I know the draft pick penalty goes away the day of the next MLB draft (June 3, iirc), doesn't the financial penalty go away too?
That’s an interesting point. Due to how international signees are essentially locked up way ahead of time, most teams probably know exactly which prospect they’d be unable to sign if they lost the $500k. That’s unlike the draft pick loss, which I think some teams rationalize with the attitude “you can’t miss what you never had”.