Major League Baseball has released the bonus pools for each team for the 2019-20 international market, as Baseball America’s Ben Badler provides. There are no longer any carryover spending limitations from the prior international system, so every team is free now to operate without limitation under the new rules — though there is one organization that still faces a notable limitation.
Before we get to the numbers, here’s a quick primer on the specifics of the international free agency system (as adapted from a prior post from MLBTR’s Steve Adams).
- Hard Cap: Under the prior system, clubs could exceed their spending allocation if they were willing to accept penalties. Now, they face a hard cap.
- Trades: Teams may trade for up to 75 percent of their originally allotted bonus pool; they are free to trade away all of their pool availability if they so choose. Spending capacity must be traded in increments of $250K — unless it includes the last portion of a team’s pool.
- Competitive Balance funds: Teams that are eligible for competitive balance picks also receive additional international spending money, with more or less of a boost depending upon whether they are picking in round A ($541,500) or round B ($1,082,900) in a given year.
- Qualifying Offer penalty: A club that exceeded the luxury tax threshold in the previous season and also signs a free agent who had declined a qualifying offer surrenders $1MM of its international pool in the following period. It’s a $500K pool hit for a club that did not exceed the luxury tax but also did not benefit from revenue sharing. (Thus a signing of Dallas Keuchel or Craig Kimbrel could still result in changes to the numbers below.)
Without further ado:
- Astros: $5,398,300
- Angels: $5,398,300
- Athletics: $5,939,800
- Blue Jays: $5,398,300
- Braves: $0 (penalty)
- Brewers: $5,939,800
- Cardinals: $6,481,200
- Cubs: $5,398,300
- Dodgers: $4,821,400
- Diamondbacks: $6,481,200
- Giants: $5,398,300
- Indians: $6,481,200
- Mariners: $5,398,300
- Marlins: $5,939,800
- Mets: $5,398,300
- Nationals: $4,321,400
- Orioles: $6,481,200
- Padres: $6,481,200
- Phillies: $4,821,400
- Pirates: $6,481,200
- Rangers: $5,398,300
- Rays: $5,939,800
- Red Sox: $5,398,300
- Reds: $5,939,800
- Rockies: $6,481,200
- Royals: $6,481,200
- Tigers: $5,398,300
- Twins: $5,939,800
- White Sox: $5,398,300
- Yankees: $5,398,300
MLB made a example of the Braves. They weren’t the only team doing that though. I think just losing the dozen or so prospects should’ve been punishment enough.
They were all doing the same thing until Coppy went one step further and signed 9 or so players the year after signing Maitain all for $300k. When that happened I was like how did he pull that off… and then the stories started from Rosenthal about the problems. Cox, schuerholz and McGuirk all knew he went too far and they knew he f’d them.
Yep, the Braves signed a bunch of players, went into the penalty box for 2 years and MLB took away those players then levied the extra penalties on top of the 2 years they were already in the penalty box for signing the players they took away. Pretty harsh, but I can’t say it wasn’t deserved.
If your penalty was just releasing the players you signed why would other organizations not take a shot at doing the same? If you knew you couldn’t get the guys the fair way and the only deterrent for doing it illegally would be to lose the players that creates a system where it’ll happen again.
Would you mind citing examples of other teams doing this? As in name the specific team, the specific player that got more money than was reported to the League, and the specific means by which he got that money.
The OP statement is the equivalent is saying the a guy caught doing 130 mph on the highway wasn’t tell only one speeding, and then you asking for the driver, year, make, model, speed, time of day, and mile marker for everyone else who exceeded the 65 mph limit.
Come on, be serious. We all know other teams made side deals with certain trainers to get a leg up against other clubs. It’s common sense.
What the braves did was so blatant, obvious, and egregious that it couldn’t be ignored.
If the type of proof you ask for was common knowledge and flaunted in the light of day mlb would have to penalize those other clubs too.
67 in a 65 didn’t get policed. 130+ running a busload of kids off the road does, setting a “were not going to stand for this” example in the process.
It’s safe to say the Orioles were not a team doing this lol
C’mon sour grapes! Atlanta went above and beyond the normal cheating and got caught. They benefited greatly from their cheating and have a top tier minor league system because of it. This penalty will barely move the needle on their system and they might miss out on 1 potential major leaguer because they do not get to add 10 to 15 prospects. Many teams do not even spend their allotment or even many draft international players. In 5 years, we will see if any of these players they missed on potentially signing even make it.
I would highly disagree that they benefitted greatly from their cheating. Having a top farm system was more a result of losing 90+ games 3 years in a row and cashing in on some talent before it walked to FA. Albies and Acuna were both lucky signings by Frank Wren that happened before the Coppy/Hart regime came in.
What the Braves lost was 12 minor leaguers and essentially 5 years of bonus pool and ability to sign more international players. Plus the 3rd pick in last years amateur draft. Pretty much every single advantage they got from cheating was removed plus extra penalties on top of that. They may or may not feel the effects of it due to the fact that the team is so young and they’ve locked in core talent now for a long time, but take a look at the minor league system under AA ball and it’s pretty barren of top end talent.
Let’s go Yankees, find that next stud!
Cue the whining about the Cards getting preferential treatment…
Don’t think their extra picks have panned out yet but I reserve the right to whine in the future.
well they do pretty well at faking being a small market team. you obviously know this. that’s why u jumped to defend
Where’s the update on Yolbert Sanchez?
Hopefully going to the Fish.
Hopefully going to the Orioles
6.4 MM here’s to hoping Elias has an international team put in place that uses it.
If a team wants more IN bonus money, you think their first stop will be the Orioles? I hear it’s very easy.
Dwight Smith Jr has been worth every penny they gave up for him.
That was THIS year’s money (2018 +), not the forthcoming pool…it was an excellent move.
I doubt that Elias has had the time to build the infrastructure necessary to effectively sign players, but he can’t stand any more negative vibes this year. He has to spend every penny in his pool. Realistically, the failure rate is enormous, but they’re going to need any headline they can get in July…besides Davis’ 309th at bat without a hit.
And there’s upside to doing that; the boscans start listening when you talk, when you start spreading the cabbage around.
Yeah if I was a team I would gladly trade current prospects for cap(if they could secure agreements) and absorb contracts. Max out (75%) more on top of their figures each season. I don’t know #s but feel international kids have higher success rate/younger
higher failure rate, too!
I’m dumb. I don’t get how you can have a hard cap, but be able to trade for more
You can acquire more availability, thus raising your cap, but you can’t spend past the upper limit. In the past, you could do so while incurring penalties (which teams did routinely). Now, you’re tapped out when you’ve exhausted your space unless you acquire more, and there’s an upper bound beyond which you simply cannot spend (1.75x the original pool amount).
Do you know why they made that switch so they can’t go over the cap Jeff?
Because they were all bidding against each other without a real ceiling and spending more on young international players than they preferred to.
I think a cap was a good idea. The dodgers payed 16 mil a piece for yusniel Diaz and yadier Alvarez. That’s crazy considering the top pick in the MLB draft wouldn’t even get half of that.
I agree it’s good to cap how much the international players earn on their initial contracts. But why can’t teams still go over their slot allotments and just face the penalties next year? I always found it pretty interesting when teams were limited to spending only 300k (or whatever it was) since it kind of always meant new teams were getting the top guys.
True. Yeah I don’t disagree with you there. The cap is a little low now quite frankly. You get anywhere from 5 or slightly less to upwards of 16 million to spend in the regular draft. I’m 100% for a cap as it levels the playing field a bit but it could certainly be closer to the amateur draft pick range.
I think it’s just right. You’ve got way more amateur talent stateside than you do internationally to go sign.
With no cap you get abreu, moncada, castillo, etc.
Domestic amateurs subject to the draft were understandably upset, but now a similarly talented player is able to achieve a similarly valued bonus.
Having a relatively low hard cap ensured those prospects are spread around some, and the team trading away their cap room gets an already drafted player instead of signing for one. Accomplishes the same goal of spreading talent around.
What I am surprised about is not seeing more activity including cap room in a bad contract swap for salary relief.
Thanks!
if this was alphabetically listed shouldn’t the angels be on top?
Yes and Diamondbacks before Dodgers.
Who are the best players that came from this draft?
Damn you Coppy
There’s an error in the trades section. Starting this period (’19-’20) and going forward, teams can only trade up to 60% of their initial pool money. Previous periods (’17-’18 and ’18-’19) were 75%.
m.mlb.com/glossary/transactions/international-amat…
Aren’t the braves still allowed to sign internationally at up to $10k per player this year? Functionally it may as well be zero, but it’s not a ban.
I think they jump up to half value in the next year or two as well…