Status of Cubans

Rangers · Post by **Rangers** » Sun Apr 04, 2010 7:41 pm

We're about 30 minutes from the season starting, and I think that we might have a bit of an issue with the three Cubans who have "signed" recently. Here is the latest update on each that I've seen

Hechevarria:

On March 26, Paul Beeston chatted on the Jay's official site:

bitterbob: What ever happened to Adeinis Hechavarria? We heard a lot about him two weeks ago, but it seems like it's dead? Did he not clear customs?

Paul Beeston: We had a lot of interest in the Cuban shortstop. We still have interest in the Cuban shortstop. We do not have anything finalized and as of right now and he is still in Mexico. When there is something to announce and it is finalized it will result in a press release.

The press release from the Jays has not come, as far as I'm aware.

Roibal:

Was reported to have "signed" for $450k by many sources, but I haven't seen any more information on his status since that report.

Anderson:

From Friday:

Cuban not in camp: Cuban first baseman/outfielder Leslie An derson, who defected in Sep tember and signed with the Rays last month, has not yet reported to camp. Anderson is in Mexico and still waiting on his visa to en ter the United States, though he could get it "anytime," Rays spokesman Rick Vaughn said. Anderson, 27, signed a four-year, $3.75 million deal, Miami's El Nuevo Herald reported last month. He had a .381 average in his final season playing in Cu ba's National Series.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd ... p&c_id=tor

http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/art ... -of-season

The situation with these three may be the same, and Beeston is just handling it differently in his statement, but he's pretty clear that they have not actually signed him yet. Who of these three should be eligible to stay on their respective IBC rosters, rather than go into the 2010 draft?

Giants · Post by **Giants** » Sun Apr 04, 2010 8:01 pm

So with first pitch coming any minute now that means the other Cubans not signed go into next years draft pool right?

Rangers · Post by **Rangers** » Sun Apr 04, 2010 8:05 pm

Athletics wrote:So with first pitch coming any minute now that means the other Cubans not signed go into next years draft pool right?

Correct

Cardinals · Post by **Cardinals** » Sun Apr 04, 2010 8:33 pm

With Anderson, if he indeed did sign with the Rays, he looks like he'd be ok to stay for me. But if it turns out he hadn't signed yet and signs in the future, then I'd say back to the draft pool he goes.

Hechevarria specifically looks like he should be into the 10 Draft Class. Robial looks to be the same according to our rules.

This is of course unless somebody has some concrete information on these guys signing that we haven't seen yet.

RedSox · Post by **RedSox** » Sun Apr 04, 2010 8:50 pm

I don't think Jose Julio Ruiz signed anywhere either.

Rangers · Post by **Rangers** » Sun Apr 04, 2010 9:32 pm

RedSox wrote:I don't think Jose Julio Ruiz signed anywhere either.

Yeah Ruiz and Maya, for two, are definitely out.

RedSox · Post by **RedSox** » Sun Apr 04, 2010 9:46 pm

On Hechevarria:

Alex Anthopoulos
General Manager, Toronto Blue Jays with Mike Wilner
Saturday, April 3rd, 2010

http://www.fan590.com/media.jsp?content ... 73430_7772

It's in the last 30 seconds. Kinda vague.

Rangers · Post by **Rangers** » Thu Apr 08, 2010 7:48 am

Callis on 4/7:

Jimmy (Exhibition Stadium)

Is Hechavvarria a big time score for the Blue Jays? How would he compare to Sano (all bat) & Iglesias (all glove)?

Jim Callis (2:50 PM)

The deal isn't official yet, but it's a significant signing once it is. Hechavarria falls in the middle of that spectrum. Should stay at shortstop, not as dazzling as Iglesias and doesn't have as much offensive upside as Sano.

http://www.baseballamerica.com/online/m ... 69782.html

Toronto Star:

http://www.thestar.com/sports/baseball/ ... g-u-s-visa

My best guess is that clubs don't want to (or can't) sign these guys officially until they get their visas (and they can't get their visas until they have a job lined up, can they?), and there is little said because they don't want to draw attention to the situation while someone could technically swoop in. And that goes for all three of these. How that should be applied to our rules seems like kind of a tough call.

Marlins · Post by **Marlins** » Thu Apr 08, 2010 12:52 pm

Yeah this one kind of makes it sound like the deal was done, but still nothing clear at all.
http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blog ... -farm.aspx

I'd of course love to keep him, but I understand it's not an exact science. Just let me know what you guys decide.

Tigers · Post by **Tigers** » Thu Apr 08, 2010 1:04 pm

The only issue I would have is that I think we start treading in some pretty grey area if we start saying, well they "agreed" to a deal but couldn't actually sign it yet, so its "OK" because we open up a whole new discussion/disagreement area of what constitutes a verbal agreement between a team and player.

Right now it is suppose to be pretty black and white....has the player signed (put ink to paper) a contract with a team. If he hasn't signed a contract then he goes into the next season's draft and nobody gets hurt, other than the GM who took a gamble and hoped that he'd sign a contract by opening day.

If we are going to change it to allow "verbal" agreements to constitute a foreign player being eligible, then we probably need to try and make it very clear what constitutes a verbal agreement.

Anyways, just my 2 cents.

Marlins · Post by **Marlins** » Thu Apr 08, 2010 1:08 pm

Well do we know it's only verbal? Would the US government allow him a Visa on just a verbal "I have a job" without something signed with the Jays? I think the vagueness is what has actually occurred so far.

Tigers · Post by **Tigers** » Thu Apr 08, 2010 1:15 pm

I'm not opposed to you guys keeping them on your roster, if you don't want to drop them right away until you can prove it one way or the other......as of right now it is vague and there is no report saying the player has signed a contract. If it comes out later the player signed a contract before opening day, but it just wasn't public knowledge, then you should get to keep the player.

If there is no way to verify that a contract was signed, then I think we should be erroring on the side of caution and putting them in the next year's draft. It is not like the players you guys are talking about are going to impacting the league this upcoming season.

Tigers · Post by **Tigers** » Thu Apr 08, 2010 1:24 pm

This is also where the proponents of treating the Cuban players like we currently treat the young Central American players the same in our draft, could pipe in.

I believe this is the exact type of scenario they've discussed it would avoid. If they've signed a contract by the day our draft starts, then they going in the current year's draft, if they sign after the draft starts, then they go into the next season's draft.

Marlins · Post by **Marlins** » Thu Apr 08, 2010 2:23 pm

It depends what type of visa he was granted. If he got a P-1 visa, he is required to prove he has a contract in place. If he got a H-2B visa, he only needs to prove a "job offer" is in place, but also there are many steps the employee must take to prove an American cannot do the job in his place.

Yes, today is a slow day at work for me...

Royals · Post by **Royals** » Fri Apr 09, 2010 1:10 am

If he's signing with the jays, then I'm pretty sure the US government isn't involved, it's a Canadian visa that he'll need. Though he may also need one to work in the minors in the US. Could be an extremely complicated situation, even moreso than usual.

Rangers · Post by **Rangers** » Fri Apr 09, 2010 11:47 am

Mariners wrote:This is also where the proponents of treating the Cuban players like we currently treat the young Central American players the same in our draft, could pipe in.

I believe this is the exact type of scenario they've discussed it would avoid. If they've signed a contract by the day our draft starts, then they going in the current year's draft, if they sign after the draft starts, then they go into the next season's draft.

I'm one of those people, and I do think that it would be an easier situation. For one thing, if we start the draft Jan 1ish, we can say who is and isn't in the draft, and no one will be risking anything. We still wouldn't know on this sort of situation any better. Say these announcements had happened on Dec 26. We wouldn't have any idea about the official signing date. But it wouldn't matter much, because we would make the decision in advance, and the player, if deemed eligible, would be property of the drafting IBC team whether or not there are hiccups in the visa process. It would be a much simpler situation. Yes, we would miss a Saito here and there for their rookie year, but that is just not a huge deal imo. For one thing, they probably don't have a reliable projection anyway.

Giants · Post by **Giants** » Fri Apr 09, 2010 1:54 pm

We could say who is and isn't in the draft if we continued to do it December 1 as well, it sounds like what you're arguing for is that we would have the ExCo make rulings on players in questionable situations, which I don't believe is the case with the Dominican players now. I think that with the recent flood of Cubans it's getting to look a lot more like the Dominican signings did, we let Japanese signings go the way they did because there were only a few guys coming over, they got plenty of press, and we all knew who they were. For a while it was like that with the Cubans, but now we're finding out guys exist on MLB Trade Rumors and whoever happens to be closest to the computer is grabbing them. Because of this I'm definitely leaning towards changing my vote and saying treat the Cubans like Dominicans.

Rangers · Post by **Rangers** » Tue Apr 13, 2010 5:55 pm

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=5082228

Royals · Post by **Royals** » Tue Apr 13, 2010 11:59 pm

Tigers wrote:http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=5082228

Unless this contract is backdated, looks like Hechavarria goes into the draft for next season...

Marlins · Post by **Marlins** » Wed Apr 14, 2010 7:44 am

Here's the thing, I am certain he had to have something signed and in place before he was allowed to get his visa.

However, since no one in the league but me has any benefit in fighting this fight, I know it's a losing battle as we all know everyone here is only out for their best interests. I will drop him.

RedSox · Post by **RedSox** » Wed Apr 14, 2010 9:19 am

Giants wrote:we all know everyone here is only out for their best interests. I will drop him.

That may well be, but doesn't the league really have to be run on official transactions? I'm all in favor of treating the Cubans like DR guys.

Tigers · Post by **Tigers** » Wed Apr 14, 2010 10:35 am

Giants wrote:Here's the thing, I am certain he had to have something signed and in place before he was allowed to get his visa.

However, since no one in the league but me has any benefit in fighting this fight, I know it's a losing battle as we all know everyone here is only out for their best interests. I will drop him.

Unfortunately, speculating that a Cuban player has a contract "verbally agreed" to so that he can get his visa to go into Canada would open up a whole different can of worms when it comes to signing foreign players. Speculating about verbal agreements as benchmarks for signing players in the IBC is not a direction I think we should go personally.

Our minimum standard has always been, when the player "signs" a contract he becomes eligible.

Nils, its not like you even wasted a draft pick on this guy...you picked him up off waivers after the draft.

Marlins · Post by **Marlins** » Wed Apr 14, 2010 11:55 am

Well couple things, his visa was for the US not Canada. It's the country he works in for which he needs the visa, not where the company is based. And, the US government doesn't exactly accept a verbal "I have a job" when handing out visas.

I agree, I didnt draft him, its not that big a deal. I am just not happy with the process. Can we not let this fall to the wayside now and actually get clarification before the issue comes up again? Can we change Cuban players to be treated like all other foreign players for the draft and have an official yes/no on all the guys before the draft starts? Dont think it would be a drastic change in the league.

Cardinals · Post by **Cardinals** » Wed Apr 14, 2010 1:17 pm

I'm really not sure there was ever anything that fell by the wayside. The rule has been the same for how long? He didn't sign his contract until yesterday or the other day. While I agree that it'd be beneficial to have some sort of sweeping date in the future for all players, its not as though this rule suddenly popped up. And you've been in the league since Day 1. You knew the risk when you went and signed him and things didn't go your way - it happens. I'm just not sure what process clarification was necessary when this has been a rule for quite some time.

Marlins · Post by **Marlins** » Wed Apr 14, 2010 2:21 pm

Glad to hear we have info from someone inside the Toronto organization to know exactly how the events occurred.

Anyway, is the rule change something the league is interested in? Making the signing (or announcement of the signing) deadline Jan 1 for Cuban players as with all other foreign signees? And if that's the case, do we include Japanese players too to make it a standard?