4:45pm: Urias has been placed on seven-day administrative leave, per Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times (Twitter link). That’s standard procedure as the commissioner’s office gathers facts surrounding the incident, and it’s typical for that leave to be extended in multiple seven-day increments as the investigation is ongoing. Urias will be paid while on leave, though if he is ultimately punished in the form of a suspension under the league’s domestic violence policy, that pay and any service time accrued can be rescinded.
9:33am: Dodgers pitcher Julio Urias was arrested last night, according to a report from TMZ Sports. The 22-year-old was seen “arguing with a female companion” and allegedly “shoved her to the ground.”
Though the identity of the alleged victim is not known, Urias is said to have been arrested on suspicion of “misdemeanor domestic battery.” The report suggests that the victim denied any physical altercation, but that police made the arrest based upon eyewitness accounts and video evidence.
It’s obviously disturbing to learn of these allegations. Until more is known, it would be unwise to speculate on possible legal jeopardy or MLB punishment. The league has not yet announced anything regarding this matter, but it seems possible that it will be investigated under the MLB-MLBPA Joint Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Policy.
Hopefully it gets figured out sooner rather than later. Someone needs to be a mentor to these young guys.
Like, oh I don’t know, maybe their parents?
So you need a mentor to not abuse women? im 23 and I did not need a mentor to learn this. Its basic human code.
Chill and show empathy little bros. Coming from abusive families/situations full of trauma is a savage thing to figure out how to get past.
You are not you, you are a combination of the genetic predisposition and behaviors the people you spent the most time with growing up told you were acceptable. The worst behaviors are rare ones that only come out occasionally so you never get chance to be told they are unacceptable till its too late.
It’s still always wrong, but the simplistic take that their is some innate human code is Kindergarten logic.
sounds like a cop out to me
Maybe have some empathy for the woman he shoved. And I’m not your “lil bro,” dude.
B fn S! PERSONAL accountability is lost!
Aw, poor kid. He shoved that girl to the ground on a concrete sidewalk because no one ever mentored him. And then the mean cop came and picked on him for it.
Why can’t these man babies learn to use their words and keep their hands to themselves?
“Man babies”, as you called them, have existed since the dawn of time. They come from all walks of life and not just athletes. Not even restricted to the male population either. Idiots have used physical force against other humans for years. The legal term is assault and battery. There are many different degrees to the offense. Sadly it will never be stopped. Only can be punished. Punishment should be severe.
Assault and battery are too different legal terms, actually.
“Too” and “Two” are two different words.
not trying to be the grammar police but people who dont know the difference between to too two and there and their irk me
They’re you go again!
Their you go again bringing up the grammar deficiencies of two many people and there inability top differentiate between the meaning of to or more words….
And the bullpen gets worse and worse
Amazing that the Dodger’s FO hasn’t addressed the BP. In fact, quite the opposite dumping Tony Watson whose been doing super.
He’s young. There’s time.
The Dodgers bullpen is not bad because they let Watson go
Curious why you guys lock comments for every article about Addison Russell but not Urias?
Give it time, this will be locked also once it starts to get ridiculous comments in here
As we’ve explained dozens of times before, we close comments when it becomes apparent that it is too significant a drain on our resources to monitor the discussion to keep it within our commenting policy. If that happens here, we’ll close it.
We will also have a zero tolerance policy for any vile comments or any attempt to draw political discussion into the board. (To be clear: your account will be banned.)
Jeff, I extend my sympathies for the many, many more times you will have to keep answering different versions of the same question going forward.
For future reference, helps to leave out condescending phrases like “as weve explained dozens of times before” as if it’s the users fault theyve missed times this has been explained to others.
Idk why users asking a legit question should feel bad they weren’t there or didnt have an account when other times this has come up. That’s how you lose an audience.
Get it. Youre tired of explaining it. But if you want people to continue to use your website youre gonna have to explain stuff to new users or people who missed stuff.
Wasn’t trying to smack down anybody so much as make clear our position on the matter, while dealing with a bunch of other things I’m working on right now. But I agree. Not my intention to be condescending.
Your position on the matter seems very clear and also reasonable. However, along these lines, a reasonable conversation about domestic violence among athletes and how it should be handled is an important conversation for us to have. Perhaps it is best to place your policy clearly as a disclaimer in the article/posting itself.
That’s a good suggestion. We’ll consider coming up with some standard language that we can put in a post or in the comments.
Gotcha. Wasn’t aware it had been explained.
No problem. Sorry if that came across as snappy.
Ohhh man we’ve got a new nickname for ya Jeff. “Jeff (The Snapper) Todd”. Or just “Snapper” for short! Hehehe.
Recognizing that board moderation is a time vampire and can be a no-win situation, the zero-tolerance policy isn’t always as apparent as you might hope. I report posts only when they go way over the line, and I see that these reports don’t aways result in a post deletion.
We look at all comments that are reported but they aren’t automatically deleted because they are reported. Appreciate your efforts.
I appreciate the work you guys put in to keep this a pure baseball site.
It’s good to know that all reports are reviewed. I wouldn’t expect anything (else) to be automatic but I would have thought the last one I reported would be clearly in violation of any policy, especially if it’s zero tolerance. It was really nasty and was encouraging responses in kind. Another vote for the suggestion that the policy be made more clear.
Jeff, a serious suggestion. Why not just have a site wide policy of no comments on domestic abuse cases? Post the article with comments disabled and a note at the bottom restating the policy. In the end, virtually everyone here wants to talk about baseball.
Because the reason for closing comments on some posts isn’t that we don’t want to allow discussion of that topic, it’s that too many people have (in some cases) proven unable to do so within the bounds of our site’s commenting standards. That would probably be the easier route, though.
Are there other crimes (aside from domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse) for which MLB intercedes to impose a fine, suspension or ban? Does MLB’s disciplinary code distinguish between behaviors that reflect poorly on its product and behaviors that are actually criminal?
There’s also a specific policy covering drugs. Suspensions under those policies aren’t tied to the criminal code or to the action/inaction of state/federal law enforcement/prosecutors.
Otherwise, it’s the commissioner’s prerogative to act in “the best interests of baseball,” subject to challenge before an independent arbitrator (and perhaps a court thereafter).
Yeah you guys clearly are biased towards certain teams. No comments allowed for Larry Baer or Addison Russell but have a Dodger do the same thing and the comments are on. You could at least TRY to be impartial
innocent until proven guilty
If this incident does become subject to the MLB/MLBPA domestic violence policy the process won’t be anything like a trial. It’s a policy, not a law.
certianly, but our resonable judgements do not need to be subject to such rules. if the person is not found guilty by a court of law, unless there was an evident miscarriage of justice, it is in the public’s best interest to believe such judgement.
We seem to have this same discussion whenever these incidents arise. The chances this lands in a court for trial are zero to none. The likelihood that it is addressed by the internal player conduct policies of MLB is practically 100%. So I think I will go with the latter over the former.
@Darkside
As someone who works in law enforcement and has first hand experience, it is VERY common for us to know 100% that a crime has occurred and either not have enough support from a prosecutor or not have enough clear and objective proof for a conviction, especially with uncooperative victims like you often find in DV cases.
Also, only egregious crimes end in a conviction until you’ve been arrested about a dozen times. He’ll get a reduction to a non-misdemeanor like everyone else.
Plea deals are an admission of something. And depending on what that something is, MLB acts accordingly. Also, damage done to the target of an alleged attack seems to factor into the decision by MLB.
If there’s actually video of this: Bye Julio
Addison Russell has been abusing his wife for years and he’s still in baseball. Osuna too. It appears more likely this will go away in two weeks because people still don’t care
Both players you mentioned served lengthy suspensions. We don’t know the facts, but this obviously doesn’t look good for Urias.
This kind of thing never looks good either for the player or the sport, but keep in mind one of the few things we know about this one is the charge against Urias is a misdemeanor, a minor offense. If that continues to be the case then the likely legal outcome is paying a fine. The more serious outcome could well be the commissioner’s judgement under the Domestic Violence policy. Those reviews have led to many suspensions but nobody has been thrown out of the game and a lot of accusations against other players were far more serious than what we’ve heard so far about Urias.
It differs state to state, but in NY a misdemeanor is still up to one year in jail or 3 years probation. I wouldn’t consider that “minor” like I would a violation which is max 14 days jail.
I’m not a lawyer and I don’t play one on the internet, but a dictionary I can read. In the dictionary, a misdemeanor is defined as a “minor wrongdoing.” More serious than an infraction, and less serious than a criminal offense.
Guys all get arrested if the cops are called.
Too bad to see this. The kid has overcome a lot to get where he is – and the dodger organization has always treated him very well, all the way down to the cosmetic surgery.
FWIW, the surgery on his eyelid wasn’t really cosmetic as I understand it. The eyelid couldn’t be opened more than about halfway and affected his vision.
Anyway, this story broke all of about an hour ago. With few facts known it would be wise to withhold judgement. Wait at least until MLB and the Dodgers release a statement.
like any situation, lets reserve judgements until we find out exactly what happened. TMZ is very adept in jumping on any possible “story.”
The story ran in the LA Times this morning. They didn’t cite TMZ as their source. According to the story he was released on a $20k bond after being held for about four hours (not all night per the TMZ story).
Hopefully this is a misunderstanding. He’s an easy guy to root for with all he’s overcome and it’d be a shame if this is true and wrecks that.
“eyewitness accounts and video evidence”
It’s hard to believe it’s a misunderstanding.
its really odd how TMZ always manages to have video evidence of even quick altercations (see Baer)
Can only hope I guess.
Definitely no need to rush to judgement. This is going to be a long process and we may not know the truth for a long time. Hope it all gets sorted out.
To quote the article “Until more is known, it would be unwise to speculate”
If the dodgers don’t release him for hitting a woman and another team picks him up shame on that organization and baseball. – football people
@halofan. So what you are saying is for one mistake this guy or any person should have their career over. Nobody knows what happened before the alleged shove so how about giving the guy the courtesy of finding out the whole situation before ending his career
It happened at the Beverly Center and I have worked on the fire sprinkler system there. They just underwent a huge renovation but they should’ve demolished it to be honest lol
As far as Julio goes, it doesn’t sound like he will be prosecuted but I’m sure MLB will investigate and give him a small suspension. He’s a young guy and hopefully learns from this. I don’t understand why these guys can’t stay out of trouble and can’t seem to stop putting themselves in bad situations like being in toxic relationships or getting sauced up and getting DUI’s and into bar fights
its worth waiting until all the facts are evident before we assume the intentions of anyone involved.
Too early to know. But Urias may have destroyed his MLB career. Voynov did something similar and he got booted out of the country. Urias may be pitching in the Mexican League next season.
If the Dodgers lose Urias they will absolutely need to consider Kimbrel. The bullpen was already a disaster before this Urias news.
Voynov slammed his wifes head throught a TV and beat her so bad she had bruises all over face. Thats not the same at all.
Voynov pled guilty to one misdemeanor count. Urias was arrested for one misdemeanor count. That sounds like the same thing to me.
Addison Russell and now Julio Urias. I mean I’ve seen them both in person and they aren’t friendly. That’s terrible they would do the stuff they’ve done though
Based on reports (video and witnesses), this looks to be true, however this is not going to ruin anyone’s career. He’ll get 30 days and if it doesn’t repeat, that will be the end of it. I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
I.C.E. could detain him for a deportation hearing. Just as they did with Voynov. The jeopardy of losing his career isn’t from MLB actions. It would be from I.C.E.
Any physical damage? I don’t think so.
Pushing someone to the point of someone losing their balance for someone here legally is not going to generate an I.C.E. response.
He’ll get suspended. He deserves to get suspended. And if it doesn’t happen again, the incident will be forgotten.
That seem highly unlikely. Voynov beat his wife severely and served a jail sentence for it. A number of resident alien ballplayers have been involved in domestic violence incidents much more serious than this one appears to be and none of them have been deported.
I’m guessing Verlander would be ok with this if this were an All Star teammate but since he’s not he’ll condemn it in the douchiest possible way.
If he hit a woman, he should be blackballed.
He will probably have charges reduced to possession of cannabis.