Braves will forfeit their third-round selection in the 2018 First-Year Player Draft.”
This is MLB being petty. It refers to a reported offer of a car to Drew Waters if he took a lower bonus. No one in the room felt the offer was anything but a joke however, like say bomb in an airport the braves must pay the consequences.
The man behind the plan needs a new career
Our former GM really made MLB angry.
“. . .John Coppolella will be placed on the permanently ineligible list, effective immediately . . .Gordon Blakeley will be suspended for a period of one year. . .and may not perform services for any MLB Club during his suspension. I intend to discipline other Braves’ International Baseball Operations employees who participated in the misconduct . . .My staff will speak to the Players Association and officials in the Dominican Republic regarding appropriate consequences for the representatives . . .who intentionally participated in schemes to circumvent our rules. . .”
As I predicted, Coppollela is banned for life. Blakely appears to have turned state’s evidence so to speak. He had several meetings with MLB late in the investigation and it appears became a source of information since the investigation carried on two weeks longer than expected. Instead of a life ban, he gets a year’s vacation without pay.
How MLB will deal with the minions who carried out their orders knowing what they were doing was a violation is unclear. They will try to do something to the buscones who lined their pockets during this debacle but their hands are pretty well tied. It’s a foreign country and neither MLB nor the MLBPA have any real jurisdiction.
What say you Atlanta Braves?
While there more details will emerge over time, the Atlanta Braves can at least move forward. They began that in the statement tis afternoon, it can be found at the same link as the MLB statement. It says in part:
. . . As we expressed last week, our organization has not lived up to the standard our fans expect from us and that we expect from ourselves. For that, we apologize. We are instituting the changes necessary to prevent this from ever happening again and remain excited about the future of Braves baseball.
We do not plan to comment further on this matter.
That’s a Wrap
The punishments are pretty much in line with expectations except that no fines were levied. I suspect the $20M or so flushed down the toilet due to Coppolella’s attempt to cheat.
The Braves will survive and while the farm system took a hit, the upper levels are still in tact and represent a lot of talent.
Next: Why MLB Banned Coppolella
Alex Anthopoulus’ task is now to complete the rebuild at the top while simultaneously rebuilding the bottom ; essential to prevent a bubble of low talent from percolating up the system.
I have questions that will never be answered about the length and depth of this mess and its origins. The task now is to look forward and hope AA can fix what Coppolella’s ego nearly destroyed.