In the Dominican Republic town of San Luis, two pillar candles illuminate a modest front porch beside a framed photograph of a young teenager named Ismael Ureña Pérez. Alongside the photo rest two wooden baseball bats and a worn pair of red cleats-the only piece of his clothing his mother, Iris Pérez, kept. She emptied his drawers and discarded the rest, unable to face the painful reminders each day. "It was just too hard to look at every day," she said through tears.
Ismael's story is one of heartbreak and controversy that has gripped the Dominican Republic and drawn international attention to the deeply flawed system surrounding baseball prospects in Latin America. Two summers ago, Ismael, just 14 years old, returned home from a local baseball academy and vowed never to return. The next morning, his family found his urine to be red and his skin jaundiced. He was rushed to a hospital and placed in intensive care, then transferred to a medically induced coma. Within 48 hours, on July 25, 2024, he died.
His family believes Ismael's organs failed due to repeated injections of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) administered at the academy. This tragic death has sparked outrage in a country long plagued by the exploitation of its young baseball players and has shone a harsh light on a system rife with corruption, illegal practices, and the use of steroids on minors.
### The Dominican Republic's Baseball Pipeline and the International Market
The Dominican Republic and Venezuela serve as a primary pipeline for Latin America's top baseball talent, producing a significant share of foreign-born players in Major League Baseball (MLB). Of the 948 MLB players on Opening Day rosters this season, 153 hailed from these two countries. Stars like Juan Soto, Ronald Acuña Jr., Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and Fernando Tatis Jr.-who collectively have 17 All-Star appearances and contracts worth roughly $1.7 billion-emerged from this system after being signed as teenagers for bonuses ranging from $100,000 to $3.9 million.
However, the race to discover the next generation of stars has intensified over the past decade, leading to the widespread practice of illegal "pre-deals" or "pre-acuerdos." These are handshake agreements made between teams and players as young as 11 years old, well before the official signing age of 16, according to multiple industry sources. Scouts and agents admit that projecting the potential of such young children is nearly impossible and that the rush to sign prospects early has led to significant abuses.
### The Problem with Pre-Deals and Corruption in the System
The system's dysfunction begins with "buscones," local trainers and intermediaries who identify talent and help prepare players for professional careers. Buscones have existed in the Dominican Republic since the 1970s, but prior to 2012, the international signing process was an unregulated free-for-all with little oversight and limitless spending.
Signing bonus pools were introduced in 2012 to bring some structure, limiting how much teams could spend on international talent each year. These pools started at $2.9 million and have increased to over $8 million by 2026. While pools and hard caps, added in 2017, were meant to create fairness, they inadvertently encouraged buscones and teams to strike early, informal deals to secure promising players before rivals could intervene.
The corruption runs deep. According to an MLB executive familiar with Latin America, buscones find players as young as 10 and shop them to multiple academies. Players are pushed to develop quickly, sometimes using steroids or falsified birth certificates to appear younger and more talented. Trainers often borrow money to finance development, and loan sharks take as much as 20% of a player's eventual signing bonus. The player's family also loses between 30% and 50% to the trainer.
Since pre-deals often happen years before official signing eligibility, teams frequently back out of agreements due to medical concerns, changes in management, or bonus pool limitations. This leaves buscones unpaid and academies shuttered, while families remain in debt to loan sharks. Players sometimes re-enter the market later but are then deemed too old. Trainers complain that teams act like "cockfighting owners," breaking their word without consequence.
This pattern has worsened in recent years, leading to mistrust on both sides. Teams allege trainers sometimes shop players to multiple teams despite existing agreements to drive up bonuses. This lack of trust is now a major point of contention in looming labor negotiations.
### Calls for Reform: The Debate Over an International Draft
As Major League Baseball prepares for its next collective bargaining agreement (CBA) negotiations, one of the most heated debates centers on international market reform. MLB officials advocate for implementing an international draft, arguing it would end the chaotic free-for-all and eliminate secret pre-deals by assigning players to teams transparently through a draft process.
Proponents say an international draft would create order and fairness. Amaurys Nina, a prominent academy owner who trained stars like Rafael Devers and Eloy Jiménez, admitted he once opposed a draft but now sees it as a potential solution to the current chaos. Nina noted that while a draft might harm the Dominican economy, which depends heavily on baseball, it could eliminate exploitative pre-deals.
However, the MLB Players Association (MLBPA) remains skeptical. They argue that better enforcement of existing rules and stricter punishment for teams violating them could fix the system without the downsides of a draft. Opponents warn that a draft could reduce opportunities for players, limit signing bonuses, and fail to address ongoing corruption, including potential kickbacks between scouts and trainers.
The last attempt to negotiate an international draft occurred in 2022 but failed. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has reiterated his support for a draft, citing transparency as a key benefit, but the players' union continues to resist, emphasizing the need for better policing of illegal practices.
### Challenges in Policing and Representation
One major obstacle to reform is the difficulty of enforcing rules in a system where most agreements are verbal and made years in advance, often leaving no paper trail. MLB spends millions annually on drug testing and age verification but admits it cannot catch every violation. The last major penalty in the international market was over eight years ago, when the Atlanta Braves' former general manager was banned for circumventing signing limits.
Additionally, critics point to a lack of Latino representation in the MLBPA leadership as a factor limiting the union's effectiveness on international issues. Among player representatives from the 30 teams, only a handful are Latino, and very few have direct experience with the international market or minor leagues. The union maintains that it seeks input from players of diverse backgrounds and that its positions reflect broad feedback.
### Efforts in the Dominican Republic to Address the Crisis
Following Ismael Pérez's death, Junior Noboa, director of the Dominican Republic's baseball commissioner's office, launched an initiative to regulate baseball academies, requiring them to meet standards for living conditions, education, and drug testing. From November 2024 to January 2025, more than 400 academies were registered, though Noboa acknowledges this is only a fraction of the true total.
Steroid availability remains a serious problem. Historically, PEDs were easy to obtain over the counter in Dominican pharmacies and training facilities without prescriptions. The Dominican government passed its first law explicitly banning PED use in 2024, with penalties including imprisonment and fines. The law is set to take effect in August 2025, but questions remain about enforcement capacity and resources.
MLB maintains a drug-testing program that subjects signed players to random tests, and the top 150 international prospects receive testing before signing. The league also conducts unannounced tests in academies through independent trainers. While positivity rates in the Dominican Summer League have dropped significantly since MLB began testing in 2005, these figures may not reflect steroid use by younger amateurs before signing.
Some experts estimate that between 30% and 80% of Dominican signees may have received steroids during their early development years. MLB officials say their efforts are limited without local law enforcement cooperation, while Dominican authorities argue MLB must crack down on teams that engage in illegal pre-deals, which drive steroid use.
### The Human Cost: Ismael Pérez and the Hope for Justice
Ismael Pérez was a shy but motivated child who loved playing shortstop and dreamed of reaching the major leagues to support his family. His father, Inoel, recalls Ismael's obsession with baseball from a young age and his promise to "get us out of here." The last memory Inoel has is of his son in the hospital, crying for a hug.
Ismael's death at just 14 years old-though even his exact age is uncertain due to possible falsification of his birthdate-is a stark reminder of the risks faced by young prospects. His family alleges that at the academy of former professional pitcher Yordy Cabrera, Ismael and his brothers were given injections daily, purportedly "vitamins" but believed to be steroids. Cabrera denies any wrongdoing and claims Ismael's death was due to hepatitis B.
The family initially struggled to gain attention from local authorities, filing complaints that went unheeded until national media coverage in November 2024 brought the story to light. This exposure helped trigger regulatory efforts and public outcry but has yet to result in justice or accountability.
The family and their lawyers continue to push for answers and reform, not for financial compensation but to prevent other families from enduring similar tragedies. Ismael's mother tearfully said, "He was willing to do anything. That's what drove him to his death."
### Conclusion
The death of Ismael Ureña Pérez has become a symbol of the pervasive problems embedded in the international baseball scouting and signing system, particularly in the Dominican Republic. As MLB and the MLBPA prepare for intense negotiations over the future of international player signings, the stakes are higher than ever.
The system currently exploits young talent through early, illegal deals, widespread steroid use, and corrupt intermediaries, often leaving families in debt and shattered by loss. While MLB pushes for an international draft to bring order and transparency, the players' union argues for better enforcement of existing rules.
Meanwhile, local efforts in the Dominican Republic to regulate academies and outlaw steroid use represent important but fragile steps toward change. The hope remains that, through reform and vigilance, the next generation of young players will be protected from the abuses that contributed to Ismael's untimely death.
As his family visits his grave weekly, their plea is simple: justice for Ismael and a better, safer future for all aspiring baseball players in the Dominican Republic. Until then, the system remains broken, and the children playing baseball in neighborhoods like San Luis continue to live in its shadow.