Red Sox’ MLB Ban Hurts International Players
By Blake Yagman
After exceeding international signing limits, MLB to ban the Red Sox from signing any International Free Agents for one year.
Looking for a place to divert your anger from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell? Here’s your chance.
Today, Major League Baseball is expected to penalize the Boston Red Sox for “exceeding International Free Agency signing limits.” Essentially, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred is going to ban the Red Sox from signing any international players over the next year because they’ve signed too many international free agents since signing a class of players which included Cuban phenom Yoan Moncada.
Many articles will discuss how the Red Sox reached this point; about how the Red Sox, despite being told by MLB that they could not exceed $300,000 in signing bonuses this year, chose to go out and spend multiple times more than that number. Honestly, none of that is important.
These are the questions that are important: if MLB has no salary cap domestically, so why should they limit the signing of international players? Are wealthy teams like the Red Sox giving too many young players opportunity from often third-world countries? What is the point of trying to spread the internationalism of the sport if teams are going to be harshly penalized for doing so?
Although the game has never been perfect, America’s past-time is a microcosm of the ebbs and flows of progress in American society. In many ways, this penalty is akin to a country with an isolationist approach to foreign relations. Major League Baseball, when restraining a team from signing any free agents for an entire season, is basically putting the careers of international players– and thus, the game– on hold.
From the perspective of the Red Sox organization, they will lose five of their top players signed this year back into free agency. Meaning, not only are they back on the market, but other teams know the Red Sox (and their vaunted farm system) held each player in high esteem. Because the Red Sox organization is so talent heavy, however, they will not suffer too much.
Major League Baseball is also investigating the Red Sox potential use of “package deals.” This means the Sox signed players collectively from the same trainer in packages, which is forbidden by Major League Baseball. However, what the league fails to consider is that many players are signed at age 16. They live with their trainers and want to sign together with their fellow 16-year-old roommates; why target 16-year-olds who want to play together?
Interestingly enough, MLB released a statement (in an unrelated monstrosity limiting the salaries of Minor Leaguers) yesterday that referred to minor league players as being part of a “seasonal, part-time apprenticeship.” If it is just “an apprenticeship,” what is the harm in allowing multiple international players the chance to do their “apprenticeships” without being isolated (often in different cities or even countries) from each other?
And, while the Red Sox may have violated the rule, the penalty makes zero sense. In other leagues, when a team exceeds the salary cap, there is a penalty. In this scenario, MLB voided five of the Red Sox international signings and banned them from signing anyone for a year. If it feels like a Deflategate penalty, and it smells like a Deflategate penalty…..
Next: Red Sox Add New Starter Aaron Wilkerson
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