Atlanta Braves looking to sign a top international infielder this summer

The Atlanta Braves are starting to emerge from their long, dark sentence of international signing shackles.

In a footnote to a discussion about the state of the International free agents market, Baseball America (subscription required) has identified the first significant prospect that the Atlanta Braves are expected to acquire since losing their entire class of big-bonus signees from 2016.

MLB teams aren’t particularly happy about the state of that International free-agent market, that partly because of having to make guesses about the future impact of pre-teen players and partly due to the ‘sweepstakes’ nature of the market, which gives all the choice to the kids and the influence of their trainers.

Huh – freedom of choice … what a concept.

That aside, BA has identified infielder Ambioris Tavarez as being committed to the Atlanta Braves.  This comes even as the team is still under the thumb of MLB for the violations that occurred under John Coppolella’s watch, which will limit the Braves to a 50% reduction in the normally-available bonus pool for International signings.

Still, that’s a lot better than “no signings with a bonus above $10,000″, which is the restriction they are under until July 2nd.

Once the new market opens up for the 2020-21 signing period (MLB could delay this), the Braves are expected to extend a bonus offer in the neighborhood of $1.5 million to Tavarez.

Dominican-born Tavarez will be 18 years old in mid-November.  He’s a 6′-2” infielder, projected to end up at a corner OF position or third base (he’s currently a shortstop).

BA likes his arm strength, bat speed, and his “big raw power”.  The guess is that his defense isn’t elite and that would move him off the shortstop position, but he’s still athletic enough to handle one of the corners.

If you’re catching a breath here and thinking “but what about Riley?” or some such thing, don’t sweat it.  For one thing, he’s still not even signed.  For another, we’re looking at a minimum of 3-5 years before he’d sniff the majors, and there’s any number of things that will happen between now and then … present conditions being one of those crazier things that nobody would have anticipated.

Teams have bonus pools that are tapped by signing these International free-agents to deals above the $10,000 threshold.  Pools will range from roughly $5.5m to $6.5m in 3 tiers and can be spent on 1, 2, or dozens of players as the team sees fit.

The Braves are in the group of teams in the smallest tier.  With the penalty factored in, Atlanta’s 2020-21 pool will be in the immediate neighborhood of $2.7 million.  Thus, a $1.5 million bonus to a single player is noteworthy since it would be in excess of 50% of what they can spend.

Teams are allowed to make trades to acquire up to 50% extra buying power, which could get Atlanta’s bonus pool just above the $4 million mark, but they’d have to find a willing partner to make that happen.

In any case:  this is a good sign.  The period of solitary confinement is about to be reduced to something akin to ‘supervised probation’, and that may give us a chance to get excited about a new prospect.