The Braves took the hit for a league-wide international issue

When penalties were handed down to the Atlanta Braves in wake of their Latin American international signing operations on Tuesday, the baseball community was taken aback.

In perhaps its most harsh penalty to date, Major League Baseball concluded that Atlanta circumvented MLB rules in order to sign a collection of 13 prospects, all of whom were declared free agents. To add, the Braves’ international bonus pools in both the 2019-20 and 2020-21 periods were reduced; the team cannot sign any player for more than $10,000 in the former of the two periods and will have their overall pool reduced by 50 percent in the latter. Lastly, former Braves’ general manager John Coppolella joined Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson on MLB’s permanently ineligible list.

However, there was something missing: what made Coppolella different? What stimulated such a harsh reaction from the league?

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