MLB, MLBPA announce stiffer drug penalties
Bud Selig and the players union announced tougher penalties for PED violators. (Brad Mangin/Getty Images)
Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association officially announced tougher drug penalties on Friday, increasing the penalty for first-time offenders from 50 games to 80 games and from 100 games to 162 games for second violations of the Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program.
A third violation results in a permanent suspension from baseball.
In addition, each player that is suspended for performance-enhancing drugs will have to submit to six unannounced additional urine tests and three additional blood tests for rest of his career.
There will also be increased blood collections for hGH detection, and any player suspended for PED use will be ineligible for postseason play and will forfeit his playoff share.
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More from MLB.com:
- Carbon Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry (IRMS) will be randomly performed on at least one specimen from every player in addition to any IRMS test that the laboratory conducts as a result of the parties' longitudinal profiling program (which was implemented prior to the 2013 season) and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) guidelines for conducting IRMS.
- The parties established a program in which Players will have year-round access to supplements that will not cause a positive test result and which will improve home and visiting weight rooms.
- The parties provided the Arbitration Panel with the ability to reduce a Player's discipline (subject to certain limitations) for the use of certain types of performance-enhancing substances if the Player proves at a hearing that the use was not intended to enhance performance;
- The parties added DHEA to the list of banned substances and enhanced the confidentiality provisions of the Program.
