Houston Astros: The hidden truth in the lawsuit against Yordan Alvarez
Houston Astros: The hidden truth in the lawsuit against Yordan Alvarez
A brief history of Yordan Alvarez
When the Houston Astros slugger Yordan Alveraz abandoned the island in 2015, his parents accompanied him in his journey to the Dominican Republic. At the time the prospect was 17 years old.
He was coming off a year when he debuted in the Cuban National League at the tender age of 16. Very few have been able to do such a thing especially at that age, Omar Linares, José Abreu, Dayan Viciedo, and Adrian Morejon were some of those others that have accomplished such a feat, all of them, with the exception of the first (Omar Linares) have reached the Big Leagues.
At the beginning, Álvarez wasn’t desired by many scouts. Outfielder Eddy Martinez filled in more the idea of “multi-tools prospect”. At that time the prime investor for this undesired prospect was Manuel Azcona, in a contract signed by Álvarez on the 17th of April 2016, the young Cuban agreed to pay 30% of his first contract to two investors, 24% to Azcona and 6% to Aldo Marrero, Álvarez’s trainer.
Marrero had no comment about the situation, the Dominican native runs an academy in the Santiago where scouts evaluate prospects of diverse nationalities. Alvarez was complemented by the fellow native of Las Tunas, Eddy Julio Martínez. Martínez and Álvarez are friends since the age of 12 when they were both training at EIDE (Sports Initiation School) on the island.
Martínez who was also sponsored by Azcona and had the same contract arrangement as Alvarez with Azcona and Marrero.
“We lived relatively close to close to each other in Cuba”, said Martinez who signed for $3M bonus with the Cubs in 2016. We were treated very well in the Dominican Republic, especially by Marrero, he treated us like family.”
Twelve months after Martinez received his bonus from Chicago, he paid Marrero and Azcona. The 24-year-old outfielder was ranked as the 97th best prospect in the MLB talent system by Baseball Prospectus in 2019.
Perhaps the day Martínez becomes a Major League star he will encounter the same problem that his friend Alvarez faced with Azcona.
“In this business, there are people that want to take advantage of you and will do it by any means necessary. I sincerely hope this incident doesn’t affect Yordan’s career. I have a copy of my contract in case a situation like this develops when I reach the Majors,” said Martínez.
When Álvarez signed in 2016 with the Dodgers, Azcona was in a financial crisis and the young slugger lent him 100 grand to help out on the premise that all debts would be settled, but that wasn’t the case Azcona denies this payment was ever made and decided to go after Álvarez civilly.
“Yordan decided to pay the 100 thousand because he didn’t have time to show up in a Dominican court because he needed to report in Astros Minor League team”, said Batista.
“That so-called loan was actually extorted from my client. Alvarez assured he didn’t have time to make an appearance in front of a tribunal due to the fact that he had to be in the United States the next day. At the same time, he made the payment and an additional $480,000 was made to Azcona’s creditors. Due to the fact we made these payments, Mr. Azcona’s case was thrown out of court,” assured Batista.
On the other side, Azcona countered: “I never received that 100 thousand. Check my accounts, it should be in the bank, right? (ask ironically)”.
Azcona explained that his contract with Yordan clearly states that the young Cuban could not sign with any organization without his knowledge, in a kind of enslavement of the player to his strict rights.
“He also has to disclose everything done during his contractual process to me and he never did that”, says Azcona.
Azcona also conveyed to me that he hopes Yordan signs an extension with Houston, so he and the player can sit down harmoniously and discuss future compensation.
“If he doesn’t hand over, I will act, because I’m in the right”, reiterated Azcona.