OT: DOJ investigating MLB teams (Dodgers, Braves named) for human traffic

[Dback Jon]

What we know about the Department of Justice’s MLB investigation
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Multiple teams and the league office are in hot water due to reported corrupt practices surrounding foreign prospects.

https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2018/1...onal-players-crimes-department-of-justice-fbi

On Tuesday, Sports Illustrated published a report revealing that the U.S. Department of Justice has undertaken a “sweeping probe” of MLB teams’ international signing practices and corruption throughout the sport. The Dodgers are most often cited in the article, but other teams and the league office itself are also apparently involved.

In the report SI published a selection of emails and documents taken from a collection of evidence that apparently pushed the DOJ to begin this investigation in the first place, including “videotapes, photographs, confidential legal briefs, receipts, copies of player visas and passport documents, internal club emails and private communications by franchise executives in 2015 and 2016.” None of which looks like good news for the teams involved in the probe.

Teams getting creative, and possibly breaking the law, to circumvent the league’s international signing rules and acquire the best players from Latin America isn’t new. In recent years the pressure has been on for the league to clean these practices up, but with the DOJ involved it now appears well out of the league’s hands and the consequences could be more serious than ever before.

 

[Dback Jon]

Which teams are involved?

Right now, the Dodgers and Braves. The Dodgers are the most oft-cited team in this report with multiple concerning details like employees altering books and an apparent mafia-style subsection of their organization based in Latin America. Current Phillies manager and former Dodgers Director of Player Development Gabe Kapler is cited specifically. Player development staffers working for the Braves have also been reportedly subpoenaed, as has a prominent agent.

 

[Dback Jon]

What’s the most suspicious thing we know about the new investigation?

Well, the Dodgers straight up sorted their employees into a chart of who was doing the most crimes and how bad the crimes were. So probably that. The chart involves a list of names sorted by “level of egregious behavior.” Employees got points(?) based on whether their involvement of all of the Dodgers’ seemingly many and varied crimes was minimal, moderate, significant, serious, or criminal.

Yes, the Dodgers as an organization made a chart of how criminal each employee was and then actually included a category straight up called “criminal.” Then apparently kept it around for someone to turn over to the feds. We didn’t say anywhere in this post that these teams were smart about the extensive corruption infesting the sport.

Did the Dodgers do other things besides keep an organized list of employees ranked by their level of participation in criminal activities?

Oh yeah they did.

On top of that chart (which is genuinely funny in addition to being truly wild) and that whole “our Latin American team is operating a mafia-type situation on foreign soil” thing, the report also cites the Dodgers doing other fun criminal things. For example, betraying an unnamed prominent agent by signing a foreign prospect before the agent could officially sign him as a client.

They are also suspected of using loopholes in U.S. immigration law to get top Cuban players to the United States in direct opposition to the current US embargo with Cuba (one of the worst kept secrets in baseball and the least surprising law breaking in this whole report) and either shredding contracts before MLB saw them or doctoring documents before sending them to the Office of the Commissioner.

Also in the evidence (although with senders and recipients redacted so they can’t be confirmed to be attached to any one team) are emails detailing moving a player from Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic to Haiti before hopefully having him legally travel on to the United States with a valid visa.

 

[Dback Jon]

Another article on this