biggentleben

Not at all. Livan Soto was incredible, but he's a 70-glove shortstop, so he wouldn't really appeal the same way to the Twins as Severino, who's a certain 2B and not a SS. Yefri Del Rosario certainly improved his scouting report as well. BA had an excellent Facebook Live that addressed this, as the normal amounts that you'd consider at July 2 don't come into play right now as only certain teams may be interested in certain profiles AND have money available.

Braves also sent over a million in IFA funds as well.

I think with Fleck it's more what was in the cupboard already being so far from what he wants to have available that it's going to take that long. A similar case would be having an Alex Gibb running game system and going to a Wisconsin style system. You're going to require a whole different type of running back and lineman for each system and they really don't work in both systems outside of the rare freaks.

In chatting around, people who know of his system say it'll work in Minnesota long-term, but it's a 2-3 year process. I guess coming into the season, I enjoyed the energy, but I had no assumption that he would be coaching even a .500 team, let alone a conference contender.

That's exactly where I'm at with the Twins. By next summer, the Twins could have a half dozen top 100 guys, but right now, there's not really a top 20 guy in the system, but there are 4-5 guys with legit arguments on the top 100. The big thing is when you sit down to do a top 20, 30, 50, 100 list of the Twins that you actually run into guys with legit major league skills a long way down the line, especially among relievers and middle infielders. With the Twins, Maitan would likely be in the mix of the fun people are having figuring out who is the true #1 is between Lewis and Gordon. He'd likely make a 3-headed monster for that top spot. Severino would probably rank behind Gonsalves and Romero, but not really anyone else in the system, but the interesting thing is that in the Twins system, a guy like Soto may not rank as high due to depth in the system among shortstops. Del Rosario, on the other hand, could rank much higher as he's essentially the flip side of a Graterol coin, with less velo, but more feel for pitches, but both raw in their feel for approach on the mound and consistency in their performance being things that a typical young pitcher needs to grow through.

Bundling has been going on since the new spending caps. Once again, MLB has been clear that the Maitan signing was clean. There was not bundling involved with the 2016 class, and the one contract that has been brought forward from that class as being more than announced was Zuniga. The bundling happened with the 2015 class, which would have made the 2016 class the Braves' first year under 300K penalty without the bundling. Bundling still goes on today. You can deny that all you want, but it's quite prevalent in the marketplace, and that's why the league is using the new powers they have to punish in the new CBA to enact punishments on bundling. Coppy's stuff I'm referring to has nothing to do with bundling or signing early. They are things that he personally did, not even things that Blakely did as the Latin American director. And it wouldn't involve the Braves outside of skimming money from the Braves in order to conduct the activities.

It definitely depends on the system. I didn't rank Bae as he wasn't officially signed, but when I did my top 100 (turned into a top 105 due to computer glitches, but anyway...) for the Braves system, most of them did rank well (Maitan 5, Severino 22, Gutierrez 27a, Del Rosario 28, Pena 39, Contreras 54, Soto 58, Negret 71, Sucre 93). The one that was a 2016 signee that didn't rank in the top 100 that was removed was Zuniga, and that's mainly due to 1) the Braves pitching depth, and 2) early struggles to put stuff to production, but he was definitely in consideration. However, with Zuniga, I did not mention him because I'd heard rumblings early on that there was some fishy stuff with his signing. It turns out that he is the one of the bunch that did get paid more than was reported. I did not rank the 2017 players yet, but both are excellent prospects with upside. The 2017 players would likely take a team like the Cubs or Diamondbacks with terrible depth in their system to rank (the Tigers have moved to a mid-tier system overall, and especially in depth). The first 7 would likely be considered for many systems in the early part of their top 30, probably only the top 5-6 systems wouldn't have a spot for at least 6 in their top 30.

I can't say more, but Coppy's ban has to do with stuff that no one else is doing in the game, and it's a darned good thing. How he can go home and look his children in the eye is beyond me. Beyond that, Callis had a great chat with a few other media folks this week where he mentioned that the Braves went from "clear #1" to #2 in his system rankings, though he's still not sure they've not got a better system than the White Sox, who he put #1. Losing 12 signed players that were all quite highly thought of only dropped them to #2 in all of baseball, so that farm system is able to handle it.

Jim Callis did mention that of the 13 (technically 14 if you count the 14 y/o they had an agreement with as there were 12 signed and 2 unsigned named players), nearly all would make most teams' top 30s upon signing, so these are big talent guys for sure, but they're also not sure bets by any means, of course.

It was easy. The Braves shouldn't have had more than $300K to spend on any prospect for the 2016-2017 IFA market. Every prospect who received even a dollar more than that was released (Antonio Sucre is the one that showed just how close to that they went as he received $305K). What was interesting is that the only guys they found who were actually paid more than what was listed were from the 2017 class (and part of the removed group).

We do know that. It was stated by sources in Passan's article about the punishment. It's why many are being investigated now. It's why the Red Sox were punished a couple years ago. Bundling is a common practice to skirt signing rules, and when the Braves were doing it, it was also a way to grease a player from Cuba into the organization, and that's exactly what happened with the Braves. If you take a look at the number of $1M or so Cubans that fail badly and wonder how that could be...look at who they share a trainer/agent with, and I'll almost guarantee the biggest Cuban name that guy represents is also on that team. The Dodgers are well-known for this. Paper trails are THE thing that screwed the Braves here.

...and in the end, not much will change in Latin America until this changes. The Braves got in trouble not because they were talking with players too early and setting deals with players too young (the complaint from MLB actually leaves the Maitan signing clean - which isn't surprising). What was found by the league was that the Braves bundled a player in the 16 y/o market with a player who was not in that market in order to sign the younger player for less money. That should have made the Braves ineligible to sign anyone for more than 300K in 2016, so any guy they did sign for more than 300K in that class was set free. The Braves issue that cost them players was done through a trainer rather than through a player.

The Braves really did nothing other teams don't do. The big issue was leaving paper trails...which is blatantly stupid.

There are more to come. The Pirates one will be announced in December. The investigators for the Braves are pouring through another organization already.

The point wasn't to get bargains. It was to ensure the guys signed with the Braves.

Not sure what you're talking about there. Soto could make more money today than he did. Gutierrez perhaps not, but his deal was always the most questionable as far as money to talent. The pitchers both did exactly what Latin pitchers do in their first year. Maitan gained some weight, it affected him on the field, and he's trimmed down significantly. Braves can resign any of the players after May 1st, so that could be intriguing, depending on how the players feel about the Braves org (and remember that the guys doing crappy stuff were not the guys they've been dealing with for about a year now. I got a text from my former scouting contact that's in NY at the MLB headquarters now. He told me in early October that the list I sent him for my top 100 was all safe based on what MLB headed in to investigate. The details they found are absolutely heinous and will never be public, but let's just say that what Hollywood and DC are accused of right now doesn't hold water to what Coppy was doing in Latin America. He also said any single thing with a player's name before today was not true reporting from any real source. The entire investigative team was not allowed to speak with anyone before today on this and the people from the league that went to the Braves facility to talk with players left NY without knowing who they were going to talk to. They were told this morning by the investigators who were not present at the Braves facility. The international market thing is interesting because the Braves actually have a significant amount of money, even though they can't spend more than $300K on any one player. They could end up gaining prospects by trading away IFA money to teams who are signing their former prospects. That's also how they'll likely address the IFA market the next few years, trading away most of it. Crazy part of all this. Jim Callis mentioned that even after losing all the players they did, every one of them a viable candidate to make the top 30 for a team that signs them, the Braves only moved to #2 in his organizational rankings.

Sure, but he wasn't a guy at a Brooks Robinson, Mark Belanger, Ozzie Smith level, and I'm not sure that he's got the offensive stats to back the absence of that level of defense.

A lot of people (and the stats) would tell you that Vizquel was good, but not THAT good. Reputation got him a lot more than reality, akin to Hosmer's 1B Gold Glove this season when he had one of the worst defensive seasons among AL 1B regulars in any measurement.

Braves already disposed of essentially the top 3 decision makers as far as international money went (Hart, Coppy, Blakely). Very feasible that they end up missing multiple years of the international market. Funny part is that people have been all over this, but the Pirates just fired their Latin America scouting director due to international violations that are also still being investigated. A dozen teams are still being investigated this winter and likely to receive fines and/or other punishments. The BIG thing here is not really related to the marketplace at all, but the fact that it was not found out is going to get some "lack of institutional control" discipline.

Is it horrible that I'm now cheering for this exact scenario??

One of the better ones out there. My brother is a salesman and could tell you all the stuff the company is doing around the world to grow their market share. In most countries around the world, if you ask a rural child to draw a tractor and then to "color it", they will choose green, and that's akin to Coke or McDonalds in world reach, even if a lot of people never see the brand in use.

Manson is one that I've never put on my list, mostly just looking at him and deciding that someone whose death is going to create that much enjoyment is not someone whose death I want to have on my list.

Not current McDonald's fries. They're crap compared to fries, circa 1980.... Oh, and no carbonated beverage and blizzard as well. Blizzard is the drink...and it's mint oreo.

Oh, and Monday is to be announcement day.

Bae is as good as gone. Maitan would be very surprising. Gutierrez as well. Essentially, expect the 2017 class to be gone. Coppy was doing some shady stuff with Liberty's money and left a paper trail behind. When the first reports came out that he'd never work in baseball again, I thought it was typical initial reporting overreach, but what I've found out since tells me he'll be lucky if he's not serving time. The Rosenthal story, however, is non-revelatory stuff. Nothing new in there as far as players. People rumored Maitan for ages, but every single time he's been reviewed (and his signing has been looked into before this), he's been clean. One thing to note, there were a few notable prospects absent from the Braves' facilities, including Bae, over the last couple of weeks. Maitan is not one of them.