J2: Come Here, International Free Agents

Is there a "Draft Central" for this?  I'm curious about where the Top 30 are...

When did they not spend their allotment? Last year they spent all but perhaps some loose change if I recall. Do you have other information, or are you perhaps wrong?

I don't know for sure how much they'll spend. But if anything they should be going all-out . . . they certainly do not appear to be doing that, and whether they even spend the ostensible maximum looks dubious.

I think people would be a little more forgiving if not for the fact that almost all the top talent already allegedly has deals with teams in place and the Twins are linked to exactly none of them.  

I don't know for sure how much they'll spend. But if anything they should be going all-out . . . they certainly do not appear to be doing that, and whether they even spend the ostensible maximum looks dubious.

If you check the facts, I think you'll discover that they have essentially spent their full allotment every year since the system has been in place. So, by appearances, they have been going "all-out". So, I think you're off-base here.

Busting through the allotment, like many other teams have done and like many fans want the Twins to do? There is a very clear ethical and moral argument against doing this. I know I'm in the minority, but I find it reprehensible that teams have violated an agreement that they all signed. Those teams broke the rules after determining that the consequences of doing so are, well, rather inconsequential. It's still wrong, and I wish the consequences were more severe myself. That said, I have no idea whether the Twins have opted to comply with the agreement out of ethical considerations, or not. Others can go ahead and presume that they're doing so strictly for economic reasons, I suppose, but I'm not going to.

 

Busting through the allotment, like many other teams have done and like many fans want the Twins to do? There is a very clear ethical and moral argument against doing this. 

There is no ethical or moral argument against doing it. Going over the "cap" is explicitly allowed by the rules. It could easily have been banned, but it was not. The penalties are not punishment for wrongdoing, rather, they represent a trade-off that teams can decide on.

Contracts are structured that way thousands of times every day. Order under a certain number of units? You pay more per unit. etc., etc. 

I haven't criticized the Twins for sticking to the cap in the past, since there was a tactical reason for doing so, regardless of whether that was actually the Twins' motivation. This year is different, however, for reasons that have been widely reported on and discussed. 

Either way, they have almost nothing to show for their international work other than Sano, Polanco, and Kepler (all signed the one year they spent big) and Vargas and Danny Santana.

Vargas is from Puerto Rico and so is not an international free agent.  The Twins international signing and development is suboptimal IMO

The agreement doesn't say you can't do it......it clearly states you can do it, but then you can't sign more players for 2 years. That was the agreement. There is nothing unethical about doing what the agreement allows, is there? 

 

"You can go over, but if you do, then you can't sign expensive players for 2 years"

 

.........that is very different than,

 

"you can't go over, if you do, you are breaking the rules".

 

Either way, they have almost nothing to show for their international work other than Sano, Polanco, and Kepler (all signed the one year they spent big) and Vargas and Danny Santana.

This is a false description.

Every team agreed to the CBA. It's a contractual agreement. By agreeing to it, teams agreed to abide by the provisions of the contract. 

Right there, in the contract, teams promise not to go over their allotment.

Teams that failed to comply with the provisions in the CBA regarding the Rule 4 draft breached the contract and breached faith with the other teams. No professor of ethics at any law school would argue otherwise.

The contract has no language in it that can possibly be construed to say, "you can go over it, but if you do..."

The contract calls for penalties in the case of a breach of the contract by the parties.

As for a separate examination of the Twin's record of success in this arena, any statement made on this rings hollow when it's simply a biased opinion unsupported by any comparison to the other teams. I can make the same statement about all 29 teams and be just as accurate in saying something as vague as that they have "almost nothing to show for their work". And in my opinion, this statement about the Twin's record would draw chuckles from the farm directors for all 30 teams.

Vargas is from Puerto Rico and so is not an international free agent.  The Twins international signing and development is suboptimal IMO

  Compared to...?

There is no ethical or moral argument against doing it. Going over the "cap" is explicitly allowed by the rules. It could easily have been banned, but it was not. The penalties are not punishment for wrongdoing, rather, they represent a trade-off that teams can decide on.

 

Contracts are structured that way thousands of times every day. Order under a certain number of units? You pay more per unit. etc., etc. 

 

I haven't criticized the Twins for sticking to the cap in the past, since there was a tactical reason for doing so, regardless of whether that was actually the Twins' motivation. This year is different, however, for reasons that have been widely reported on and discussed. 

Yes there is.

I didn't compare them to other teams at all.....I clearly stated which MLB players they have to show for their international signings. I don't know if it is better or worse, and I never made any statement in this thread about that at all.

That's my point...

 

As for a separate examination of the Twin's record of success in this arena, any statement made on this rings hollow when it's simply a biased opinion unsupported by any comparison to the other teams. I can make the same statement about all 29 teams and be just as accurate in saying something as vague as that they have "almost nothing to show for their work". And in my opinion, this statement about the Twin's record would draw chuckles from the farm directors for all 30 teams.

Approximately 28% of MLB players are foreign born.  If you subtract those from Canada and Puerto Rico subject to the draft, it's still more than 24%.  Are the major leaguers turning out by the Twins farm system anywhere near 24% of the total?

Yes there is.

You are factually wrong about this. 

For one thing, it basically isn't possible for a team to "breach" one of these agreements, which aren't even contracts (presumably it's an addendum to their internal operating documents). In these situations, they are acting as a joint venture (MLB). The clubs follow the rules, and if not, any issues are settled by MLB without external legal action (e.g., the Red Sox signees declared to be free agents recently).

Even putting that aside, it isn't a 'breach' to chose the penalty over the standard clause. Those clubs accepted the 'penalty' and continue to follow all of the rules. 

You are also incorrect about the ethical and moral implications of breaches of contract. It is absolutely false to say that breaching a contract is per se wrong, and zero law school ethics professors would take such a position. 

I can see how that is counter-intuitive for those who haven't studied the issues, but if you spent a year or so learning about them, I am confident your perspective would change.

If this behavior was actually prohibited though, wouldn't the rules say that the signings would be invalidated instead of penalized?  If I steal a car, I don't get to keep the car if I pay a fine and do my jail time.

 

Either way, I really would like to hear the reasoning from the Twins brass. Plenty of teams, maybe even most of them by now, have taken the penalty and reaped the benefits including many small market clubs. I'd like to know if the Twins won't do it for "ethical" reasons, fiscal reasons, if they don't like enough players or if they just can't attract enough players. I'm curious, though I'd probably be disappointed by any answer.

 

We really need an International Draft if the Twins as they currently stand are going to compete for Latin prospects going forward. If the team is going to self-impose a handicap, they really can't rely on scouting alone and solely rely on finding the diamonds in the rough.

That's a good observation. I have read the agreement, and find no explanation as to why the penalty steers clear from nullification instead of financial and privilege penalties. Your state law explicitly provides for confiscating that stolen car and your drugs too. Shame on you.

My guess is they were considering the consequences to a kid who signed a contract with a team, and what the damages might be to his family and him were they to void the contract he signed through no fault of his own.

There are some ironic things about how the Twins have been affected by the changes (some self-inflicted wounds, no doubt). I can recall having a long personal conversation with Andy MacPhail, obviously many many years back. He described the exhausting effort it took to convince Carl to finally dramatically jack up the international budget so the Twins could embark on what Andy and Bill Smith described as a ten-year project to build the physical and organizational infrastructure necessary to become one of the best at procuring IFA talent. The economic tide has incrementally shifted favorably for the franchise (revenue-sharing, salary caps and taxes, Rule 4 allotments, Target Field). The team has gone from trying to out-scout others during the pre-video days but still being handcuffed by financial constraints. Then, as their fin ancial handicaps became less pronounced, the playing field on the scouting front leveled because of technology and other teams making larger commitments to scouting as opposed to FA acquisitions. Then, along came the bonus pool allotments, which very much make it difficult for one team to out-scout and outsmart the competitor. SO, some teams opted to tilt the field in their favor by cheating the compliant teams because a poorly written legal document allowed them to breach the agreement.

Interesting discussion, and well-made points on both sides of the coin.  I would imagine that for frugal owners, an additional incentive to abide by the contract, agreement, pirate's code, or sorta-set-of-guidelines--call it what you want--is to keep overall bonus sizes in check.  And I can't blame them.  I just spent a weekend with my 16 year old nephew.  Good kid, but I can't imagine giving him $4 million dollars and sending him around the world for a job.  

Is the problem with agreeing on an international draft a continuing disparity in the level of commitment to scouting and facilities various teams have made?  

You are factually wrong about this. 

 

For one thing, it basically isn't possible for a team to "breach" one of these agreements, which aren't even contracts (presumably it's an addendum to their internal operating documents). In these situations, they are acting as a joint venture (MLB). The clubs follow the rules, and if not, any issues are settled by MLB without external legal action (e.g., the Red Sox signees declared to be free agents recently).

 

Even putting that aside, it isn't a 'breach' to chose the penalty over the standard clause. Those clubs accepted the 'penalty' and continue to follow all of the rules. 

 

You are also incorrect about the ethical and moral implications of breaches of contract. It is absolutely false to say that breaching a contract is per se wrong, and zero law school ethics professors would take such a position. 

 

I can see how that is counter-intuitive for those who haven't studied the issues, but if you spent a year or so learning about them, I am confident your perspective would change.

We may have to solicit the services of the CNN fact checker here.

The International Bonus Pool is set pursuant to a contractual agreement we know as the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). The CBA is an agreement, a contract, running among and between the 30 MLB teams and the players, who are represented in the agreement by their union of course. This contract has hundreds and hundreds of provisions, most of which are spelled out in th body of the contract,but many of which are spelled out in some of the dozen or so Addendums, including those provisions of the International Bonus Pool (p. 265 I think).

So, for starters, it is certainly NOT an addendum to some "internal operating document" as you are presuming. It is a contact, and it is an agreement. There is no confusion about this. All parties to the agreement are guilty of a breach whenever they break a promise (a rule). Specifically, one of the "rules" is the annual assignment of the pool allotment.

The language of the contract is poor. This is my opinion, and also the opinion of a handful of other lawyers I know (I'm retired, but was trained as a lawyer and authored a handful of Code of Ethics in my career). Because of my background, I know quite a few ethics professors, and have asked two of them for their opinion. They concur that, although the language sucks, the intent is fairly clear that teams are to abide by the pool allotment. Otherwise, why waste the ink? I reached out and asked one of my ethics professor acquaintances if she'd be willing to take the time to post a comment on the thread. It's a lot for me to ask, but I did anyway. We'll see if she finds time. But, you have declared that absolutely no law professor of ethics would say that breaching a contract is per se wrong. Don't know how to help you with that perspective, and I have real people with backgrounds in ethics work that disagree with this statement. 

Legal crap aside, the question for me is, did teams agree to the bonus pool allotment procedure when they signed the CBA, and did this involve at least the intention on the part of every team to live within the very clear rules spelled out regarding the annual bonus pool allotment? I think they did, and it was. Where I grew up, it was just plain wrong to break a promise to someone, especially when it caused them harm. But maybe I just have a really warped moral code.

Based on the last paragraph of your post, can I presume you spent a year or so studying the issues?

I DO understand why people want to think of this as simply a matter of it being a piece of paper suggesting that you can either stay within the limits of the pool if you want, or, if you feel like it, bust through it and pay a penalty. Sorry, it's not.

Approximately 28% of MLB players are foreign born.  If you subtract those from Canada and Puerto Rico subject to the draft, it's still more than 24%.  Are the major leaguers turning out by the Twins farm system anywhere near 24% of the total?

Yes, I think so.

I know we didn't draft all of them, but I see about ten foreign-born players on the current MLB roster, including Rosario, Kepler, Sano, and Santana. Roughly 40%. Looking down in the minors, it looks like the current roster representation from six clubs is closer to 40% foreign-born.

I presume you're attempting to conclude that the Twins are less effective at signing and developing foreign-born players than the average team?

While we don't agree, I respect your stand on this issue.

Likewise, Mr. Sixel.

But, you have declared that absolutely no law professor of ethics would say that breaching a contract is per se wrong. Don't know how to help you with that perspective, and I have real people with backgrounds in ethics work that disagree with this statement. 

I'd love to hear a justification for that position. I've never heard that before and can't imagine how it could be supported. When a party stands to lose more from following the contract than the amount of damages owed following a breach, you are saying the party is obligated to suffer more losses than is legally required? 

The CBA is obviously a contract, but the owners decided how to approach international signings internally before putting it in front of the players. The teams knew what they were doing. They never believed the caps were some kind of hard line, which is particularly evident from the structure of escalating 'penalties.' 

I don't know what you have read and what you haven't, but unless you've specifically delved into professional sports labor relations and anti-trust law, you probably do not have the perspective you need. You are confusing the relationship between the clubs with the relationship between the clubs and players. The clubs are not independent entities. The Red Sox can't really "breach" the CBA with respect to the Twins, because for the purposes of the CBA they are the same entity (MLB). They can only breach it against the players.

The players don't even support caps as a general matter, since it is a slight nod in the direction of the salary cap notion that they abhor. They agree to them in the amateur realm as a relatively painless concession to gain ground in other areas. Arguing an unethical act here is like saying it is unethical to intentionally pay someone more than her contract provides for. I guess it's arguable to some extent, but realistically your point falls apart once understood in the proper context.