Department of Justice Probe of MLB a Long Time Coming

MLB teams have a long history of shady international signing practices. The Department of Justice is finally getting ready to do something about it.

Last month, Jon Wertheim of Sports Illustrated (SI) published a report revealing that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has undertaken a “sweeping probe” of MLB teams’ international signing practices and corruption throughout the sport.

According to Jeff Passan, of Yahoo Sports,

“a federal grand jury is looking into MLB teams’ international dealings. The FBI and lawyers from the Department of Justice who specialize in Foreign Corrupt Practices Act cases – which typically involve bribery of foreign officials – are involved as well.”

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In a follow up story that will appear on the November 5th issue of SI, Wertheim reasserts that the Los Angeles Dodgers are fully entrenched in the DOJ’s probe after a “whistleblower” handed the FBI a treasure trove of documents pertaining to the Dodgers international signing practices.

This should not come as a surprise to anybody involved in MLB. Shady international signing practices have been a problem for quite some time now.

A Brief History of International Signing Violations

Just last October 2017, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic tweeted that Atlanta Braves GM John Coppolella and assistant GM Gordon Blakeley were suspended for violating international signing rules.

A month later, after the case was investigated further, Coppolella was banned for life from baseball.

In 2016, Ben Badler of Baseball America reported that the Boston Red Sox and “buscones” worked together to evade a $300,000 cap on signing bonuses to five Venezuelan prospects who were 16 at the time.

Spanish for “searcher,” a “buscón” is an agent who can also serve as a trainer that thoroughly searches for young baseball talent in Latin American countries like the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and Cuba.

Buster Olney first reported the Red Sox punishment on twitter:

Look even further back and you’ll find that back in 2010, MLB suspended A.J. Preller – now the GM of the San Diego Padres, then head of the Texas Rangers’ Latin American operations – for illicit negotiations with a player.

It gets worse.

Human Trafficking

As Wertheim’s exclusive stated when describing the documents SI obtained that led to the DOJ probe:

“Collectively, the documents offer a vivid window into both this netherworld and the thermodynamics of the operation: How Caribbean smugglers traffic Cuban nationals to American soil, using third-country way stations. How the underground pipeline ferries Cuban players to stash houses in countries like Haiti and Mexico before they can seek lucrative contracts with MLB clubs. How teams interact with buscones, the unregulated street-level agents who often take a financial stake in Latin American players.”

As former member of MLB’s Department of Investigations (DOI) Eddie Dominguez clearly states in one chapter of his latest book Baseball Cop, “MLB rules governing Cubans led to corruption.”

You see, “there are two ways that a player can defect from Cuba,” Dominguez told WTTS.

One way is, If Cuba happens to play a game, like the World Baseball Classic (WBC), in United States soil, a Cuban player can theoretically abandon his team and turn himself over to a US official. The René Arocha case is a good example of this working, but as Eddie Dominguez said to WTTS, “I can assure you, defecting (this way) is almost impossible.”

The other way a Cuban player can defect is through human traffickers.

This could be stopped by simply ending Cuban player free agency. If a Cuban defects to the US to play baseball, they must enter the MLB Draft.

However, MLB teams enable player traffickers to stay in business by actively seeking to sign Cuban defectors in hopes of obtaining a superstar on the cheap, like Yasiel Puig who signed a seven year $42 million deal with the Dodgers after defecting from Cuba back in 2012.

This is drug smuggling on steroids. In this case, however, the players are a stand-in for the drugs.

It’ll be interesting to see where the Department Of Justice  investigation will go. If there’s one thing we’ve learned in previous cases involving MLB, when the government intervenes, MLB responds. As for now, business operates as usual and the money keeps on flowing.