the MLB needs to fix their international market badly. there needs to be a draft. these kids should get more money, too.
the MLB needs to fix their international market badly. there needs to be a draft. these kids should get more money, too.
50PoundHead (10-03-2017), CyYoung31 (10-03-2017), jpx7 (10-03-2017), WaitingFor2017 (10-03-2017)
jpx7 (10-03-2017)
The only thing keeping me from believing this is Rosenthal and Passan have both reported severe penalties are coming, ones much tougher than the penalties Boston faced. That has to be coming from the MLB side of things because DOB has already said the Braves didn't anticipate losing any players.
The most overblown thing in all of this is the stuff about agreements with players before they turn 16. It's technically against the rules but MLB doesn't even try to enforce it.
I also don't expect much to happen with investigations into tampering with players under contract as agents are not going to talk to MLB. The last thing an agent wants is a GM afraid to deal with him because the GM thinks he'll go running to MLB at the drop of a hat.
The bundling is the big thing. That's an intentional attempt to circumvent rules designed to keep some kind of competitive balance. MLB has come down hard on that before and I expect them to come down hard on it this time. I expect we'll lose some international players we signed this year.
The Maitan thing is still very much wait and see for me. He's not associated with the bundling mess so it would make no sense for MLB to make him a FA based on that. The stuff about potentially illegal benefits concerns me. The question is whether that's serious enough for MLB to take the extreme step of making him a free agent.
If we lose Maitan though, I want to see Hart thrown to the wolves as well.
50PoundHead (10-03-2017), Jaw (10-03-2017), jpx7 (10-03-2017)
More bad news.
But they spent waaaaaay more than $4.75 million. Maitan alone blew through their budget. There's simply no way Atlanta thought they could avoid overspending last year. The fact that people keep coming back to this and bundling suggests nobody really knows what they're talking about yet. Passan and Rosenthal seem to be the only ones plugged in right now.
Makes sense. I just hope Dayton has good taste in GMs.
I believe John Hart will happy to step back into semi-retirment as soon as they get someone with the organization's full trust into the GM position. I never got the impression he particularly wanted to come out of semi-retirement in the first place. He's 69, JS is 77. These are not people about to embark on the next decade of Braves baseball. Their time is limited.
My guess is if Hart had any ambitions in Atlanta it would be to succeed to JS's position.
Before yesterday, I would have guessed that Dayton Moore was JS's desire for that position though.
Yeah, I think the writers who keep bringing up the budget for Maitan's year just don't know anything about the international signing period or the Braves history in it over the last few years. They all caught wind of a story, started calling sources, and now are just tossing everything against the wall.
If that was the case I expect it would be a GM in name only. If we bring in Moore, we're bringing him in to be the guy. He'll be the one making trades and signing FAs. Some of the more mundane duties might be shoved off on a GM but Moore would be the guy acting in the traditional GM role.
Making Maitan a free agent doesn't make any sense at all, regardless of any improprieties by the Braves in signing him.
Taking a kid (and more importantly, his buscon/agent) that's already been given $4.2 million to sign, making him a free agent, and allowing some other team to give him an additional $5MM to $10MM to sign somewhere else, doesn't seem like an equitable solution. It definitely would not discourage the verbal agreements or negotiations prior to age 16. The people profiting off the kid should have some culpability as well.
I'd go out on a limb and say no way Maitan is declared a FA. I can't imagine he won't remain a Brave.
Maitan is going no where people relax.