In stunning fashion, the Braves announced today that general manager John Coppolella has resigned, effective immediately, in the wake of a “breach of Major League Baseball rules regarding the international player market.” Special assistant Gordon Blakely is also reportedly resigning from his post as Major League Baseball works to conclude an investigation that is said to have been ongoing for multiple weeks.
“Major League Baseball is investigating the matter with our full cooperation and support,” said president of baseball operations John Hart. “We will not be issuing any further comment until the investigation is complete.”
The Braves are immediately beginning the search for a replacement, per their release, and Hart will assume all of Coppolella’s duties for the time being while serving as the primary decision-maker in baseball operations matters. FanRag’s Jon Heyman points out (via Twitter) that Hart wasn’t under contract beyond this year, though it seems he’ll stick around at least until the team has a replacement for Coppolella in place, if not longer.
While it’s not yet clear what transgressions the Braves have committed, the resignation of a general manager — be it forced or voluntary — would represent the most extreme outcome for any scrutiny under which GMs have come in recent years. Padres general manager A.J. Preller was suspended for one month after his team’s medical disclosure practices were revealed to be substandard, and the Red Sox were forced to tear up some agreements with international prospects they’d signed in package deals as a means of circumventing international bonus restrictions. Neither of those incidents, however, resulted in the resignation or firing of a high-ranking official.
Coppolella’s departure as the team’s general manager comes as the team concluded its first season in the newly constructed SunTrust Park and was widely expected to take another step toward contention in 2018. Atlanta had been in the process of a lengthy rebuild for much of Coppolella’s tenure as general manager, but touted young talents such Ozzie Albies, Dansby Swanson, Sean Newcomb and Luiz Gohara, among others have reached the Majors, with wunderkind Ronald Acuna on the precipice of Major League readiness as well.
The Braves have been among the most active teams on the international market in recent years, with an aggressive splash on the 2016-17 international market (headlined by slugger Kevin Maitan) resulting in strict limitations on the organization for the 2017-18 and 2018-19 international periods. Last signing period’s mass accumulation of talent helped to bolster the Braves to have one of the consensus top farm systems in the league. However, it also put them in the same position as a number of other clubs that shattered their bonus pools in recent years, prohibiting the Braves from signing any one international amateur player for more than $300K.
Yahoo’s Jeff Passan and Joel Sherman of the New York Post suggest (Twitter links) that Coppolella’s rapport with other general managers wasn’t strong and that he had a reputation for being difficult, if not unpleasant to deal with. His relationship with fans, on the other hand, seemed to be a fairly strong one; Coppolella was more outspoken than most GMs, often conducting lengthy Twitter Q&As with the Braves faithful, and he was oftentimes more candid with the media than many of his front-office peers as well. That in and of itself may have rubbed some GMs the wrong way, of course, as most high-ranking front office execs are fairly tight-lipped.
Coppolella’s ousting as GM also figures to directly impact the fate of Atlanta skipper Brian Snitker, who has a club option for the 2018 season that has not yet been exercised or declined. Snitker has told reporters that he hopes to remain in his post for years to come, though the organization has reportedly still been waffling on whether to retain him or go in a new direction for 2018 and beyond. Certainly, Coppolella’s voice would have been a prominent one in those discussions, but the decision will be left to Hart and the lieutenants of the now-former general manager.
Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic first reported that Coppolella would resign (Twitter links). Yahoo’s Jeff Passan reported that the Braves had been under investigation regarding their international practices for weeks and that a complaint had been levied against them (Twitter links). Rosenthal reported that Blakely would resign as well (Twitter link).
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
I know most aren’t a fan, but hate to see this. Really thought he could move it in the right direction. Who is up next?
Let the Dayton Moore rumors start! Go!
If you’re Dayton Moore, why WOULDN’T you? (Provided he’s offered the job).
KC is losing half it’s starting lineup and some pitchers. The run is over. Probably a good time to move on.
Would make sense and be interesting.
A resignation like this could only be the result of abhorrent cheating, such as using technology to deliberately steal signs for example…
I hope MLB watches the Yankees and Red Sox closely during the Postseason. You can spin it any way you want, the fact is that Boston and New York were disciplined for cheating within the last two months.
And those were just regular season games, what’s going to happen when the pressure is really on?
Not a troll just a fan who hates cheating in any form
Naw, he got caught emailing countless “Trade Teheran for Trout” proposals to MLBTR.
um wut?
This does not make any sense
It sucks for the fans. They violated league mandates. The fans will end up paying the stiffest penalty.
Don’t encourage your team cheats. Ever.
That this occurs just before the Otani negotiations are not a coincidence.
Interesting the announcement was next day after season. If they kept this under wraps in this day and age — hat tip.
what the what?
Well dang, he was actually really good
Just great. Lose a top young gm and now may be facing discipline
What’s up with the home page Steve?
I’m not seeing an issue. Can you give more details? What issue are you experiencing? Desktop, mobile web or mobile app? If mobile, what device are you viewing on?
Thanks!
I had a strange issue with it. I was trying to access the site on my desktop and it asked for a username and password. Once I put that it in, everything was normal. It made it seem like the only way you can access the site is if you have an account.
Glad you’re able to view now, but that’s obviously not normal and someone else has presented the same issue on Twitter.
We’re getting our developers to look into it. Thanks for bringing it to my attention!
I had this issue last week. I gave it a few hours and it seemed to resolve itself.
If either of you has a minute to send a quick message through our contact form, including what device/operating system/browser you were using and a brief description of the issue, we can pass those on to our development team immediately and hopefully prevent this from happening in the future.
Thanks again for raising the issue.
Same issue happened to me earlier. Originally when you go to MLBTR.com (or MLBTradeRumors.com) a log in site popped up. If you Google MLBTR and click on a Team name, like “MLBTR Atlanta Braves” , the link would work fine.
Next time I’ll screenshot it. As of now the regular page is working again.
What in the world?
I bet there is some type of punishment from the league coming down the involves Coppy. They already had some punishment from spending too much money in international pool or something like that
Yeah but that typically happens that isn’t that big of a deal
Yeah that’s not so much a “punishment” or breaking of any rules as it is a calculated decision based on the guidelines set out for international signings. Like, teams are ALLOWED to spend as much as they want, just not without consequences that are already clearly delineated in the rules for competitive balance purposes.
But THIS situation……. god what could it be?? It has to be bad if it warrants him resigning.
Essentially, in order to lure guys, but stay under the international bonus pool allotment, some teams will hire friends of prospects and pay them large amounts as consultants. MLB sees this as workaround of policy, since that money eventually makes its way back to the prospect.
Like NCAA basketball teams and Adidas did to steer kids to certain colleges?
RIP Braves fans saying “go get em coppy!!!” every time a mediocre player is DFA’d or hits the trade block
Thats a shame, he had done a nice job for the Braves. An International Draft would make this process so much simpler.
For the teams, yes.
However, I’m guessing you were able to choose your employer.
None of the American prospects get to pick. Why should the foreigners be any different?
Why would a foreign government throw their citizens under the bus?
Most U.S. players can at least decline the offer if it’s rubbish. Or if the team is run by schmucks.
…so can a foreign player
Because there is a good argument to be made that it’s an unfair system currently. The issue is changing it – too hard.
Two wrongs don’t make a right, as they say.
You have no clue how things work do you? American players have Little League and then club & traveling team ball, and high school ball and college ball if they don’t like what they are offered out of high school. In countries like the DR and Venezuela there are none of those options. In fact, most of these kids would not get an education at all if it were not for “independent scouts” or “buscones” in the DR that run academies that produce most of the players you see get signed. Without those guys, there is no system in place for these kids to even have a chance to play baseball. These are extremely poor nations. When I was last in the DR, more than half of the kids that showed up at tryouts had no glove and no cleats. At least 20% had no sports shoes at all. Sandals maybe, To institute a draft would kill all baseball in those countries. Just look at what it did when Puerto Rico had to become part of the US draft. Instead of a dozen or more young players being signed out of Puerto Rico a year, within 4 years that had shrunk to 1-2 being drafted. If you want MLB to be strictly an American sport, institute an international draft.
How does it make it any different than the normal draft? Mike Trout didn’t get to choose his employer
It’d be a huge difference namely in the form of recourse. The system set in the US is pretty simple you get drafted and a majority of the time there’s a fallback option(JUCO,NAIA, NCAA). In foreign counties that recourse is rarely available. I’ve coached at a school or two where there was an established pipeline to a Latin American country, but talk about beyond difficult to not only get players there but also integrate them into American education and keep them eligible.
You’re right, Mike trout sure didn’t get to chose his employer, but he definitely had the ability to turn down the offer if he felt he was being lowballed. He also probably had access to a semi comfortable life and a chance to gain an education that would assist him in life beyond the baseball field. Essentially the whole talk of an international draft is not really, or never has been about, about competitive balance. It has always been about suppression of international players salaries.
Wow this is crazy
I guess the .751 OPS Kevin Maitan posted in GCL at age 17 wasn’t seen as being worth the penalties.
Now he’s a guy I would hire along with A.J. Preller.
Well this was unexpected.
Well, yes it certainly was!!!
Also, what about Hart?
How could he not know anything?
Hart isn’t under contract for next season yet.
Okay, interesting
Sans this event/story, I liked the job that the Braves did this year.
I thought they were on the upswing.
My question is, how can a team circumvent international spending regulations.
Last season there was no cap, meaning that organizations could pay whatever they wanted, however would deal with a penalty (which the Braves had been dealing with).
In regard to this season, they were restrained to signing players for under $300,000 and assuming they attempted to go for it, the league should not have allowed the transaction to pass.
I’m just confused about it. I am interested to see the reason.
I think its more like hiring friends or family of players as high salaried consultants to get a better deal with the player in order to not exceed the limit. Stuff like that
Teams can sign anyone for $100 K or less with it not counting against their cap. If a team signs one valid prospect, and eight lesser dudes from the same trainer for !00 K each, there is no cap space used.
Or, offer really big fish $1 million less, and sign eight guys from the same trainer for $100 K, you’ve accomplished about the same.
“My question is, how can a team circumvent international spending regulations.”
Are you serious?
You are unfamiliar with what an L.L.C. is?
John Middleton’s name is not on the deed of his Palm Beach mansion that is worth north of $40 million.
Cool, you know the answer.
You don’t need to be so arrogant in answering (?) it.
To Casey’sPartner: seek therapy.
This is really sad. Say what you will about Coppy but he’s a great, genuine guy and one of the more transparent and open GMs we’ve had in recent years which has been really cool. I hope this doesn’t ruin his career.
Apparently a lot of other gm’s and front offices hate him
Proof??
Both Jeff Passan and Joel Sherman mentioned it in their Twitter accounts. That doesn’t make it concrete, but it’s not pulled out of thin air.
Coppy is that you?
I must have missed the press conference where he was openly talking about cheating MLB rules so badly that he was at risk of losing his job.
I’m very interested to know how far he was going and how involved he was in the cheating. Looking at past instances, I’m thinking it might have been more than just doing a few package deals. The Red Sox and MLB didn’t punish a single employee after they were caught circumventing the international signing rules a couple of years ago and even ended up promoting a few of their top level international scouting guys. To see a GM fall on the sword makes me think this might be a bit more serious.
Not at all.
John Henry is a great owner, he cares about winning while the ownership of the Braves and the rest of the colluding N.L:. Least teams owners only care about the profitability of MLB teams as a whole.
The Phillies ratted off the Red Sox, they ratted off two college players they drafted and they may well be the team that ratted on the Braves.
Take away their ability to sign international players for several seasons.
Or, in other words, make them the Orioles.
I think the maximum penalty is half the amount. Not sure how long the ban hammer lasts for.
Really sucks for Braves fans.
Except the Orioles do it to themselves.
Straight over your head.
Coppy, got a little sloppy.
Unexpected, but good riddance.
Didn’t love the guy but this really sucks. Hopefully it’s something along the lines of paying relatives and friends of prospects and nothing too dirty like being involved with the guys who smuggle them around and try to run the teenagers’ lives. If my choice is between having my favorite team be Int’l FA cheaters or pieces of scum, I’d rather be cheaters.
MLB should punish them by making them release Acuna. Not really but imagine how funny that would be
Funny for whom? STL has gotten their hand caught in the cookie jar more than once and the penalties weren’t near as sever as you’re suggesting. Sure, I want a fair and balanced system, but MLB has the answer in an international draft, but would rather deal with the fallout of circumventing the system (now SDG and ATL in 2 years).
Its called a joke. You cant possibly think i really believe that should happen
When you’re sitting on 104 wins, the ROY winner and one of your top arms (Wood) you got from us for a convicted lady beater (Olivera), it’s easy to joke. Trust me, I’m trying to laugh at this one.
Imagine the money that would be thrown at Acuna – not by the Phillies – from teams that think winning is what’s important.
80% of the people on here are humorless, boring baseball fans. What do you expect?
You gotta make everything about ur unsubstanced hate for the phillies?
Just like the irrational obsession with sabermetrics, they have formulas to calculate the humor content of every sentence you type.
The league can’t institute a draft on their own. International countries would have to consent for citizens to surrender the right to work for their employer of choice.
Are you sure about that? Foreign players are drafted into the NBA all the time..
Well look now. If there was foul play they might lose Maitan. Turns out it wasnt far fetched
I’m sure teams like the Red Sox, Yankees and Dodgers aren’t squeaky clean either.
The Red Sox were already caught
And so were the Yankees
The front offices of Boston, St. Louis, San Diego and Atlanta have been in hot water lately. Need to ditch this “win no matter what” attitude and show some integrity.
Twould be nice. It would be nice.
It’s called a business
It’s called morality
So is there a limit on what a business should do to succeed?
The saying you aren’t trying if you aren’t cheating comes to mind lol. Similar to PEDs seems teams try to find advantage any way they can. I think some try to bend the rules as far as they can.
I am definitely surprised but hardly disappointed. For all the fan fare he’s received, Coppy hasn’t performed up to my expectations. His involvement in the Hector Olivera trade sent Alex Wood to LA and ended up netting us Matt Kemp and his albatross contract. The Adrelton Simmons trade was awful, and even if Newcomb turns out as a good or even very good rotation piece, it was hardly the right move (and if you don’t agree, let me please remind you of the name: Erick Aybar). And no matter how much we love Dansby’s hair, can you please imagine Simmons and Ozzie turning double plays. In an alternate universe, under Wren, we’d be walking into 2018 with potentially the following: Freddie, Ozzy, Simba, J-Up, Acuna, Gattis, Teheran, Wood, Kimbrel, and we would have likely been contenders, although probably not sniffing any World Series, but hardly losing 90 games for 4 seasons. We all hated Wren for Uggla and BJ, but looking back, at the time we acquired them, they looked like GREAT moves. In fact, I think all Braves fans agreed at the time that signing BJ was better than option B, Michael Bourne, and we eventually ended up with Bourne’s bad contract too, and look at Cleveland now (http://www.cleveland.com/pluto/index.ssf/2016/07/cleveland_indians_rise_began_w.html) . Wren got blamed for player’s lack of performance. Coppy got the benefit of the doubt (ex: Bartolo). Colon was bad, but I’ll give him a pass since it was a 1-year commitment to lottery ticket that had a pretty high looking floor. Olivera was a bad move. Moving Kimbrel and Simmons were desperate at best. And the money we’re spending on Kemp to ground into double plays could have been spent resigning J-Up, not to mention we would not be faced with the crowded outfield we have now, with $30-some million being committed to corner outfielders that we can’t even GIVE away right now, blocking a player who may be the next big thing thing. Wren was in charge when we got Ozzie and Acuna for pennies, and while we have some promising players on the farm right now, we clearly weren’t as bare as some indicated. For all the splashy trades Coppy’s made over the last few years, I don’t see us as a better MLB team right now (sure, we have some baller minor league affiliates, but the A on my hat stands for the Atlanta Braves and not the Florida Fire Frogs). Now it looks like we will get stuck with some sort of disciplinary measure. We are going into 2018 with an unproven rotation, a crowded outfield, a weak hitting shortstop, a hole at third, an overachieving catching tandem, and who-knows-what in the bullpen. On top of all that, despite the spike from the beautiful new park, attendance numbers on average are down the last 3 years in comparison to the 3 before that. Wouldn’t it have been nice to have been at least been competitive in STP’s debut? That was what we were told was the plan. Maybe at least not been bullied around by the awful Phillies.. REgardless of whatever Coppy’s transgression was, I’d have advocated for him being fired anyways, and John Hart, you’re next.
Trading Kimbrel for a salary dump and the Simmons deal were massively awful trades that dont get the awful reps they should.
The Kimbrel trade was a little bit more than a salary dump. The Padres took on the entire $46+ million owed to Upton, plus Kimbrel’s entire contract. (Basically 4/$46m remained if you include the option). Upton was dead money and if you factor it in with Kimbrel’s it comes out to $92m saved by the Braves. Plus, they received Wisler who was a well regarded prospect at the time. Kimbrel is great (still one of the best) but the Braves definitely fleeced the Padres on that deal.
Huh? Not sure about that. Kimbrel (and what he was subsequently traded for, to the BoSox) was a massive get for the Pads.
No way the padres got fleeced. They took on 1 bad contract and ended up flipping it for Margot and more. Braves should have just traded Kimbrel for a top prospect themselves
Upton definitely tips the scales in the Braves favor but you are forgetting ATL taking on 24M of Quinten and Maybin. Carlos was the epitome of dead money and was released. Maybin had some success but has seen three more team since.
Wisler is junk and for him being the top pitching prospect in the Pads system speaks volumes to how overinflated their ranking was then.. Paroubeck never amount to anything and Austin Riley is in the lower half of your systems top 30 after three seasons.
What can not be overlooked is what Kimbrel got from Boston one year later. The Pads only paid for 9M and sent the rest of the 36M to get pieces paying dividends now in Margot and Asuaje. Logan Allen is coming and Guerra is still young enough to make something of himself. Nowhere near a fleecing,
If you think that we “fleeced” the Pads on that deal, you definitely don’t have my vote for Coppy’s replacement. I’d rather have Kimbrel closing games and Melvin sitting on the bench and eventually DFA’ed than suffer through the past few seasons of JIm Johnson and Grilli. Cameron Maybin had a decent season, but in all actuality, it wasn’t that much better than what Melvin did in SD. Point is, I believe we would have won more games with Kimbrel and he would have brought the house down at STP every time he came out the ‘pen… and don’t worry, I’m not forgetting about how we got Ian Kroll out of Maybin (although I don’t think that really helps your case).
Wisler was one of the top prospects in baseball in 2015. #34 overall. Not junk at all.
1,000% agree. The best performers in our system were guys Coppy drafted or signed by Wren. His trades were not very fruitful (so far). Inciarte has been the only player to perform at the MLB level. Remember when people (not me) were convinced Gattis was awful and Bethancourt was the next Yadi?
Amen.
Give the death penalty to the Braves–break up the franchise and give away their players to the other teams. Send a message to other clubs that the Cardinals hacking of the Astros didn’t: cheating will not be tolerated.
yawn
Really madman? We have no idea what happened yet. How about you wait for actual facts to come out, or speculation from reporters
As of this moment their on double secret probation…
It’s obviously not due to the dumping of all money into one big year internationally. That has obviously been done by a half dozen or more teams in the past few years and the Braves just learned from them.
This is obviously a far bigger breach. For him to resign to what is being termed ‘immediately’ it most be a very serious breach. I say immediately because we really don’t know when the investigation started or how long it has been going on. My bet is the Braves new about it months ago and just waited until the end of the regular season to move.
I suspect a Pet Sematary issue– Who is this “Shoeless” Alex Jackson who went yard 14 times for their high-A club?
See, this is how MLB should have handled the Preller situation.
And returned Fernando Tatis, Jr.
MLB didn’t do this, the scummy, thieving ownership of the Braves fired Coppolella.
If the guy was the GM of the Red Sox he would still have his job.
Coppy resigned, but the ownership, which Braves CEO Terry McQuirk has stated numerous times owner Liberty Media stays out of baseball ops, is “scummy” because they accepted his resignation when he was responsible for major violations under current rules?
Not sure you understand what “scummy” is.
That is absolutely correct. Manfred would have already provided a statement saying “It was wrong, Tsk, tsk. Don’t do it again. Let this be a warning that the next team to do it will get cruelly and unusually punished.”
James Shields was never in the discussion of medical records. The Taitis mistake is on Mr Hahn.
Preller got suspended for the Espinoza trade, not the Tatis trade. The Red Sox had the right to rescind that trade but chose not to and in the end it’s worked out for them.
Did Pomeranz ever even miss a start for the Red Sox after that trade? I know from what they were saying on MLB Network today, he has never hit the DL since then. What was the big deal in all that? The guy has pitched really well for them. Wish the O’s had made a trade for him.
Skirting the limits eh?
Whatever he did, people may not preller, but he threw down some serious dough.
I’m curious and standing by for why he quit his job.
This just in:
Coppy leaves to become AD at Louisville;
Rick Pitino takes Braves GM job.
Braves sign billion-dollar pact with Adidas.
Check out Jonah Keri’s article on this. Strong stuff!
https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/braves-gm-drama-shows-its-time-to-put-an-end-to-sports-fans-sense-of-entitlement/