Free-agent outfielder Max Kepler has been suspended 80 games for violating Major League Baseball\u2019s Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program, the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball announced Friday.<\/p>\n
Kepler, 32, tested positive for Epitrenbolone, a performance-enhancing substance. Under the program, the suspension will take effect immediately as the regular season begins.<\/p>\n
Major League Baseball did not specify a reinstatement timetable beyond the standard suspension length. He will be ineligible to participate in the 2026 postseason.<\/p>\n
Kepler is currently a free agent after spending the 2025 season with the Phillies on a one-year deal. In his lone season in Philadelphia, the 6-foot-4 outfielder hit .216 with 18 home runs, drove in 52 runs and posted a .691 OPS.<\/p>\n
In the National League Division Series against the Dodgers, Kepler collected a pair of extra-base hits and registered a .750 OPS in 15 plate appearances.<\/p>\n
Before joining the Phillies, Kepler spent the first 10 seasons of his career with the Twins, establishing himself as an everyday corner outfielder.<\/p>\n
Kepler had already been considered unlikely to return to Philadelphia this offseason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Free-agent outfielder Max Kepler has been suspended 80 games for violating Major League Baseball\u2019s Joint Drug Prevention and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":504574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,1448,2830,1311,35360,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-504573","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-pa","10":"tag-pennsylvania","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-phillies-news","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115867165890734211","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}