A lot of people weren’t happy when Jhonny Peralta was allowed to return from his 50-game Biogenesis suspension to play in the postseason. Peralta served his time, then proceeded to hit .333/.353/.545 in the postseason and cash in on the free agent market with a four-year contract.
Under new penalties announced by MLB and the MLBPA today, that will no longer be possible. Call it the “Peralta Rule” — players suspended for violating the Joint Drug Agreement will be ineligible for the postseason, and won’t be able to receive any playoff shares. The new agreement also adjusts the length of suspensions to 80 games for a first offense, a full year for a second offense and a lifetime ban for a third.
Adjusting the length of suspensions isn’t all that surprising, and you’ll have a hard time finding anyone who will argue too much against it. If anything, going to a half season-full season-life model makes more sense than anything that’s been rolled out in the past. It’s the postseason ban and loss of playoff share money that’s more of a head-scratcher.
Under the new system, a first-time offender could conceivably be suspended in April, serve his 80 games, then come back in the second half and help his team reach the playoffs before taking a seat again in October. If the objective is to make sure cheaters don’t affect the playoff race, why not just make a first-offense suspension last for the remainder of the season? If you don’t want PED users changing outcomes in October, why allow it in September when those playoff spots are still up for grabs? What sense does it make to make a guy sit for 80 games, then let him play 80 before ultimately sitting him down again for up to 19 postseason games? In essence, a player could be suspended for up to 99 games for a first offense if his team goes the distance in every postseason series.
It seems pretty clear that there were plenty of members in the union that weren’t cool with suspended players earning any kind of money for the year they get popped. Alex Rodriguez, after all, is still getting some money this season. Under the new system, he wouldn’t have seen a dime, since the year-long suspension is for 183 days (the entire MLB calendar), not just a team’s 162 games. Making suspended players ineligible for playoff shares would seem to further this theory — guys who get 15 at-bats the entire season could be voted a share of the team’s playoff pool, but a player who was suspended for half the year but made a bigger impact when he was on the field won’t get anything.
MLB and MLBPA do deserve some credit for voluntarily making the penalties for PED use stronger, especially when they already have the toughest testing system in North America. Like most things the league seems to do, though, there are some unintended consequences (namely disabled list shenanigans to make sure a PED guy’s replacement is postseason eligible) that could arise.