{"id":504745,"date":"2026-01-09T22:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T22:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/504745\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T22:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T22:44:10","slug":"mlb-free-agent-receives-80-game-suspension-for-ped-violation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/504745\/","title":{"rendered":"MLB Free Agent Receives 80-Game Suspension For PED Violation"},"content":{"rendered":"

MLB announced an 80-game suspension for free-agent outfielder Max Kepler on Friday for violating the league\u2019s policy against performance-enhancing drugs. <\/p>\n

The commissioner\u2019s officer revealed that Kepler tested positive<\/a> for Epitrenbolone, a banned anabolic steroid. He can\u2019t begin serving the 80-game suspension until joining a team and is ineligible for the 2026 postseason.<\/p>\n

Kepler spent the first decade of his career with the Minnesota Twins, belting 36 home runs in 2019. The left-hander batted .216\/.300\/.391 with 18 home runs in a platoon role with the Philadelphia Phillies last season.<\/p>\n

The German slugger has paired a 9.7 walk percentage with a healthy 18.7 percent strikeout rate throughout his career. Last season\u2019s 78.0 contact percentage<\/a> and 11.6 percent barrel rate would also seem to support a higher batting average, but Kepler has frequently underperformed his batted-ball data with too much contact in the air.<\/p>\n

Kepler still wields a .235\/.316\/.425 career slash line, and a .770 OPS against righties at least made him a candidate to land another part-time job. However, the suspension could deter teams from pursuing a player who turns 33 before Opening Day.<\/p>\n

Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Kepler would presumably have to settle for far less than the $10 million he received last offseason to find a team willing to wait out his suspension and accept his playoff ban. He may not merit the hassle after registering a 0.6 fWAR last season with a below-average weighted runs created plus (90 wRC+) for the fourth time in five years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MLB announced an 80-game suspension for free-agent outfielder Max Kepler on Friday for violating the league\u2019s policy against…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":504746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[1266,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-504745","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-mlb","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115867567340964540","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504745","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=504745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}