Trump administration moves to stop MLB's historic deal with Cuba
The administration of President Donald Trump has opted to move against allowing an agreement that would have permitted Cuban baseball players to play for Major League Baseball teams without defecting.
According to NBC News, the Trump administration moved to overturn an Obama-era decision that said the Cuban Baseball Federation (CBF) was not run by the Cuban government. The Trump administration said that “a payment to the Cuban Baseball Federation is a payment to the Cuban government,” according to a Treasury Department letter to MLB. The letter, obtained by ESPN, was sent to MLB on Friday.
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MLB and the CBF reached a historic agreement in December that would allow players to come to the U.S. via a work visa with MLB teams paying the CBF for the players’ rights. But because trade with the Cuban government is illegal under U.S. law, the agreement was essentially canceled.
The thrust of the government's argument, as laid out in a letter from Treasury Dept. to MLB obtained by ESPN: "A payment to the Cuban Baseball Federation is a payment to the Cuban government." U.S. government sees the CBF as an arm of the Cuban government. Deal nixed accordingly. pic.twitter.com/oQhtn2R9gw
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) April 8, 2019
MLB sought to prevent high-risk defections
The frightening experiences of Cuban players like Yasiel Puig and Leonys Martin were behind MLB’s pursuit of this agreement. Both players, like so many of their Cuban brethren in years past, went to extreme lengths to leave Cuba for the chance to play professional baseball in the U.S. Martin, an outfielder for the Cleveland Indians, was kidnapped. Chicago White Sox slugger Jose Abreu had to eat a fake passport while on a flight from Haiti to the U.S.
Many of the defections, including Puig’s, involve paid smugglers. In March 2017, an MLB agent was found guilty of smuggling Cuban baseball players into the U.S.
In order to make these horror stories a thing of the past, MLB and CBF reached an agreement that would have allowed Cuban players to receive 100 percent of a signing bonus while MLB franchises would pay a 25 percent release fee (on top of the cost of the player), much like existing agreements with countries like Japan and Korea.
Last week, the CBF released a list of 34 players who would be eligible to sign contracts with MLB clubs based on the December agreement. According to the Associated Press, the players were all between 17 and 25 years old, some of whom had “big league potential.” Now that potential likely won’t have the opportunity to be realized.
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