Moneyball: Tatis took cash as prospect, owes part of fortune

NEW YORK (AP) — Fernando Tatis Jr. 's payday from baseball’s longest contract is not quite what it appears.

The 22-year-old star shortstop signed a $340 million, 14-year deal with the San Diego Padres, the third-highest deal in the sport's history.

But the son of the only major leaguer to hit two grand slams in one inning will be giving up a percentage of his fortune to Big League Advance, a company founded in 2016 by former minor league pitcher Michael Schwimer to invest in prospects making low salaries. Think of it along the lines of stock traders buying Apple in the company's early years.

Tatis agreed to receive money from BLA when he was just a budding prospect in exchange for part of his future salary.

Only a small percentage of minor leaguers make it to the major leagues, and even a smaller chunk sticks long enough for the big paydays of salary arbitration and free agency. And Big League Advance develops computer programs to try to predict future All-Stars and then tries to invest in those players before they are known, well, commodities.

“For us as a company, it’s really a testament to our modeling capabilities and how well we’ve been able to predict success of minor leaguers,” Schwimer said Monday. “When we did a deal with Fernando Tatis Jr., he wasn’t a top 50 prospect on anybody’s list. And here our numbers said he was the second-best player in the last 15 years, including Mike Trout, (Bryce) Harper and all these guys. That’s what our modeling told us. It was actually a really scary thing investing the amount of money we invested in it. It was a sizable portion of our fund. But at the end of the day, we decided to trust the numbers and trust the process, and it really, really worked out.”

Big League Advance has invested in 344 players, including 20 signed in the last two months, and...

source https://www.chron.com/sports/article/Moneyball-Tatis-took-cash-as-prospect-owes-part-15973004.php