Former Padres Slugger Eric Hosmer Says MLB Needs Stricter Penalties for PED Use

The San Diego Padres are off to a hot start this season as they are one of only two teams in MLB to notch 11 wins, but their recent success isn't the only major story in baseball this year.

Former beloved Padres outfielder Jurickson Profar inked a three-year $42 million deal with the Atlanta Braves after a career year in 2024, but just four games into the new season with his new team, he tested positive for a banned substance and is serving an 80 game suspension.

Cheating in baseball has unfortunately been around for many years, with steroid use, sports gambling, and other factors attempting to dirty the game.

Another former Padres player, Eric Hosmer, believes that he has a solution to the performance-enhancing drugs problem in baseball.

“The only way that this game gets cleaned up and these guys don’t risk 80-game suspensions for another couple years on the back end is to take away guaranteed money,” Hosmer said. “You have to take it away.”

The current MLB policy is that a salary is docked only across the length of the suspension.

“If you tell me that I have $110 million on the line for these next three years and I could possibly lose that, I’m not even thinking (about risking a suspension),” Hosmer said. “So for me, I think that’s the only way to clean up the game in this way.”

Profar is still guaranteed about $37 million of his deal, just as superstar Fernando Tatis Jr. had none of his deal impacted after serving an 80-game suspension.

Hosmer expressed his admiration for Profar, but also knows where the outfielder may have been coming from, despite claiming he unknowingly took the foreign substance.

“This is not saying what he did was OK,” Hosmer said, “(but) when you are an older player and you want something so bad and you feel that you are on to something, making swing changes. … Jurickson got to a point where he had a couple of injuries and he just felt like if he was healthy, he knows that he can take this into a full season and produce. That happened."

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