BRADENTON, Fla. - Earlier this month, John Dreker broke the news that the Pirates had signed South Korean shortstop prospect Ji-Hwan Bae, who had previously agreed to a deal with the Atlanta Braves before seeing the deal voided. I've recently learned that the Pirates ended up signing Bae for a total in the ballpark of $1.25 M, with that spending coming from their 2017-18 bonus pool.
The Braves were limited to spending $300,000 on any one player, but tried to circumvent those rules with illegal deals that paid a player more than the listed signing. Bae was signed for $300,000, and the Braves tried to give him an extra $600,000 on top of that.