Johan Rojas has filed a grievance with the Major League Baseball Players Association against his agent, Yasser Mendez and and Rep 1 Baseball, who employed Mendez at the time of the alleged violations. Rep 1 Baseball has since been purchased by Klutch Sports Group, which is not mentioned in the grievance. While Rojas is the first to file a grievance, he may not be the last. The grievance was first reported by The Athletic.

Mendez allegedly advised Rojas to take out two advances against his future major league salaries and then persuaded him to invest more than $450,000 in a Venezuelan based baseball academy owned by Mendez. Allegedly, Mendez advised Rojas that the investment in the 4Pro Academy would more than make up for the 25-percent of his salary that Rojas had committed to paying back the advances. Rojas also alleges that the money was supposed to also cover his tax liabilities in 2020 and 2022. The tax payments were not enough to cover the taxes in 2020 and there were no tax payments made in 2022. In all, Rojas was advanced $875,000 by Mendez. The agreements were made in 2019 and 2022 when Rojas was playing in the minors.

Klutch Sports Group still represents Rojas and confirmed to The Athletic that Mendez had been fired from the company in 2024 and that they were unaware of the allegations until confronted by Rojas. Another person named in the grievance is Chris Koras, who was the COO of Rep 1 and now heads up the baseball division for Klutch.

Rojas’ attorney, Michael Strauss declined to comment to The Athletic. Attorney Andrew Latack, who represents Klutch, Rep 1 Baseball, and Koras, responded to the grievance by accusing Rojas and Strauss of “an unsuccessful eight-month effort to extort Klutch out of $7.5-million.” He further responded that Mendez “discouraged Rojas from taking any payments against his future earnings and that Rojas voluntarily and eagerly participated in the investments.”

The MLBPA also declined to comment on the investigation or respond to other questions from The Athletic.