San Diego Padres Withdraw Prospect Contract Due To Falsifying Age
The San Diego Padres are an interesting team. Not only do they have intriguing pieces on their team, and they have a decent prospect core for the team. They have a growing controversy, with one of their younger prospects in the International Class.
Cesar Altagracia agreed to a 4-million-dollar contract with the Padres and it includes a tremendous bonus. He was one of the top prospects in the international class, and the contract would have started in 2027 when he became 16 years old. The problem, is that Altagracia lied about his age.
MLB has actually been investigating, and in multiple documents, Altagracia was 19 years old instead of 14 years old, which is a five-year age difference. To make it worse, he played in a U-12 Baseball World Cup in 2022, and a U-15 Pan American Championship in 2024. Altagarcia stole a spot from a younger athlete by using a false identity, which is not cool at all.
Altagracia is now being investigated by the Dominican Baseball Federation, and if they find out more, it's likely he is going to serve a 1-year suspension before reapplying for a baseball team. His contract with the Padres has been withdrawn/terminated, and now he's likely not going to play the sport for at least another year.
This is a problem with the international prospect pools, as there have been multiple examples of prospects falsifying documenta regarding their ages. The most recent example, is what happened to Mets prospect Anthony Baptist, who also lied about his age and got suspended. The Athletic even wrote a piece about how Age Fraud was on the rise in the Dominican Republic. This Problem has been around for multiple years, and affected so many teams. Now the San Diego Padres & Cesar Altagracia are added to that list.