Several news organizations are reporting that there is going to be a major fall out from the Biogenesis scandal. The Florida "anti-aging" clinic has allegedly been connected to several high profile major league players. The allegations are that several MLB players connected to this clinic may have received banned performance enhancing substances.
ESPN has reported that the league may suspend approximately 20 players as a result of its investigation. An investigation which has been criticized, in part, because MLB sued the clinic's founder in order to subpoena medical records. There were also allegations that MLB may have "purchased" medical records from ex-employees, which would be in violation of federal and state health privacy laws.
The league is looking to suspend these players for 100 games, the penalty for a second offense. Many players on the suspect list have not been officially hit with a first offense conviction. MLB is trying to tag multiple violations into one charge to get the severe penalty. Everyone expects the the union and the player agent to fight the charges including litigation outside the collective bargaining agreement's drug testing policy.
The stakes are enormous. The league is still under the gun from Congress who pushed the owners to clean up their sport after the steroid era. The threat of Congressional oversight into baseball operations gives ownership the incentive to act quickly and harshly against alleged violators. On the other hand, the players are subject to 100 games without pay and tarnished reputations which will impact their income after their careers.
It would be unprecedented for the league to suspend an entire All-Star caliber roster. But that is where the sport is heading when at least 10 players have refused to answer league officials questions on this matter.
The trade deadline is only three weeks away. The timing of the proposed suspensions (and subsequent appeal hearings) can dramatically impact the divisional races and playoff series. If you are the general manager on a contending team with a player that is being tied to Biogenesis scandal, do you hedge your bets to find a quality replacement player prior to the deadline? Will that give Sellers a greater advantage this year?
The league is trying to send another message to the players that PEDs do not belong in baseball. But since the big money long term deals are all based upon high performance, players will be tempted to boost their skills by using PEDs. Many polls indicate that the fans really don't care that much about the steroid scandal. However, youth sports officials continue to worry that the PEDs in pro sports continue to work their way down through college and high school athletes, which is a dangerous, unsupervised situation.
