The Artist Formerly Know as Andres Serrano, Officially No Longer a Cardinal
Posted on August 2nd, 2012 by t7rick in Andres Serrano, Carlos Martinez, Carlos Matias, International signings, Wagner Mateo, tags: Andres SerranoPer Ben Badler at Baseball America
The biggest signing splash of the St. Louis Cardinals in the 2012 international signing pool has had his contract officially invalidated and has been hit with a one year ban from signing a contract with a major league team.
This is the second large contract that the Cardinals have entered into with a international signing that has been voided in recent years, though for different reasons. The other was Wagner Mateo who had his contract voided by the Cardinals as a result of an eye condition. This, of course, has also worked in the Cardinal’s favor in the signing of Carlos Martinez, aka Carlos Matias after his contract with the Red Sox was voided by MLB for fraud.
Thoughts? What will the Cardinals do, if anything, with the $700,000 now unspent?
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I wonder how many guys actually get away with changing their identity to get signed by a mlb team and if the risk is worth it. Seems like every year someone gets busted for it.
Also, I wonder which is easier to get away with, changing your identity or using peds?
Turns out, his real name is Pedro Serrano, and he’s 55. They caught him trying to use his AARP card to get a discounted movie ticket.
Doh!
Didn’t the voiding of the Mateo contract also work in the Cardinal’s favor? He’s 19 now and playing badly for the Arizona high A team after playing badly for their low A team….the guy just can’t make contact.
I don’t think he was stating that the Mateo incident worked in our favor. . .just that the voiding of Carlos Martinez’s contract with the BoSox did.
I think that was the point, the contract was voided (by the Cards I thought, not even MLB voiding it) and it has worked out good for us in the long run
So do we know if he’s a different person that he says or if he’s older than he said he was what was the violation?
MLB found out Andres Serrano is really Max Foody, throwing with his right arm and speaking Spanish.
This was actually reported weeks ago. Badler is a little behind, but not as bad as Jonathan Mayo who still lists him as one of our top prospects even though his contract was never made official and thus not even Cardinal property. Someones got mayo….er…..egg on their face!!!
In all seriousness, I feel bad about a young man with talent whose family or advisor or trainer convinces him to cheat in order to get a bigger bonus.
Take that same kid and give him the opportunities he’d get in the U.S., and he’d have a long, verifiable history of pitching on travel teams, in high school, and possibly in college. He’d get a bonus commensurate with his talent relative to his age, and he’d end up with some amount of education if baseball doesn’t work out for him.
He’ll probably end up something when he’s eligible to sign again next July, but in the meantime he loses a year of professional development.
Lou, I think it’s insane all the crap that goes on down there. It’s all a big race to find some raw talent that may be the next big thing. For the scouts it seems to be sign first and ask questions later….like how old are you? For the players, it’s lie like hell to get as much money as you can. A lot of them are just too inexperienced to see the errors in their thinking and they load up both barrels and shoot themselves in the foot. It doesn’t help that their are unscrupulous “advisers” with their own agendas leading these kids down the wrong path. All chasing the almighty buck and lots of them.
Unfortunately, a lot of the birth records, or lack thereof, just aren’t very accurate for various reasons. I’d swear their are parasites hanging around ball diamonds going “Hey buddy….wanna buy a birth certificate that says you’re 16 years old? Mucho Donero if you sign!”
For sure it would be beneficial if they all came from a better social circumstance, but that just isn’t the reality. When it comes to baseball…..it’s all or nothing for these kids. That massive carrot of a far better life can make people do damn near anything. Being untruthful about your age or identity really seems like such a small gamble for them. All things considered.
I vaguely remember a similar situation a month or two ago involving ?Boston? where the contract remained valid but the player was suspended for a year. Does anyone know how that works? Is the team given an option to retain the player?
Major League Baseball suspends the player. It’s up to the team if they want to renegotiate with that player, since MLB will not recognize the signed agreement they’ve rejected. We had a similar issue with Carlos Martinez Matais, whose contract with Boston was rejected. Once we signed him, he was able to prove that he took on the name of a family member who raised him, but wasn’t his real name. It all got sorted out in the long run. Luckily for us.
Actually, there are two types of suspensions for flse identity. Those that happen before a contract is certified (like Serreno’s) and those that happen afterwards (like Ronnie Gil’s). Those that happen before make the player an FA after his suspension. Those such as Gil allow the team to retain the players rights and most due since recouping the bonus is almost impossible.