San Diego Padres President of Baseball Operations and General Manager A.J. Preller looks on before a game against the San Francisco Giants at Petco Park on Friday, Sept. 6, 2024 in San Diego, CA. (K.C. Alfred / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
A Dominican teenager who was set to headline the Padres’ 2027 international signing class is five years older than previously believed, according to a report from ESPN.
The Padres have declined to comment.
A Major League Baseball investigation found that Cesar Altagracia is 19 years old, not 14. He had verbally agreed to sign with the Padres in 2027 for $4 million, which figured to account for a substantial portion of the Padres’ bonus pool that year.
That offer has been withdrawn, and Altagracia will be suspended.
Altagracia had represented the Dominican Republic at the 2022 U-12 Baseball World Cup and at the U-15 Pan American Championships this summer under false paperwork, according to ESPN.
International prospects can sign with major league teams once they turn 16.
The Padres’ top two prospects, catcher Ethan Salas and shortstop Leodalis De Vries, signed for $5.6 million and $4.2 million, respectively, over the last two seasons. Both were considered the top prospects in their signing class, as likely would have been the case for Altagracia in January 2027 had MLB’s investigation not turned up falsified documents.
Like Salas and De Vries, Altagracia had worked out a verbal deal with the Padres, as is common practice among teams trying to identify top prospects to fit into annual international budgets. Some players agree to deals as young as 12 or 13 years old and continue to train under the team’s unofficial supervision until their 16th birthday, although those agreements are not final until ink meets paper.
The Padres, for instance, had a verbal agreement with Mexican right-hander Humberto Cruz, 17, but could not sign him until last February because they needed to trade for international signing bonus money. The Xander Bogaerts signing cost them bonus pool money that the team had been counting on for the class.
Because of these verbal agreements and players and/or agents falsifying documents in search of paydays that can pull families out of economic hardship, the international amateur market is often viewed as a wild West of sorts.
Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller made his name in the international market, although he too has had his hand slapped in that arena. The Padres were fined in 2015 for flying underaged Venezuelan prospects and some of their parents to a workout in Aruba. Preller was also suspended while with the Rangers in 2010 for an improper negotiation with an international free agent, according to the New York Times.
Originally published at Jeff Sanders