Mets Minor Leaguer Among First 50-Game Bans

[seawolf17]

ESPN wrote: NEW YORK -- Four minor league pitchers were suspended 50 games each by the commissioner's office Tuesday for violating baseball's minor league drug program, the first penalties since the sport toughened its rules during the offseason. Two of the pitchers were in the Cincinnati Reds' organization: Ramon Ramirez and Justin Mallet. Also suspended were Waner Mateo of the New York Mets and Ryan Rafferty of the Kansas City Royals. None has ever pitched in the majors. Mallet was penalized for testing positive for a drug of abuse. The others tested positive for performance-enhancing substances. The penalty this year for an initial positive test was increased from 15 games to 50 for players with minor league contracts. For major-leaguers, the punishment was lengthened from 10 days to 50 games. There were 81 suspensions last season for violations of the minor league drug program.

I can't find any Waner Mateo anywhere in the Mets system, so I don't know who this guy is or where he came from. But I guess we know where he's going.

edit: Found him in the Hagerstown Suns thread. Feel free to delete this thread if any of the mods feel like it.

[Guest sharpie]

Paul Waner - Big Poison
Lloyd Waner - Little Poison
Waner Mateo - Poison

[Guest Edgy DC]

What, and ruin Sharpie's joke?

[Frayed Knot]

Waner Mateo: Never heard of him before ... probably won't hear of him again.

Marginal players (assuming that's what he is) aren't good candidates to get multiple choices to screw up.

[MFS62]

From what I've read today, this guy is the least likely steroid user you could imagine. He makes Jose Reyes look like Mo Vaughn.

Later

[Guest cooby]

A little guy trying to beef up. Sad.

[Elster88]

Steroids do other things, too. You guys know that, right?

[MFS62]

Elster88 wrote: Steroids do other things, too. You guys know that, right?

Even sadder.

LAter

[Guest Edgy DC]

All I've got is an outfielder named Jose Mateo who played with the Gulf Coast Mets last year. I guess Waner was in the DSL last year.

[Guest KC]

Waner pitched for Brooklyn in a dozen or so games, even had a W-L record
unless I'm confused.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Pretty sure I saw him hurl last year.

[Guest Iubitul]

Johnny Dickshot wrote: Pretty sure I saw him hurl last year.

Probably caused by all that greasy food at Nathans....

[Elster88]

100 game ban:

NEW YORK -- Tampa Bay Devil Rays minor league pitcher Matt Rico was suspended for 100 games Tuesday after testing positive for a drug of abuse.


Rico is in extended spring training, and hadn't played for a team yet this season. He was Tampa Bay's sixth-round draft pick in 2001 as an outfielder, but was converted to a pitcher last year. He had no record in eight games with short-season Class A Hudson Valley last year, finishing with a 2.53 ERA.


The penalty for an initial positive test this year was increased from 15 games to 50 for players with minor league contracts, and the penalty for a second positive test rose from 30 games to 100.


For major leaguers, the punishment was lengthened from 10 days to 50 games -- but any test for major leaguers is treated as a first positive test.

[duan]

for the life of me I haven't seen us talk about Iriki getting a 50 game ban

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=sportsNews&storyid=2006-04-28T231642Z_01_SP19247_RTRUKOC_0_US-BASEBALL-IRIKI.xml



but he did.

[Frayed Knot]

It was brought up somewhere.

[editorial comment]but that's one of the problems with adhering too rigidly to these 'all-purpose' threads -- newsworthy stuff that c/should stand on it's own gets lost inside some multi-page AP thread[/editorial comment]