MLB has made it harder for Cuban players to enter the league
Given the influx of exciting Cuban players we’ve seen take baseball by storm in recent years, you’d think MLB would be eager to see more in big-league uniforms —especially considering the U.S.’s recent steps toward smoothing out relations with Cuba.
In fact, the opposite has happened. MLB has reportedly made it tougher for Cuban players to sign contracts with its teams and enter the league. That’s slowed the signing of Yoan Moncada, the much-hyped 19-year-old infielder who is the top Cuban free agent on the market right now. He could be better than Yasiel Puig, Yoenis Cespedes and Jose Abreu, some scouts say, and has already worked out for the Yankees, Dodgers, Giants and others.
Why hasn’t he signed? Well, MLB quietly changed the process by which Cuban players get OK’d to join the league, according to Ben Badler of Baseball America, and that has left Moncada in limbo. Hector Olivera and Andy Ibanez are among the other Cuban players who might otherwise be trying on an MLB cap right about now instead of trying to get permission to play in the U.S.
Many in the baseball world thought Moncada couldn’t sign because he wasn’t yet cleared by the United States’ Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), a necessary step because of our trade embargo with Cuba. Getting OFAC clearance is why Cuban players have to first establish residency in a country other than Cuba before signing with an MLB team.
It’s a confusing process that MLB made a step harder by upping the level of government approval Cuban players need, as Badler reports:
Moncada, though, has already met the government’s requirements to be able to begin his career. Moncada has permanent residence in Guatemala. Any Cuban national who presents documents showing permanent residence in a country outside of Cuba qualifies for OFAC’s “general license,” which is not a written document. As far as OFAC is concerned, that should make him unblocked, and that’s good enough for the government to allow him to sign.
The holdup is that MLB won’t let Moncada—or any Cuban player, for that matter—use the general license any more. That wasn’t always the case. Yasiel Puig, for example, signed using the general license. It’s not clear what exactly changed, but at some point in 2012 after Puig signed in June that year, MLB no longer allowed Cuban players to sign using the general license and instead required them to apply for the specific license, which is a written document from OFAC. That goes beyond what the government requires from Cuban players to be able to begin their careers, and with some players waiting six months to receive their licenses, MLB’s policy has added a significant bottleneck for those players.
MLB issued the following statement to Baseball America on Sunday: “MLB is confident with the current plan we have in place regarding signing foreign born players and will abide by the guidelines of the OFAC requirements.”
Boiled down: While everybody thought the U.S. government was the delay in getting Moncada cleared, it turns out it’s also a result of MLB changing the level of clearance needed. Other Cubans have signed recently, so it’s not impossible. It just takes longer.
This isn’t the only thing slowing down the market for Moncada, either. As our own Jeff Passan wrote in November, Moncada’s age and MLB’s international bonus pool rules make it so whichever team signs him will likely pay a 100 percent tax on the contract. So if the Dodgers sign Moncada for $40 million (not out of the question), they’ll be taxed another $40 million.
Here’s where things get even more complicated. Some teams — like the Yankees and Red Sox — won’t be able to sign Moncada after June 15, which is when they’ll be zapped with an international bonus pool penalty because they’ve already spent too much. Once that takes effect, they can’t spend more than $300,000 on a player for the next two years. So if the Yankees want to sign Moncada, and it seems like they might, they have to hope he’s cleared before June 15.
If you’re reading all this thinking, “Holy wow, what a complicated mess!” there might be good news in the future. The process could get simpler as U.S./Cuba relations improve. Fangraphs’ prospect analyst Kiley McDaniel writes that a new U.S. policy could sidestep OFAC altogether and make things easier for Cuban players to become free agents.
That, however, isn’t a reality yet. So, as McDaniel notes, the process may be more confusing in the short term, but hopefully will become easier to navigate in the long term. What exactly that means for Moncada and his suitors remains to be seen.
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Mike Oz is an editor for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz
