Free agent outfielder Nate Schierholtz has received an eighty-game suspension after testing positive for a banned performance-enhancing drug, the league announced today. He’ll serve the suspension if and when he joins a new organization.
Schierholtz, 32, spent the early portion of the season at Triple-A with the Tigers but was release in late May. He carried only a .246/.280/.356 batting line over 125 plate appearances at the point of his release, and he hasn’t found another organization since.
An eight-year major league veteran, Schierholtz hasn’t seen the big leagues since 2014, when he spent most of the year with the Cubs before a brief stint with the Nationals. He also made a quick stop with the Phillies, who acquired him from the Giants midway through his sixth year in San Francisco.
Over 2,275 career MLB plate appearances, Schierholtz owns a .253/.302/.405 batting line with 52 home runs. He also spent the 2015 season playing in Japan for the Hiroshima Carp, an experience that he shared this spring with MLBTR’s Zach Links
Damnit Nate, your better than this
That AAA slash line argues otherwise.
Prime candidate for a PED suspension, he had literally nothing to lose and plenty to gain in this.
Evidently not.
Well, he’s probably done for.
That should pretty much end his career.
Was just thinking the same. If he hasn’t been picked up since May, this isn’t gonna help. Does Japan honor the PED punishments handed down?
They don’t have to but I’ve heard some reports that steroids there would be a bigger scandal.
His playing career was pretty much over anyway. Although, he is only 32, so who knows. Stranger things have happened.
And just like Marlon Byrd he done.
You mean He Gone!!!
Well, what a blast from the past..
That 2013 – 21 HR season with Cubs looks mighty suspicion now… I’m sure it was worth it since he got an $2.5 million dollar bump in Arb. that offseason! Cheating definitely pay$ and MLB needs to figure out a solution.
Moral of the story is don’t be a former Phillie. Fourth one suspended this year; Stumpf, Asher, Byrd and now Schierholtz
I agree with Rick Porcello……..you test positive for steroids, you are done for good………life time ban!!!!! And all of these guys with supposed ‘medical exemptions’ like Mike Trout and Chris Davis, if you can’t function as a player without the use of some drug, you should not be a professional athlete. I don’t care if it’s for diabetes or vitamin D deficiency, if you can’t function without it, you should not be in baseball….period!
That seems pretty harsh. If you are required medically to take a drug to live, ie: Metformin per your diabetes example, which has no performance enhancing tributes to it other then to help a person live, I don’t see how you can say “ban them”.
BTW, how is it that a cortisone shot is OK? Isn’t that a performance enhancing drug? Its a steroid designed to help against inflammation..
To be honest, caffeine is a performance enhancing drug. If you don’t believe me, just try going to work without your morning coffee and see how much your performance declines. The whole PED thing is completely overblown in my mind. People focus on the great players that used and just assume that these drugs make you a better player which is not true. They make you stronger, but that doesn’t make you a better baseball player, it makes you a better weightlifter. They help your muscles recover from injury more quickly, which can help you get stronger if used improperly, with potentially some really bad side effects of course. Used properly and administered by a physician, they can theoretically help guys get back from the DL more quickly. But MLB won’t allow that because of the appearance of cheating due to the witch hunters out there.
Have you read Canseco’s book? He described what he took as helping his reflex speed, i.e. increasing his bat speed.
I would be highly skeptical of anything Jose Canseco writes or says. The man is a compulsive liar and egotist.
Just look at the names on the Mitchell report. 95% of them are guys that were marginal major leaguers or worse. Neifi Perez was on that report. Drugs don’t make you better. They might help you recover better over a long season, which is an argument that is acceptable, But players have been using those kinds of drugs for decades and decades even superstars like Willie Mays and Hank Aaron.
Oh yeah and Canseco had nothing to gain at all by stretching the truth. You know except more book sales. and notoriety.
Here’s the rub….you say under Dr.. care should be OK but anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS) and hGh are only legal when prescribed for certain conditions. Helping a ball player recover is not one of them. The thing with all PED’s is the possible side effects and long term damage. One player who does not care about the risk of liver or kidney damage from AAS or nerve or joint pain/damage as well as possible growth of cancer cells in some high risk people (studies are ongoing) can gain an advantage via AAS in muscle mass growth which does effect batted ball speed which in turn effects distance etc. Of course one must start with ability but is it fair for one player with ability to gain an advantage over another because player #1 is willing to risk a stroke and player #2 is not?
Start with work done in 2007 by physicist Roger Tobin regarding the effects and the research other studies. Also as far as Jose…there are animal studies that show an increase in reflexes/response time as well as some studies showing improved eyesight with certain broth hormones. I am not sure if I have them still saved to my PC but if I do I will post the info
Wait……..if you have to take a drug to live, that in itself is performance enhancing, otherwise you die…right? If you have a medical condition that without medication or drugs requires you to take it on a regular basis, then you should not be a professional athlete and should find another form of income. The stakes are very high for players and the line gets fuzzy between drugs needed to live and drugs needed to perform. Why in the world would Chris Davis need an adderol prescription…is he taking a math test at the end of each game…..!!!
I agree fully. A player like Davis is given a green light even though he uses a medication to allow him to focus. It’s still a form of cheating. Not sure about the diabetes thing, though.
Davis has ADD and needs to his medication to level him out with the average person. If you or I take adderall (or whatever Davis is taking) we would be able to perform things we’ve never been able to before, but when Davis takes his medication, he levels his playing field with everyone else. Cheating is gaining an unfair advantage, Davis gains no advantage by taking his medication.
What a ridiculous argument. I guess if a guy gets a headache and takes a Tylenol then he should be banned for life. If you doubt me, go and try to hit a 95 mph fastball with a headache.
As far as diabetes and any other illness goes, just shut up. Nothing more needs to be said about that and you make yourself sound worse will every syllable.
Double Thumbs Up!
The argument is not ridiculous when you consider it is the focus’ on players who have the potential to make hundreds of millions of dollars and can change the outcome of baseball history. .The comment is directed to those people taking medication on a regular basis….daily! that allows them to perform at a level different than if they didn’t take it. It’s one thing if you need an aspirin for a headache…it’s another thing to take a medication for ADD or any other alleged condition that changes how you perform. Having more or less focus is huge when a 94 mph fastball is bearing down on you and you have about 0.1 seconds to adjust your swing.
What medical exemption does Trout have?
He has a medical exemption for adderol and a steroidal compound. for anxiety.
It’s true…. Even if you’re one of the best baseball players in the world, you should either have to choose between playing baseball, or dying because your body can’t properly process sugars without the assistance of insulin….
Jeff,
Could you or others explain to me how a person not on a major or minor league roster can be subject to a drug test? Seems rather bizarre to me, but with all the strange things that go on in MLB, I suppose nothing should surprise me.
I was thinking the same thing. Who gives him the drug test when he is basically unemployed at the moment? Although I guess until he files retirement papers, he is still a member of the MLBPA and subject to their rules and regulations.
My guess: this is a test given when he was on the Tigers AAA team, it took awhile to test and then re-test (backup sample), and then Schierholtz appealed it, which took even more time. Completely a guess, as I can’t see how an inactive player would be subject to random drug testing.
Here’s a question of my own: doesn’t the fact that Schierholtz got an 80-game ban mean that he failed at least once before?
every player on a team s 40 man and every single FA is subject to all mandatory and random testing both urine tests and blood test for hGH. During the off season players must keep MLB informed of there whereabouts (i’e’ if the are vacationing they let MLB know) for random testing…the same goes for FA’s. Until a FA retires he is subject to testing.
80 games are the first offense now. It goes 80, 162, life. It used to be 50, 100, life, but they upped it recently.
And it may change again. The JDA isn’t part of the CBA and is reviewed and/or modified every offseason.
Good question….I was wondering the same thing.
He wasn’t playing for a team, and he tested positive. Did they go to his house?
Basically yes…just like off season testing for players. Players need to keep MLB informed of their travels and the testers show up unannounced.
Maybe he was tested back in May. It takes awhile for these things to go through the process.
If he’s not with an organization and hasn’t been, nor in the majors in awhile, why and for how long do you continue to be tested?
He tested positive in the minors, probably, and went through the standard appeals process is probably the answer here.
Until he is no longer a FA
Honestly never been a fan of Nate even when he was with SF. He always complained about not getting enough playing time but was never consistent enough to earn it.
However it makes me sad to see this happen to a fringe player. All the guy wanted to do was play baseball. It wasn’t playing out for him so it doesn’t surprise me as a last ditch effort someone takes a shot at it.
I’ve always been against PEDs and this crap where one guy gets a medical exemption and another doesn’t is really weird to me. I mean you can shop doctors until one says “oh yeah you need this”. There needs to be consistency. I hope that MLB takes another look at this and makes the rules more uniform and realistic perhaps relaxes some of the rules on some substances.
There is just way too much info regarding the protocols for TUE’s (Therapeutic Use Exemption) to post here. I suggest reading page 7 and 20 of the JDA (available on the MLB site). I will say that to get a TUE a play need to be diagnosed by a MLB certified Dr, and the info is then reviewed by the IPA (Independent Program Admin.). The IPA may pass the info to the Medical Advisory Board or rule on it himself. There have been instances of an approved Dr. or IPA being let go due to shadiness. The most famous was A-Rod’s TUE for testosterone in 2007. The IPA was asked to leave and the Dr. booted from the program when his TUE was rejected the following year.
With these free agents that have bans attatched to them(Scheirholtz, Jared Burton, Jose Valverde) when or if they sign with a team, do they immediately have to sit down and wait out the suspension?
Yes…if the sign the suspension begins when their regular season begins.