 Tuesday, MLB and MiLB passed a milestone of sorts, showing that baseball takes drug testing seriously, while outlining that PEDs are still being used within the sports. Since mandatory drug testing has been instituted at the major league and minor league level of MLB, there have been 203 suspensions. With Arizona Diamondbacks Minor League players Winfild De La Rosa and Ramon Mariano and Kansas City Royals Minor League player Victor Jorge being suspended for PEDs (De La Rosa, a pitcher, and Mariano, a first baseman, tested positive for a metabolite of Boldenone. Jorge, a pitcher, tested positive for metabolites of Stanozolol), there have been 30 minor league players suspended as part of the Minor League Drug Prevention and Treatment Program this year. To place that in perspective, there was a total of 28 minor league players suspended last season. This year has seen a huge influx in the number of players suspended as part of the Dominican Summer League. All told, 21 of the 30 players suspended this year have been part of the league. Since the latest Joint Drug Agreement has been in place, MLB began listing the substances that players have been suspended for. Ten players have been suspended for the metabolite Boldenone. Seven players have been suspended for Stanozolol. Jordan Schafer, a key prospect for the Braves was suspended for a non-analytical positive for hGH. There currently is no valid test for hGH. Thomas Mendoza of the Angels’ Single-A Rancho Cucamonga club tested positive for Amphetamine, a drug MLB deems to be a performance-enhancing substance. The other positives took place before the latest JDA with four PEDs, and one failure to test. All told, over the 203 suspensions 6,775 games have been served. The day with the largest total amount of suspensions was April, 4 2005 when 38 players were suspended as part of the initial wave of suspensions for PEDs. 2005 also saw 89 minor league players suspended – the largest total. The team with the largest number of suspensions? The New York Mets at thirteen. Second, it’s the Seattle Mariners with twelve players between the major and minor leagues. The team with the least number of suspensions for drug violations? The Boston Red Sox with two. Fourteen minor league players have been suspended in the month of August alone. From May 16 to July 25, there were no suspensions. Since the 25th of July there have been 23. See our Drug Violations page for details for each year since 2005.
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