Ex-Braves GM John Coppolella permanently banned; team loses prospects
— -- Former Braves general manager John Coppolella has been placed on baseball's permanently ineligible list, and Atlanta will lose one of its top prospects as part of MLB's penalties against the team for rules violations in the international market.
Commissioner Rob Manfred ruled that the Braves must forfeit 13 international prospects, including highly touted Kevin Maitan, an infielder from Venezuela who signed for $4.25 million in 2016.
MLB announced the penalties Tuesday in a statement written by Manfred.
Atlanta must forfeit Maitan, Ji Hwan Bae, Juan Contreras, Yefri del Rosario, Abrahan Gutierrez, Brandol Mezquita, Juan Carlos Negret, Yenci Pe?a, Angel Rojas, Yunior Severino, Livan Soto, Antonio Sucre and Guillermo Zuniga.
All 13 players will become free agents and are eligible to sign with any team. Manfred also announced that the Braves have been prohibited from signing prospect Robert Puason.
Additionally, the Braves will be prohibited from signing any international player for more than $10,000 during the 2019-20 signing period and their international signing bonus pool for the 2020-21 signing period will be reduced by 50 percent.
Former Braves special assistant Gordon Blakeley will be suspended for one year and won't be allowed to work for any team during his suspension.
"I intend to discipline other Braves' International Baseball Operations employees who participated in the misconduct after the completion of our internal procedures," Manfred said in a statement. "My staff will speak to the Players Association and officials in the Dominican Republic regarding appropriate consequences for the representatives of the players who intentionally participated in schemes to circumvent our rules, none of whom are certified by the Players Association."
Coppolella lasted only two seasons as Atlanta's GM before being forced to resign last month after MLB announced its investigation. Alex Anthopoulos is now in charge of all baseball-related decisions as the team's new general manager.
The Braves said in a statement released Tuesday they "understand and accept the decision regarding the penalties that have been handed down.
"As we expressed last week, our organization has not lived up to the standard our fans expect from us and that we expect from ourselves. For that, we apologize. We are instituting the changes necessary to prevent this from ever happening again and remain excited about the future of Braves baseball.''
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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