The penalties levied on the Atlanta Braves by the commissioner's office set the team's rebuilding process back a bit, but not as much as the sheer quantity of names involved might imply. It does, however, send a very clear message to other teams that the league might come down on the kind of shenanigans that have become routine in the international market -- including bundling players, for which the Boston Red Sox also were penalized two years ago -- since Major League Baseball started trying to regulate such signings six years ago.

MLB made 13 Atlanta minor leaguers, all signed in the 2016-17 period, free agents, with the most notable name among them Kevin Maitan, who signed for $4.25 million on July 2, 2016. (I'm using the publicly reported bonus amounts for players here, although the MLB investigation found that the freed players received additional, unreported money too.)

Maitan was my No. 59 prospect overall coming into 2017, but pro scouts were not impressed by what they saw from the 17-year-old shortstop, particularly in his swing, which has become long and noisy, with serious timing problems that will give him real trouble making contact until it's cleaned up. His body did fill out more than you'd like, but there was never a chance he'd stay at shortstop anyway, and he could still work himself into a solid defensive third baseman. I've also heard plenty of negative comments on his work ethic. He also is the same age as a U.S. high school junior or senior, and he's young enough to grow up and improve his conditioning, as well. The swing change, however, is the bigger concern.

The rest of the package of prospects is a mixed bag, as many of these players seem to have lost asset value (meaning how the industry perceived them) since signing. Catcher Abrahan Gutierrez, who signed for $3.53 million, is a good catch-and-throw guy with big questions around the bat. Infielder Yunior Severino, signed for $1.9 million, has some tools at the plate, with the potential to hit and show power, but he’s a bad defender at second and might not have a position. Shortstop Livan Soto, signed for $1 million, can play short but has no power and may not even have the strength to hit. Right-hander Yefri del Rosario, signed for $1 million, is the most intriguing arm of the group, an arm-strength guy with athleticism but below-average secondary stuff. These are all good inventory guys for short-season clubs, and are all so young that there remains both high variance and big potential with each of them, with a good chance few or none of them end up making any major league impact.

The loss wouldn't impact Atlanta's top 10 for 2018, but it's certainly enough to ensure that they're no longer the top farm system in the game, probably out of the top three at the moment. The Braves will be further hamstrung by the loss of a third-round pick and its associated bonus value in the 2017 draft -- apparently a penalty for a promised, under-the-table payment to a 2016 draft pick -- and by the decision to lock them out of the international free agent market until the 2020-21 period, during which they'll only have half of their allotted bonus pool.

The message to other teams here is quite clear: There is going to be a reckoning in the international market, and the commissioner's office is willing to hand out harsh punishments to individual and team alike. The Pittsburgh Pirates have parted ways with their longtime director of Latin American scouting, Rene Gayo, over an allegation of financial impropriety; Gayo also was caught on tape in the documentary "Ballplayer: Pelotero" offering to help Miguel Sano, an amateur free agent at the time, resolve an MLB investigation into his age and identity if Sano would agree to sign with the Pirates for a reduced bonus. The Red Sox lost five prospects and were banned from the 2016-17 signing period for bundling bonuses for players they had signed in the previous twelve months.

Bundling players is the practice of signing multiple players represented by the same trainer or agent and paying the less-talented players more money than they're worth, with the agent later moving the excess bonuses to the better prospects, allowing the team to circumvent MLB bonus pool restrictions. Teams have been doing this for years, largely with impunity, because everybody else is doing it too. It's an inevitable consequence of the broken systems MLB and the union keep crafting in each collective bargaining agreement, all of which have the ulterior goal of keeping teams from giving more money to Dominican, Venezuelan and other international teen-aged prospects, thus keeping money in the owners' pockets or moving more of it to major league players.

You can bet that we'll hear about the transgressions of the Braves, Red Sox and others when MLB pushes for an international draft to replace the current system of restricted free agency, even though a draft would only further suppress player bonuses. The league created a system that encourages teams to flout the rules; and then it will use the flagrant flouting to justify enacting a system that solves the problem. That's probably cold comfort to Atlanta fans, who just saw a bunch of raw talent walk out the door for no return whatsoever.