{"id":10114,"date":"2017-11-21T18:19:41","date_gmt":"2017-11-21T23:19:41","guid":{"rendered":"lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/\/?p=10114"},"modified":"2017-11-21T18:25:18","modified_gmt":"2017-11-21T23:25:18","slug":"braves-illegal-prospect-signing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2017\/11\/21\/braves-illegal-prospect-signing\/","title":{"rendered":"Atlanta Braves Penalized Due to Illegal Prospect Signings"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Commissioner’s Office confirmed Tuesday that the Atlanta Braves<\/a> had illegally signed up to 12 international prospects, and has notified nine of the signees that they will become free agents, per Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports.<\/p>\n

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The sanctions against Atlanta are staggering. It’s not just losing 12 players, some potentially elite, and the $20M+ they cost. It’s the crippling signing restrictions in 2019-20 and 2020-21. This is the sort of penalty that will make teams think long and hard about cheating.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) November 21, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

They also have been relieved of a third-round draft pick, and will be highly restricted in the international pool’s signing periods for the next few years to come.<\/p>\n

Former general manager\u00a0John Coppolella has also been banned from MLB <\/a>for life as part of today’s ruling.<\/p>\n

Atlanta Braves Penalized Due to Illegal Prospect Signing<\/h2>\n

Per sources reporting to Baseball America<\/a>, some players on the table as of now are: 17-year old Venezuelan infielder Kevin Maitan<\/a>, the #5 prospect in the class of 2016 and #1 in the international grouping, 18-year old Abraham Gutierrez<\/a>, the #15 international prospect, as well as second baseman Yunior Severino<\/a>, right-handed pitcher\u00a0Juan Contreras<\/a>, short-stop Ji-Hwan Bae, right-handed pitcher Guillermo Zuniga, and outfielders Juan Carlos Negret, Antonio Sucre, Brandol Mezquita and Angel Rojas. They have also been sanctioned to a $10,000 signing cap during the 2019-2020 season in the international pickings, as well as a 50% reduction in the 2020-2021 international pool money.<\/p>\n

Commissioner Rob Manfred has tried to lay down the line on issues like this before, but teams have seemed to take it rather lightly (re: the St. Louis Cardinals<\/a>\u00a0hacking scandal<\/a> in 2014), but this seems to be his last straw. Hopefully, the rest of the league will get the message before they have more problems in overseas markets.<\/p>\n

Former Toronto Blue Jays<\/a> general manager, Alex Anthopolous<\/strong><\/a> was recently hired to take over the Braves and to move the organization past this scandal.<\/p>\n

Main Photo;
\nEmbed from Getty Images<\/a>