The baseless story on Jake Arrieta's rise to ace status was taken off the sports pages today by the announcement of another 80 game PED suspension.
The Marlins Dee Gordon was suspended by MLB for using banned substances. Gordon, who had a career year in 2014 with the Dodgers, signed a big money deal with the Marlins, a 5 year $50 million extension. Gordon failed a drug test for use of banned substances exogenous testosterone and clostebol.
ESPN's Buster Olney remarked that Gordon’s suspension serves only as further proof that the potential
reward for using PEDs far outweighs the risks. The Marlins did not know if
Gordon was using PEDs during his All Star seasons with the Dodgers. But the team will still owe Gordon
roughly $48 million despite the suspension. And that is the crux of the problem: even after a suspension, the team owes the balance of the player contract. Olney recalls that
early in his career, Gordon struggled to simply to stay in
the Major Leagues after being relegated to the bench and changing
positions. Players in similar situations can
certainly look to Gordon’s situation and see the temptation of using banned
substances in order to get to their goal of being a major league player.
MLB thought it had swept the drug abuse issue under the rug with stricter minor league testing programs and more through major league tests. Ken Rosenthal remarks that many players continue to voice their concern that every player gets their reputation hit by every new suspension. With a new collective bargaining agreement on the horizon, the players' union may have concede greater player punishments or concessions in order to stem the tide of bad public relations. Some players have suggested a two-year ban, though
Rosenthal himself wonders if at a certain point the MLBPA will change its steadfast position to
allow some or all of a player’s long-term contract to be voided by PED
usage. Player agents' will strongly lobby against such a move. It could lead to more adversarial arbitration if a player 's contract was to be voided for a failed drug test, but the player claims to have never taken a banned substance. The Ryan Braun denials and abuse of the test taker shed a horrible light on everyone involved in the drug testing program. MLB does not want to have a constant turnstyle of PED arbitration cases.
But the temptation to cheat is great because the major league salary levels continue to increase.In 2015, the average major league salary was $3,386,212. In 2016, the minimum major league salary was $511,000. So, even bench players seeking the major league minimum make more than the average fan in the stands still have an incentive to cheat.
