The Commissioner came down hard on the Braves today declaring 12 of their prospects free agents including uber-prospect Kevin Maitan. The decision was to remedy a series of dishonest maneuvers which enabled the Braves to sign more international prospects than they could have signed by following the rules. The most egregious violations in my mind were multiple instances of promising prospects, including at least 1 draft pick, certain benefits to sign for less money then reneging on those promises. Now THAT is lowdown, no-good and dirty pool!
What's interesting about this new pool of free agents is the rules the commissioner laid down for other teams to sign them. The Giants may have gotten good news here. The players can sign for any amount of money during a window in December and early January and are subject to international bonus pools. What's interesting for the Giants is that teams can choose to use either their 2017-18 bonus pool or their 2018-19 bonus pool, but not both The Giants cannot sign any prospect for more than $300 K out of their 2017-18 bonus pool, but they are only limited by their total pool in 2018-19. So, the Giants have bonus pool money available to go after any of these prospects they might like and are not limited to $300 K per prospect. In addition, the first $200 K of any signing bonus for these players does not count against the cap.
I don't pretend to know anything at all about any of these newly minted free agents except that Maitan has struggled a bit in pro ball and is not generally considered the elite prospect he once was. This should be interesting!
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Two edged sword: prospects who have done well will do better, those who haven't (Maitan) not so much.
ReplyDeleteHow much money can the Giants spend and how does that match up with the big spenders?
I think the Giants bonus pool for 2018-19 cycle is around $4 M. They are rumored to be in on one of the big name prospects from that cycle, so may not want to spend big on any of the Braves released prospects most of whom have not lived up to their hype.
DeleteOtani?
DeleteGiants can't spend more than $300 K on Otani.
DeleteMLB Morosi (today): ... Ohtani had a favorable interaction with the Giants when he first contemplated the move to MLB as an amateur player. That should help San Francisco's chances, as will the fact that it has slightly more than $1.8 million to offer him...
DeleteBig windfall for the prospects. Even those that may have fallen in stature. They all get to keep their Braves money AND get to sell themselves again.
ReplyDelete