Yankees Minor League Pitcher Suspended & the Game is Still Not Clean

Ladies and gentleman this game that we all know and love called Major League Baseball is not clean and it likely never will be. No matter what penalty you associate with a failed test for drugs, alcohol, steroids or behavior human beings are going to continue being human beings and I think that fact needs to be remembered when the new collective bargaining agreement is talked about and presumably agreed upon this winter. This game is not clean and I don’t believe doubling or even tripling the suspensions again will make it clean. Keep reading.

Four more minor league players have been suspended this week for failed drug tests including one member of the Yankees farm system. Jean Peralta is a pitcher in the Yankees organization and he, Angelo Almonte (Arizona Diamondbacks) and Jose Pinales (Chicago White Sox) all received 72 game suspensions while Wally Vrolijk of the Baltimore Orioles received a 50 game suspension.

Almonte, Peralta and Pinales all tested positive for metabolites of Stanozolol while Vrolijk tested positive for the stimulant Methylhexanamine. With these four suspensions, which all come from the Dominican Summer League just as an FYI, the grand total of minor league suspensions climbs to 61 while under the Major League program there have been 13 suspensions in 2016.

And those numbers will continue to climb. Why? Because 61 have gotten caught in the minor leagues and only 13 in the Major Leagues and you can possibly double, triple or quadruple that and get the amount of players who haven’t been caught and may never get caught. The risk is worth the reward, look at Alex Rodriguez’s annual salary and lifetime earnings if you disagree with that.

This game is not clean ladies and gentleman and it never will be.