Wilder Investigation Tealeaves

Sunday's Tribune had a story (under an unusual joint Gonzalez-Rogers byline) on the Wilder firing: Wilder Story. There's a fair bit of personal stuff on who Wilder was and how hard this is for Williams to take, but there is some hard reporting as well:

Williams and other Sox staffers would not elaborate on details of the investigation because it is ongoing. Williams wouldn't say if financial improprieties were involved, but a source with knowledge of the probe said there were questions regarding the manner in which signing bonuses were distributed to Latin American prospects. Investigators were seeking to determine if Wilder and dismissed scouts Victor Mateo and Domingo Toribio were skimming from those bonus payments.

An MLB investigator confirmed to the Tribune on Saturday that the probe involved skimming and that it currently is limited to the White Sox. 

. . . .

Wilder has been keeping a low profile since rumors of a probe of the Sox's Latin American operations first surfaced. In the statement announcing his dismissal, the Sox said they conducted their own probe before asking Major League Baseball's Department of Investigations to get involved.

The findings, the statement said, have been turned over to federal authorities to see if any federal laws were violated.

When the news first broke, Cheat speculated that the causes were likely to be money, drugs or falsifying immigration documents.  Gonzalez' initial reporting suggested that it was money and now we have a second story confirming the initial speculation. 

If this report is accurate, it may be the best case the Sox could hope for out of this shitty situation.  If the Sox organization had been involved systematically in distributing steroids to prospects (even if done without the knowledge of Williams or Reinsdorf), you have to think that MLB would come down hard and impose penalties on the team.  Similarly, if there were systematic violations of the immigration laws, the Feds would likely want to make the team serve as an example that such hijinks are no longer considered amusing.  However, if what we have here is essentially an embezzlement scam by Wilder and two of his subordinates, that looks like something where the team has been, at least in part, the victim and may not need institutional punishment.

The reports of how this broke are consistent with an embezzlement scheme.  The Sox' spin has been that this is a problem that they turned up internally and then blew the whistle on themselves.  That's usually a pretty smart way to avoid heavy discipline and its the kind of thing I'd expect a clever and experienced lawyer like Reinsdorf to do, especially given his close personal relationship with Selig. 

The timeline seems to have been:  1. Sox develop suspicions and investigate internally; 2. Sox determine they have a serious problem and ask MLB's Department of Investigations to become involved; 3. The Federales are invited to join the party to determine whether any US laws have been violated.  I'm curious to know whose idea it was to get the Feds involved.  Did Reinsdorf and the Sox always see that as a potential end-game or was it something that came as an unpleasant "suggestion" from the MLB guys?

Now, even if I'm right and the team can avoid organizational discipline, this still sucks pretty hard.  At a bare minimum, it looks like the Sox' Dominican operation has been decapitated.  Also, if Wilder really is looking at criminal charges and the Feds start to work him over, there are going to be some very pointed questions about what he knows regarding any skeletons in the Sox closet (and, I guess theoretically, the Brewers or Cubs as well.)  You never know what a guy looking at jail time will suddenly remember in order to cut a deal.  Of course, that's the blindest of speculation and I'm not really worried about it.  What's worse is that guys wearing Sox shirts stole money from a bunch of kids.  You have to think that will be widely discussed throughout the Caribbean and that it could take a long time before our replacement scouts build up any trust in the area.