On Friday, ESPN's Alden Gonzalez broke the news that Major League Baseball had suspended a Cleveland Guardians prospect after discovering a scheme to falsify the prospect's age. Cleveland had agreed to a $2.8 million deal with the player in question, then going by the name David Severino, last December, believing he was 13 or 14 years old — and that the deal would be finalized come 2029, when he'd turn 17 and thus be eligible to sign a pro contract.
But in reality, his name was Daury Severino Damaso, and he was already 15 at the time of the agreement. The details are salacious, according to ESPN's reporting: "The MLB investigation uncovered a series of extreme efforts by the player's handler to make him appear nearly two years younger than he actually is, including faking a birth certificate to create a new identity, falsifying medical and school records." The handler even fabricated a deceased younger brother to help sell the lie, complete with a fake death certificate and gravesite.
As juicy as all of that is, though, it's not the real scandal here. The real scandal is the system that not just allows but actively encourages all of this to happen in the first place, one in which all 30 teams regularly reach illegal "pre-deals" with 12- or 13-year-old kids years before they're actually eligible to sign them — all while the league office turns a blind eye.
MLB's international amateur signing system has been an immoral mess for years
It's worth emphasizing which part of this transaction MLB felt was worthy of an investigation. It wasn't the part where the Guardians circumvented the written rules to reach a nonbinding agreement with a player they believed to be 13 or 14 years old. It was the fact that said player — or, more accurately, the adults around him — had lied in an effort to help facilitate that circumvention.
Which, really, says everything you need to know about where the league's priorities, and those of its teams, have lied for years now. This is simply the way business is done in the international amateur market at this point, particularly in Latin America. Every kid who shows an aptitude for the sport is connected to a handler, and that handler then connects the kid to a particular team — for a healthy cut of the eventual signing bonus, of course. The fact that these players aren't allowed to actually sign on the dotted line until the year they turn 17 isn't worth the paper it's printed on; every meaningful deal is agreed upon years in advance, often when the prospect in question is just 12 or 13.
It should go without saying that determining someone's economic future when they can hardly advocate for themselves is a moral abomination. These are kids we're talking about, some of them still in grade school, all of whom are coerced by handlers and front offices with their own best interests at heart into signing whatever deal those parties think is best. If you see someone signing for $2.8 million and shut your brain off there, you're missing the point; this is manipulation, pure and simple, and it affects kids and families far beyond the ones we hear about in headlines like this — most of whom won't see anywhere near that much money.
And, again, this is already illegal. Yet the entire industry knows it happens, all the time, which is why most Latin prospects of note are tied to teams with euphemisms like “expected to sign” and "the favorites to sign" right up until the moment they're actually old enough to sign. The good news is that, earlier this summer, the league proposed an international draft that would totally remake the amateur market, complete with plenty of supposed guardrails meant to prevent and expose corruption. But the fact that Rob Manfred and Co. have turned a blind eye for so long raises questions about how serious they really are here, and whether the proposed changes are about money rather than kids' well-being.
Can MLB labor war bring needed reform? Only if kids don't get caught in the crossfire
The league and its teams have been bandying about the idea of an international draft for a while now, and back in July they fleshed out what they wanted it to look like. It would function more or less identically to a domestic draft: 12 rounds, a total of $200 million in bonus pool money and hard dollar amounts tied to each pick. It also came with some soaring rhetoric about protecting vulnerable young players.
“Our vision for the new international system reduces the pressure on young athletes by giving them the chance to grow and develop, keeps kids in school longer while they pursue a career in baseball, and creates more playing opportunities for the older players who are left behind in today’s system,” MLB said in a statement.
MLB also pledged to work with the Dominican government to increase transparency and root out abuse. But again, it's worth asking: If this issue really is a priority for the league and its teams, why haven't they done anything to stop it yet? Sure, there's the occasional investigation and punishment, but only in response to age fraud or teams circumventing bonus pool money — never for the fundamental issue of trying to sign someone who's 13 years old. What's different now? Why does the league need a draft in order to enforce rules that are already on the books?
The cynical answer is that MLB wants a draft system to keep costs fixed and under control, and that Protecting the Children is simply a handy emotional cudgel with which to batter the other side into submission. Only time will tell how true that is, and whether anybody cares enough to put kids first in this looming labor war.
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