MLB will uphold the $4.5MM contract between the Rangers and Dominican outfielder Jairo Beras, Yahoo's Tim Brown reports. However, MLB will suspend Beras for one year after determining that the prospect lied about his age. MLB has announced that Beras will serve a one-year suspension and that his deal with the Rangers stands.
The Rangers agreed to sign Beras in February, when many rival teams thought he was too young to sign. The Rangers operated on the belief that Beras was 17, while competing executives believed he was just 16. MLB launched an investigation in March to determine the validity of the deal.
Beras can attend the Rangers’ academy during the suspension, but he’s not allowed to play in any league until next July. Scouts considered Beras a top Latin American prospect before the Rangers agreed to sign him.
Wonderful. Thanks for the Ruling 6 months later.
Congratulations to MLB, Beras & the Rangers on a fair decision. (Now begins the ranting from fans of teams that didn’t get Beras)
You mean now begins the rationalization by Texas fans.
Barry, you are quite negative.
That’s ridiculous. MLB just laid the groundwork for teams to sign players early and just take the suspension. The player should have been suspended and the contract voided, with the Rangers not allowed to offer him another contract as punishment. I’d even support punishing the Rangers by taking away a draft pick as well. I’m not picking on the Rangers, I think any team that does that should have the same punishment. Keeping the player is no punishment at all. That’s like telling a criminal who stole a laptop he can keep it but can’t use it for a year.
It’s not that he lied about his age, it’s that he didn’t know his age. Granted, this is from what I have read from sources close to not only both parties, but also sources very familiar with the international market. It is not unusual for people in Latin America to not have the proper documentation and not know. To you and me it sounds like complete bologna, but it is interesting (if not sad). The system over there is corrupt, and the street agents really screw the kids, it’s not so much greedy players trying to get paid, it’s kids (and their families) in poverty trying to get out and get a better life. These kids drop out of school by 12 and live baseball just to have a chance to get out.
VotersRights, are you crazy? You want to penalize the Rangers because they did their due dilagence and verified this player was old enough to be drafted, while everyone else just believed what MLB reported? I think I’m feeling a lot of waa, waa cry baby talk going on here. The only reason there’s a penalty here at all is because the Rangers embarrassed MLB by having better research than them. Yep, it’s a MLB red face penalty. You did better research than us so we’re going to penalize you. There’s a reason the Rangers have the best farm system in baseball, and this is a perfect example why. So sorry all the other teams didn’t bother to go the extra step in their research. Wow, you out smarted us so you’re getting a penalty. How lame is that???
to be honest they should voided the deal. when the yankees signed Juan Carlos Paniagua that contract got voided when he lied about his age. Atleast other teams had a chance to sign him and didn’t benefit from him lying….
Yep, it really wasn’t a punishment to the Rangers or him. He still gets to work with a ml organization and get paid, and sincehe is only 16 he will still get to play in a year.
The problem there is that it took so long for MLB to decide what to do the Rangers lost an opportunity to sign more intl players. Their entire intl budget was spent on him, and if they voided the contract then other teams would have the market bought out already, leaving the Rangers with nothing at all. I think it’s a fair deal.
still though, it doesn’t seem fair to me that the Yankees get a good prospect’s contract voided when they followed the rules, and the Rangers get to keep this kid when the circumstances were iffy to begin with. Paniagua said he was younger than he was, but he was still more than old enough for the signing to go through. Yes, he should’ve been suspended, but to void the contract if the Yankees didn’t want to void it, is wrong imo, especially if you are gonna break precedent. If you are gonna void the contracts for other teams, do it here as well. This case is even more shady than most others anyway.
Jj, I am not familiar with the transaction you mentioned, however, if it was exactly the same as the Ranger deal then the Yankees got screwed by having the contract voided. If a team has exemplary research and they uncover information that other teams failed to find, then good for them. Doesn’t matter if it’s the Rangers, Yankees, Red Sox, or Miami. Do you think MLB should continue a wrong practice because they did it to the Yankees? No, they shouldn’t. They should treat all teams the same. If they erred in the past they should not continue with that process.
When the Giants signed Simon Mercedes AFTER he had lied about his age, come clean, and provided proper documentation (he had originally called himself Jeffrey Tapia and said he was 16, but that was two years before his Giants contract), MLB voided the contract due to him lying about his age well before he had signed with the Giants, and despite the Giants knowing his real age and the details of his scandal. Then he signed a year later with the Red Sox for double the bonus money. The fact that this deal wasn’t voided is not in keeping with previous decisions made by MLB, which hurt teams more than players who lied, and it’s all kinds of crap that it got upheld.
Does this guy even know how old he is?
How does this ruling make any sense? It’s a good, legal deal or it isn’t.
This is good since it doesnt punish the team for digging deeper but does punish the player for ultimetly lying about his age. Good work MLB!!
I wonder if the Rangers would have altered their offer knowing he will be stuck at their Dominican academy for a year? Any one have any idea if the year of suspension still counts toward his time under team control?
No I doubt it. Don’t forget that Ogando and E. Beltre didn’t get the chance to come over for a few years due to visa problems. The Rangers didn’t waver then, and it has paid off. Ogando has been great so far. Beltre still has much improving to do, but he still has much upside. Beras probably has more talent than both Ogando and E. Beltre. Waiting a year won’t be a problem. He should be worth it, and still really young.
Since Beltre was part of the BoSox trade and Ogando a waiver claim, neither had multimillion dollar investments from the Ranges behind them. They did stick with Ogando while the U.S. blocked his entry for 5 years so you are correct it wouldn’t cost them in terms of starting his service time rights clock a year earlier.
They obviously believe he’s the best around at the moment since the $s invested in him forced them to sit out the most recent international signing period.
He’s talking about Omar Beltre, not Engel.
Omar Beltre was a kid the signed years and years before, and Ogando was picked up in the minor league phase of the Rule V draft.
I bet this decision has King Solomon rolling in his grave.
This decision is neither wise or just.
Suspend him for a year? What is that going to do?
Delay his acclimation into MLB baseball…
What is it about the name Jairo that makes people lie about themselves.
His suspension should be backdated to begin in Febuary. There is no need to drag this out needlessly for almost a half year and then suspend him a year. They really suspended him 17 months.
Hahahaha like the baseball season starts in February.. Suspension start their clock in April or date issued, whichever is later.
All I am saying is that he is really being forced to sit out a year and a half. The suspension should end at the end of this season if they wanted him to be out a year.
Fair enough.
I’m slightly confused by this story. I THINK the facts are that Beras told teams that he was 16 when he was in fact 17 and that the Rangers somehow found out about it. Presumably it was an attempt to get more money by appearing younger and he didn’t realize that he would not be eligible to sign if he were actually 16.
In any event, if that is correct I think the decision is fair. Beras was never under any obligation to negotiate with every team (even if he probably would have), so I don’t think it’s reasonable to claim the other teams are somehow hurt by his deception. If anything he hurt himself by only having one actual bidder. He tried to be too clever and it backfired.
I was going to say that the Rangers would be the aggrieved party, but that’s not right — they were the only one with the right information. They obviously negotiated the deal with that information, and I highly doubt there is some rule that a team has to share information about a player with its competitors so they did nothing wrong there either. So I really struggle to find any reason to void the deal.
Lying about your age, which is a definite problem for MLB, shouldn’t be tolerated of course — which is why the suspension is appropriate. (I’d particularly like if it were without pay.) Does it “do anything,” as other posters have wondered? Not ultimately, but neither does voiding the contract — he’d probably get MORE money because more teams would be involved. There’s still something to be said for there being a consequence, however, even if it amounts to a slap on the wrist.
It should have happened faster, but otherwise I’m good with this ruling. (And nope, I am not a Rangers fan.)
Well said….
I don’t see what the big deal is.. HE choose to sign with the rangers, before anyone really knew he could.. if this contract was voided, why would anyone assume he would go elsewhere?
they would know his age and therefore more teams would be interested..
More Teams=bidding war=more money
not anymore.
I think the comparision to Paniagua and others that lied about their age is approriate. Those players had their contracts voided, which would have been the fair thing, but with this new system maybe letting the Rangers keep him made sense. No other team would have money left over to sign him, since those teams spent their budgets for the most part.
My question is does his signing count towards 2012, if so the Rangers are clearly OVER the 2.93M cap and clearly will have to pay penalties. They would be over by more than 15% so according to the rules “Teams that go 15 percent or more over will pay a 100 percent tax on the overage and won’t be able to sign any player for a bonus of more than $250,000 in the 2013-14 signing period”. Am I interpreting that correctly?
This wont answer your question – But I have heard Jon Daniels state (radio interview) that they were not going to be active in the July signing period in case he needed some of that money to go towards reworking the Jairo Beras contract.
Since the Contract was agreed upon prior to the new rules went into effect on July 2nd( spring, just been investigated), it was not affected by those limits. The penalty is the one year suspension. Effectively the Rangers will still have the 2.9M for signing this year.
Thanks John.
Thinking it over the decision doesn’t seem fair to me. What MLB really should have done was make him ineligible to sign until next year where the real punishment for lying would have been a few million dollars less for him. The cynic in me wonders if this had been the Yankees would the contract have been upheld?
The Rangers cleary benefited, but even if he was true about his age, he still could have chosen to sign with them. Having to wait until now was the Rangers punishment as they lost out on most of the top July 2 free agents. Still they can scoop in now and find some late bargains, so I don’t think they were hurt as much.
Beras wasn’t hurt at all. He walks away with a paid vacation AND more money than he would have earned had he been subjected to the July 2 period.
this is a total joke…where is the punishment for signing him when they knew damn well he was underage ??? i guess nolan is now the golden boy of MLB and can do what he wants…any other team did this the deal would`ve been voided
Jacob, what article did you read? He was NOT underage, he was of signing age. The Rangers were the only team that did in-depth research to authenticate he was of age. MLB are the ones that missed the boat by not researching to see what his real age was. Why does everyone want the Rangers to be penalized when they did nothing wrong, they just out hustled all the other teams. Sounds like everyone’s just pissed it wasn’t their team that validated, like the Rangers did.
Did you read it?!?!
However, MLB will suspend Beras for one year after determining that the prospect lied about his age. MLB has announced that Beras will serve a one-year suspension and that his deal with the Rangers stands.
I am sorry this should be voided as a signing. Any team does does this it should be voided but since Selig has a love for Ryan it stays. If your going to be so one sided on issues such as this and Oakland then Selig has zero place in baseball as the commish.
Oh yes, I read it. So, any part of it that you are not understanding let me know and I will help you out with it. The Rangers did their research, as obviously your team did not. You want to penalize the Rangers because they were more vigilant than the other teams? You want to void all the Ranger signings when they out research/out smart the other teams? Sounds like it. Your comment reaks of jealousy. If you wanted this guy I’m sorry your team didn’t get deep enough into it to be able to submit an offer to him also. And yes, Ryan is definately the league golden boy, as well he should be. He’s come in and turned the Rangers around like no other turn around I’m aware of. I know other teams hate the Rangers and Ryan for that. Too bad. You don’t like it, then get someone for your team that will do the same. However, I’m not defending Selig for anything. I’ve thought he’s needed to go for a long time. He’s made some crazy decisions, however, this is not one of them. Obviously, you will not agree with me on the Rangers, so, let’s just agree on Selig and go our own happy ways.
Ranger haters kill me. AALLLLL of these latin players who have been signed @ 16 over the years (and we alllll know there have been tons) but now,were cheaters? Lol. Hilarious. Shut up,and sit down. If this was the Seattle Mariners,no one would care.Please.
Well if you read the Yahoo Sports link that makes sense….however if you only read the blurb written by Ben Nicholson-Smith on this site you have no clue how old he really was or what the hell happened.
And that he lied about his age and provided false documentation one way or another, no matter how you look at it?
Takes two to tango.