The Los Angeles Angels are being sued in a Dominican Republic court by two teenage baseball players who claim that the organization didn't honor verbal agreements to sign them.
Lawyers continued to argue the cases of Keiderson Pavon and Willy Faas, who were accused of agreeing to deals with the Angels when they were teenagers.
Players from countries other than the US, Canada and Puerto Rico are not allowed to sign until they are 16 years old, but those from countries such as the Dominican Republic and Venezuela are allowed to sign when they are 12.
The verbal agreements were confirmed by sources who watched a video of the moment Angels employees said they were going to sign him. Less than a month before the signing date, Angels employees told Faas and Pavon they wouldn't give them formal contracts.
The Angels and MLB didn't comment.
The cases of Faas and Pavon are the first known to have multiple hearings in the Dominican justice system, where the law gives greater weight to verbal contracts.
The potential consequences of the civil actions, which were filed in May 2021. and have not previously been reported, are enormous. Hundreds of early deals are agreed to by teams and players each year, but the practice would be less common if a judge deems them binding.
Jerez said that if the players don't present the claim to a judge it will be repeated. There is a matter of conscience. It's crucial. There is an agreement that people need to be aware of. It will happen in the future if this doesn't have consequences. It will be a precedent if Major League Baseball doesn't force the teams to honor their agreements. We're trying to establish a precedent.
The law is in our favor. All of our clients' obligations have been completed. They changed their position without telling us. The most important thing that we will debate in the court is the change of position.
The MLB Players Association was open to the idea of an international draft after two decades of rejecting it. Around 30% of major league players and more than half of minor leaguers are produced by a system that is not functioning well.
"There is no accountability across the board for anybody, in effect, any of the stakeholders in this space. MLB doesn't enforce anything. They don't hold their teams accountable. The teams don't hold their scouts accountable. Everybody throws their hands up -- it's the wild, wild West -- when it's convenient." Ulises Cabrera
Issues in Latin America include early deals. It is thought that a draft would have rid most early deals and disincentivized trainers from giving pre-teens performance- enhancing drugs. The idea of a slot system was seen by the union as less than a method of cost control.
Despite acknowledgments from the league and union of an international system in which team employees receive kickbacks, trainers undercut their elite players' bonuses by packaging them with lesser talents and loan sharks prey on impoverished families, the status quo remains.
During the previous collective bargaining agreement, MLB and the union implemented a hard-capped system in which each team knows years in advance how much money it can spend outside of the US. Teams armed with more than $175 million annually for international amateur bonuses and aware that the most elite talent often reveals itself before teenage years entered into verbal agreements with younger players
The tenuous nature of the practice was dependent on the willingness of both parties to honor the agreement. Faas and Pavon say that the angels did not.
The judge will have to decide if verbal agreements of this nature are legally binding. The case is likely to go on into next year after the appearance of witnesses was delayed last week.
Cesar Linares is an attorney in the Dominican Republic who has taught college level law courses. The proof is one of the most important parts of the verbal contract. I can tell the judge that I have a perfect contract if I have the proof. The judge will approve the contract in a lot of the cases.
It is possible that the cost for the Angels is significant. Faas is seeking $17 million in damages after he signed with the New York Mets. Pavon agreed with the Texas Rangers for $150,000 last year.
Both players told stories that had a lot in common with one another.
After Billy Eppler and Eric Chavez, an Angels special assistant at the time, saw Faas in person in January, he agreed to terms with the Angels. The international signing date for the class of 2020 was pushed back because of the coronaviruses. Faas had spent time training at the Angels' academy in the Dominican Republic, which was allowed under MLB rules.
Faas said he felt great with them. I'm not sure how they could have done that.
"Pulgita" and "Altuvito" are the names of infielders who grew up in Venezuela and the Dominican Republic, respectively.
Carlos Gomez, the Angels' former director of international scouting, told Pavon in the video that the team would sign him. Both Gomez and Pavon cried.
Pavon said it brought him a lot of joy. I thought about my family.
According to sources who saw them work out after their deals with the team, Faas and Pavon did not fall into either of the two categories.
Both of them agreed to deals with the Angels under Eppler. Minasian hired a long time scouting and player development executive to run the international department. The potential for broken agreements and different evaluations of players were acknowledged by three general managers.
The Angels don't know why. The trainer who brought Faas to his academy at 12 years old said that they never provided one. They said they wouldn't honor the agreement. They didn't show up to see him. They said they weren't going to honor the agreement. There was no explanation.
The case of Faas shows the dangers of early deals. The amount of money missing from other teams' bonus pools for the January 2021 signing period was small because teams work out deals so early in the season. Instead of signing for a lower bonus, Faas waited until this year to sign and didn't debut for the Mets until he was 18.
He was lucky to recover most of his bonus. A lot of players who don't sign at 16 are ignored by teams because they are too old. If a deal is broken, others who seek loans can find themselves in dire financial straits, owing more money than they borrowed.
Despite an official signing age of 16, MLB has not sought to limit early deals, opting instead to pursue a draft that would stop them. Ulises Cabrera, who represented Faas and Pavon through the Dominican Prospect League, was spurred to explore legal remedies by the increase in teams backing out of early deals.
"If everyone does the right thing, then this is not an issue," he stated. There is no problem if the players hold on to their end of the bargain. There is no problem if the teams do what they are supposed to do. When one of the stakeholders in the mix does something wrong, that is an issue. Whether it's a trainer who's injecting steroids into a player and doing things to fudge the perception of how good the player is, or a team doing tricks to back out of deals. We have an issue whenever someone is doing something that shouldn't be done.
Is that correct? Any of the stakeholders in this space are not held accountable for their actions. The MLB doesn't have any rules. They don't hold their players to account. The teams do not hold their scouts to account. Everyone throws their hands up when convenient. Our hope is that there will be consequences for people doing the wrong thing.
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