A San Diego Superior Court judge on Friday confirmed a tentative ruling that Fernando Tatis Jr. must pay Big League Advance just under $3.74 million, rejecting his attempt to unwind a future-earnings deal he signed as an 18-year-old in the Dominican Republic.
The sum the judge made final on May 22, 2026 includes money Tatis stopped paying after the end of 2023, accrued interest, attorney fees and additional costs. The dispute traces to October 2017, when Big League Advance gave Tatis $2 million in exchange for 10% of his future earnings; that clause would equal $34 million if measured against the 14-year, $340 million contract Tatis signed with the Padres in February 2021.
Earlier proceedings had already gone the firm's way: in May 2025 an arbitrator ruled that Tatis must pay $3.2 million plus $240,515 in attorney's fees. Judge Judy Bae said the player’s effort to nullify the deal came too late and pointed to a longstanding legal principle that timing matters in challenges to arbitration. As she put it, a “party challenging the legality of the entire contract must raise such challenges before arbitration proceedings begin.”
At the same time the judge accepted a key legal claim Tatis made about choice of law. Bae wrote that California law applied despite the contract being negotiated and signed in the Dominican Republic and executed with a Delaware-based company: “Delaware’s interest in this dispute is minimal, because the agreement was negotiated in the Dominican Republic and signed there.” She added that because Tatis performed much of the Player Agreement as a player for the San Diego Padres, “applying the Delaware choice of law provision would be contrary to the public policy of this state.”
That split — ruling for Tatis on governing law while denying his attempt to void the deal — is the central tension in the case. Tatis’s legal team has argued Big League Advance acted as an unlicensed lender using predatory tactics and illegal loans; Maurice Mitts, one of the attorneys involved in those arguments, said at oral argument that “When you’re dealing with an illegal contract, it can and should be reviewed.” But Mitts acknowledged the procedural trap the court described: “The court has an independent obligation to review illegal contracts so long as it was raised before the arbitrator.”
For now, the arithmetic is stark. Big League Advance invested $2 million in October 2017 for 10% of earnings; after Tatis’s $340 million deal with the Padres in February 2021 the firm’s 10% stake translates to $34 million on paper. The immediate, enforceable judgment against Tatis is the amount confirmed this week — the roughly $3.74 million the company sought based on the arbitrator’s award, plus costs the judge upheld.
Tatis announced on Saturday that he plans to take the case higher. “Oh, it’s definitely not over,” he said, and added a broader motive that partly frames his legal fight: “I’m fighting this battle not just for myself but for everyone still chasing their dream and hoping to provide a better life for their family.” He also said, “I want to help protect those young players who don’t yet know how to protect themselves from these predatory lenders and illegal financial schemes — baseball should be about our passion for the game, not dodging shady businesses driven only by profit and greed.”
The next phase is an appeal that will test whether procedural rules about arbitration timing should defeat a challenge that persuaded the judge to apply California law. If Tatis succeeds on appeal, the practical and legal consequences could reach far beyond this judgment: they would affect how future-earnings advances to international prospects are reviewed and whether courts will more readily entertain claims that those deals are unlawful. If his appeal fails, the confirmed judgment and the arbitrator’s award stand, and the larger question of how to police advances to young players will fall back to contract drafters, leagues and regulators rather than the courts.
