MLB: Deal With Cuban Baseball Federation (CBF) Nixed

A deal between Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Cuban Baseball Federation (CBF) has been shut down by the U.S. Treasury Department based on an interpretation by the Trump Administration.

The deal that had been in place between MLB and the Cuban Baseball Federation (CBF) would allow the CBF to post players age 17-25 who were athletic amateurs and able to be signed as part of the July 2nd International Free Agent Signing period.  As part of the agreement, Cuban players would no longer need to defect from the island nation and establish residency somewhere else before being approved by the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) to sign a deal with MLB.

One major benefit of this deal was that Cuban players would no longer be subject to dark world human trafficking and exploitation to get off the island.  Look no further than the stories of Yasiel Puig or the late Jose Fernandez for the harrowing and dangerous journey it can be to get to the US.

There are multiple angles to think about this news from.

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Given that Call to the Pen is a baseball site so I will try to keep the political aspect as brief as possible.  In 2014, President Obama announced that the United States would re-establish diplomatic relations with the Cuba that had been frozen since 1963.

In 2016 (because the government is slow), parts of the economic embargo were lifted and allowed Cuba and US government/persons to do business with each other again.  Also important is that the Obama Administration determined that the CBF was an independent entity and did not support the Cuban Government, which allowed MLB and the CBF to negotiate the now-dead deal.

Fast forward to now, the Trump Administration has taken a harder line view towards the island nation, determining instead that the CBF does support the Cuban Government and that the deal is unallowable with the terms of the embargo being reinforced.

From a baseball perspective, the CBF had provided a list of 34 players that would be eligible for the upcoming July 2nd signing period.  All 34 of these players situation is now in flux and if they wish to be signed by an MLB team, will likely have to defect from the island and establish residency elsewhere using the same sketchy methods as before while enriching human traffickers.

The most notable name in Cuba right now would be Yoelquis Cespedes, the younger brother of Met’s OF Yoenis Cespedes, but the international free agent market is a hotbed for teams to find value and the stock of these athletes is constantly changing.

For teams, they likely have to change their scouting strategy for seeing these players and adjust their spending plans to acknowledge the uncertainty of availability.

The international free agent system in MLB has been significantly overhauled over the past few years.  The historic agreement that was in place between the MLB and CBF was going to mirror that of the posting system in place for Japanese players and hopefully prevent enriching human traffickers and smugglers.

Now that the deal has been put on political hold, it, unfortunately, looks like there will be more harrowing stories of Cuban born players on their path to the MLB.