Fernando Tatis Jr.'s 80 game suspension for performance enhancing drugs was reported byJeff Passan. There is a time and a place for this.
The baseball world was shocked Friday afternoon when it was learned that one of the game's bright young stars, Fernando Tatis Jr., had tested positive for a performance-enhancer and was banned for 80 games.
The star infielder, who had already emerged as one of the faces of the sport, was close to returning from a wrist injury that had kept him out all season. The San Diego Padres were eagerly awaiting his return after he was traded for Juan Soto. The Padres' hopes of winning the title have been diminished.
There is a lot more to this.
There are a lot of questions regarding the Padres and MLB.
The basics are that Tatis' 80 game suspension will last through the remaining 48 regular season games. If the Padres get to the playoffs, how long it will last will depend on how deep they play. The Dominican Republic will not be able to field a team in the World Baseball Classic.
One of the most captivating stars in the game, but over the course of his first four seasons, he will have played in only 273 regular season games. He missed the last seven weeks of the season because of a stress reaction in his lower back, spent all of 2020 dealing with a left shoulder injury, and will be out of football for the entire of 2022.
He said he took a medication to treat ringworm that contained Clostebol, but he didn't know it.
"I would rather be on the field competing with my teammates than anywhere else in the world," he wrote. I decided to serve my suspension immediately after I realized that my mistake was the cause of the result. I will rejoin my teammates on the field in 2023.
This does not get any more deflating. Go back 10 days ago, when fans lined up outside the stadium to get in for a game against the Rockies. It was bigger than that, because the Padres were at the moment, but of what they would be soon, and it was a big deal.
The Padres stripped their farm system bare while in pursuit of Soto and others because they saw an opportunity to go for it. He was back in the lineup and they thought he was a championship contender. They saw a team that could compete with the Yankees, Dodgers, Mets, Astros, and any of the other teams in the game.
One of the biggest trades in baseball history was the move of Juan Soto to San Diego. You have to know what to know about the deal.
It means a lot for the Padres.
There are grades for Padres and Nationals.
The Padres will be a good team. Trent Grisham continues to be a mainstay in center field and Ha-seong Kim continues to provide stellar defense at the infield as they are considered likely to make the playoffs. It will be different. This is not a franchise that can absorb a lot of these.
The Padres have taken a major leap of faith, investing heavily in the major league roster with the hope that the local fans will rally around them. In many ways, Tatis was an embodiment of that approach. He was given a 14-year, $340 million extension in February of 2021. They put together a roster around him. He'll miss all of 2022, because he hasn't acted in a responsible way, and because he hasn't lived up to his end of it.
"We fully support the program and are hopeful that Fernando will learn from this experience," the Padres statement said. Preller spoke to reporters in Washington, D.C. and mentioned trust issues.
It's a black mark for the game when a star player is busted for cheating. It's up there with the previous ones for Alex Rodriguez and others. He means a lot to the sport.
The type of athlete Major League Baseball wants to market is bilingual. It's not possible to say how much stigma this will cause for the rest of his career. His image might not recover completely.
Clostebol has been on MLB's banned list since 2003 when it began testing for steroids. Dee Gordon had a batting title and a positive test for Closte Bol. Freddy Galvis had a positive test for it.
The only player in major league history with at least 80 home runs and 50 stolen bases within the first 300 games of their career is the larger-than-life Tatis. Moises Alou, who missed the 1999 season because of a tornACL, was one of the others.
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