Braves outfielder Hector Olivera has accepted an 82-game suspension, without pay, under Major League Baseball’s domestic violence policy, the league announced earlier this afternoon. Olivera’s suspension is retroactive to April 30 and will run through Aug. 1. The time he’s served on paid leave from April 30 until now will be retroactively credited toward the suspension, and any pay he has received in that time will be revoked. All told, the suspension will cost him roughly $2.03MM of this season’s $4MM salary. Olivera has accept the punishment and will not file an appeal.
Olivera, 31, was arrested on April 13 and charged with one count of misdemeanor assault and battery. The victim reportedly called 911 the morning of the arrest and told police that she had been assaulted, and she was taken to the hospital with visible bruising. Olivera’s punishment is the strictest yet under Major League Baseball’s newly implemented policy. Aroldis Chapman received a 30-game suspension in his case due to the fact that he was not arrested and criminal charges were never filed. Jose Reyes, meanwhile, received a 51-game ban after criminal charges were reportedly dropped shortly before he faced a criminal hearing. Charges against Olivera, however, have seemingly not been dropped, which is presumably the impetus for commissioner Rob Manfred’s most aggressive suspension to date.
A year ago, Olivera was a highly touted Cuban free agent and agreed to a six-year, $62.5MM contract with the Dodgers that included a gaudy $28MM signing bonus. However, Olivera’s stay in the Dodgers organization didn’t last long, as he was traded to the Braves as part of a three-team, 13-player blockbuster that sent Mat Latos, Alex Wood and Jose Peraza to the Dodgers, with Olivera, Paco Rodriguez and Zachary Bird going to Atlanta. The Braves reportedly held quite a bit of interest in Olivera while he was a free agent, but he quickly fell out of favor in the organization due to defensive questions about his work at third base. Atlanta moved Olivera to the outfield, but he’s yet to deliver much in the way of offense since being acquired. He’s batted .245/.296/.378 in the Majors.
That, of course, is secondary to his off-field troubles. The Braves are troubled enough by his transgressions that they’ve reportedly attempted to trade him. Unsurprisingly, they’ve had little success. How much he’ll factor into Atlanta’s plans moving forward, or whether he will at all, remains to be seen.
Maybe if the bad boys add up the dollars lost by Chapman, Reyes and Olivera, they will get the message.
The problem is in the heat of the moment these guys aren’t thinking about the consequences…something needs to be done to change their mindset…
Yeah. It’s called don’t hit a woman….
A few prominent wallet-ectomies like these should cool them off some.
Unfortunately that hasn’t really been the case in steroid abuse which has lead to players calling for stricter punishments. An 82 game punishment for domestic violence though does seem like a good move.
Point taken though with PEDs, MLB was so far behind that curve, it isn’t surprising how they got baked into the culture of the game and are now difficult to get out. I believe the idea behind this tough domestic violence policy is to not let that happen again on this issue. We’ll see if it works. In the meantime I think MLB is doing the right thing by taking this zero-tolerance approach.
Not at all. Losing money will not change/fix any if this. They could face prison time for their actions, but yo think a rich guy llosing some money is going to solve the issue?
They can face prison time if they are convicted of a crime. Whether or not a player is convicted of a crime, baseball can still look after the integrity of the game. I don’t care how much you make, a lot or a little, if you get docked half a year’s salary you are going to notice. Will it cure the problem? Not entirely, but surely some. It’s naive to believe it will have no impact at all.
Don’t be drunk and out at 4 in the morning.
Sorry guys; These guys are too old to learn. You forget they “ALL” come from countries that the act of hitting a woman is okay Is actually a right of his. Here’s some history: Up until about 75/100 years ago it was a right MEN of this country expected as well. (actually more like 50 yrs). Anyway just to show how hard it is to change the natural ease of hitting wives and children , check on JOE TORRES website. He has a system set up in some schools to teach that hitting is unacceptable, AND THIS IS HAPPENING NOW,
Wow. Whatever their investigation turned up must’ve been pretty not good.
Honestly it is the best thing for Atlanta and MLB. Reyes and Chapman, while I am not condoning what they did, have proven themselves prior to making mistakes. Olivera has been here 10 minutes and does this. I am not saying because his stats or their stats determine anything. But this should be a wake up call to drop him and prove to all that because you are a millionaire athlete, you are not above the law.
Two words. Guaranteed Contracts. If he is dropped, all the Braves have proven is that they will pay him to do whatever he so chooses.
Braves will pay to protect their pride (i.e. Uggla, giving up Kimbrel to rid us of Upton, Kawakami, remember trading a hotheaded Yunel Escobar back in the day).
This guy had the same agent as Guerrero and apparently is a similar player, but with character problems.
No wonder the team emptied out the previous international scouting department.
Don’t forget Arruebarrena and his two suspensions. It’s like the Dodgers hit the jackpot on their first try with Puig and then squandered the surplus value they won by continuing to play the same slot machine until all their winnings were gone.
“Domestic violence” is not the right wording for this situation, though. For this to be called as such, that woman and Olivera had to have been living together, which I don’t find to be the case.
I just got curious, so I looked it up on the official announcement page on MLB. According to MLB.com, Olivera violated Major League Baseball’s Joint Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Policy.
To be classified as domestic violence has nothing to do with living together…often the legal definition involves a past or current intimate relationship…
I don’t understand these … Well some Cuban players highly overpaid.. And still manage to mess up… I feel for them… Probably back in Cuba didn’t have enough morals or ethics… And come here thinking it can be the same
Do you understand the Amercans that get charged with Domestic Abuse?? Just a question for ya
You’re looking at these situations with blinders on. The world doesn’t revolve around baseball. Take a look at domestic violence in the entire US. Many Hispanics are into the machismo thing(me not included) but all races and ethnicities are having this issue.
That’s what I stated a few Cubans baseball players… Didn’t go into stereotype the whole nation… El duque and Livan were good guys off the field… It is about humility…
Learn how to use an ellipses.
To imply that being Cuban somehow predisposes these men to domestic violence completely ignores the fact that thousands of people, of all races, are convicted of domestic violence each year.
You’re looking at a sample of three baseball players when you should be looking at the entirety of the country (or the world, if you’d like to go on a grander scale). The fact is that human beings are almost all capable of awful acts. I say that not in any way to condone Olviera’s actions — I’d have preferred a more strict punishment, truthfully — but to point out that this is not a question of ethnicity. You don’t have to go that far back in MLB history to find white men who did similar things (Brett Myers, Bobby Cox), and a quick Google search or just opening your local newspaper will probably point you to many more cases.
Making that kind of generalization is frankly just lazy and short-sighted.
I disagree and feel the opposite.
Ridiculous and absurd amount of time.
Conduct completely and totally outside of the game should be 30 games at the maximum.
Very disappointed in Manfred.
I agree. It’s a ridiculous and absurd amount of time. He should have been suspended as long as his case is pending and then, after that case is settled, suspended for half a season on top it, with time not served.
“Clown analysis bro” – Royce Harper probably
Still haven’t heard what he did exactly to warrant the suspension. Is there a police report anywhere online?
Usually there’s not much online until after a conviction but it all depends on the locale.
Did you read the article? It is written right there what he is accused of doing and what some of the evidence is.
There is no evidence.
Fly on the wall?
I’m glad it’s over with and we can move on, I hope this clown gets booed out of every stadium he plays in and I hope he gets drilled by the next guy that pitches to him
When Aroldis Chapman came on to pitch his first game for the Yankees he received a standing ovation and the scoreboard played a video of his greatest hits, plus fireworks and such. I doubt Olivera will get that treatment but nobody is going to do anything bad to him.
I’m sure there is one greatest hit they left out…
That’s the opposite of it being over with and moving on
Release him. Screw the money. There’s no excuse for that.
Tell me about how Bobby Cox is cool though…
I won’t. Sadly if you’re good enough at what you do people want to forget and you get forgiven. Ask Floyd Mayweather or Darryl Washington. It’s never ok.
So a 1st time domestic violence violation leads to an 82 game suspension. However, a 1st time PED violation only leads to 50 games! I am not saying that 82 games is unfair (I think it is fine), however if this is the new standard, MLB really needs to up the ante on PED offenders.
All PED’s? Amphetamines? Stacks? HGH? Prohormones? Steroids? It’s that simple huh?
It’s worse because when people do peds, they are cheating at a game. When they commit domestic violence, they are putting lives at risk
While it’s been noted that these incidents happen in the heat of the moment, hopefully what these relatively harsh penalties do is get these guys to avoid putting themselves in these kinds of situations.
Well, that’s progress– in terms of punishment, that is. Real progress, of course, would be these incidents not happening to begin with.
Why do certain stories like this one get bumped up to top and get marked as unread (not greyed out) in the app?
Soxfan, I too would like to know the answer to your question
I think it got edited or updated?
Looks like it went from a post with multiple updates as the story broke to a single piece without the multiple time stamps. I don’t mind it.
No, there have been zero changes unless they were subtle edits.
We often use timestamps to add new info as a story develops, then re-write it all — which mostly involves moving pieces around and integrating them into the overall piece.
We’ll also bump items to the top of the page when they are significant and have been buried by lesser stories, which may well have been the case here.
Interesting, just curious. Ty.
So what is going to be the norm for this? I mean, Reyes didn’t get nearly as much time.
The charges against Reyes were dropped, once his wife decided not to pursue it, they couldn’t come down as hard as they wanted to. Looks like there’s going to be a lot more coming to Olivera legally speaking and I imagine the severity of his violence was greater, though thats my speculation, Give all that, the punishment was tougher. Chapman’s incident was far less serious, thus; 30 games. I think MLB is right to handle this on a case by case basis. rather then handing out 50 games without examining each case.
Ridiculous and absurd amount of time.
Conduct completely and totally outside of the game should be 30 games at the maximum.
Very disappointed in Manfred.