Tatis Jr. suspended 80 games for PEDs

Two Youks

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Jun 18, 2013
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I read it as:

As a dermatologist I frequently prescribe Clobetasol (for certain conditions).

With my knowledge/expertise, I would NOT prescribe it for ringworm as it would make that condition worse.
 

mauf

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The union doesn't have to agree to anything. Contracts are custom for every player. The players either sign a contract or they don't. Sure, they could strike and refuse. But the fact that these contracts are invincible blows my mind.
There’s a uniform player contract, and there are guidelines about what kinds of custom provisions can and can’t be included. I don’t know if making the contract voidable in case of a PED suspension would be allowable. Even if it would be, if every club suddenly started insisting on it, that would be the easiest collusion case to prove in the history of ever.
 

Mugsy's Jock

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Am I reading this tweet wrong? Is he saying that he frequently prescribes the medication that he then goes on to say makes the condition "far worse"?
Yeah, I read it the same way. The dermatologist should go back on his vacation.

I think it’s much more likely Tatis (or whoever wrote his apology for him) misspelled something.

I have a bunch of sweet Tatis baseball cards if anybody’s interested in trading.
 

BaseballJones

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Am I reading this tweet wrong? Is he saying that he frequently prescribes the medication that he then goes on to say makes the condition "far worse"?
I’d guess the answer is that they prescribe it often but not for ringworm.
 

Mueller's Twin Grannies

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Pharmacy tech here, but I still had to do some digging.

Clostebol IS used to treat minor wounds, usually combined with neomycin. So if he used it after the crash, that much tracks. Why he'd say ringworm is beyond me, but maybe it's because he didn't realize the difference between the drugs he used (if he had ringworm, he probably used clobetasol).

And before anyone says, "Yeah, but his PR team should know the difference," you may be right, but I have a counterargument based in 20+ years of experience in the field:

The smartest people become really, really, really stupid when having to pronounce and spell medication names that aren't ubiquitous, and even then it's 50/50. I'm sure part of it is because the names are often alphabet soup with roots in Latin (because we've steadfastly refused, as a planet, to update the root language of all our medical names, despite the root language being long dead and not taught anymore), the emphasis is often in a weird place*, and the ongoing war in a lot of people's minds over what is the lesser offense: sounding like you can't read or sounding like you can't pronounce what you read.

It's UNLIKELY that the PR team would make such a simple mistake, but not to the point where the chances of it being an error are not infinitessimally small.

As anyone in the pharmacy field will tell you, there are a LOT of drugs with similar names. In addition to clobetasol/clostebol, there's clobazam and clonazepam, prednisone and prednisolone, glipizide and glyburide, guaifenesin and guanfacine, and so many more. It's so easy to mix them up that there are strategies, like the Tallman lettering system (where some letters in the first part of a drug's name are capitalized to highlight the differences), that facilities use to help avoid drug errors. And that's for the pros!

And because so many people find these words to be tongue-twisters (I've heard "atenolol" said as "atinol," metoprolol as "metropol," atorvastatin as "avastin," and so many more - I've even heard clonazepam pronounced as "clozepam," which explains why clobazam is sometimes used erroneously), they often rely on the pharmacy and medical staff to say the correct pronunciation and just agree if it sounds right.

There are nurses who can't say the names right, and there are even doctors who struggle with them. A PR firm, going off FTJ's memory and medical records from another country, is just as likely to miss that little difference, especially if he did use both drugs at one point.

Now, this isn't all to say that he's a victim of circumstance or wasn't knowingly doping, but his statement did call specific attention to a test taken in March that he apparently did not fail, which is interesting. We know Ortiz was tested multiple times a year when he was playing, so it tracks that Tatis was tested more than once. If he'd failed the test in March, I can't see the appeal going this long and I definitely do not see MLB saying, "Ah, we won't count that one," if he did fail, so that could add some credibility to his story.

The only problem with that story is that he's likely long stopped taking the wound topical, especially if it was only for minor cuts and scrapes (larger, open wounds usually need something like Santyl, a collagenase ointment specifically used for that purpose and lacking in clostebol). So if he still has clostebol in his system, it's probably not from the wound stuff, UNLESS he still has the wound stuff and is using it on every little thing out of paranoia.

Most likely verdict is he did take something he shouldn't have, though as to whether he knew it had a banned substance in it will be up for debate for as long as he keeps the story to himself.

*I take a medication commonly called Keppra, but really called levetiracetam. To someone trying to sound that out, it might read as "lev-eh-tirr-aa-sih-tam," but it's actually pronounced "lev-ih-teer-uh-see-tum." Very few might guess that on the first or even second try.
 
Last edited:

joe dokes

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Jul 18, 2005
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A dermatologist Royals fan says ringworm can be treated with "CLOBETASOL", which is different from "CLOSTEBOL". You can conjure up a conspiracy theory with an inept PR team from there.

View: https://twitter.com/jazayerli/status/1558309744208740352
FWIW--Rany Jazayerli is more than a dermatologist. (Although that might be his only relevant characteristic here.) He was at the forefront of the post-Bill James, internet-fueled, analytical looks at baseball by otherwise smart people who were pretty good writers but not "sportswriters" steeped in ink, smoke and booze. . He was close with Rob Neyer when Neyer was almost literally the only guy with a somewhat mainstream platform (espn.com -- mid90s) getting beyond BA and RBI. Jazayerli was a frequent collaborator.
 

Murderer's Crow

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There’s a uniform player contract, and there are guidelines about what kinds of custom provisions can and can’t be included. I don’t know if making the contract voidable in case of a PED suspension would be allowable. Even if it would be, if every club suddenly started insisting on it, that would be the easiest collusion case to prove in the history of ever.
Thanks, I figured there was a standard agreement/template but not that it was typically not changed.

Regardless, any sport, any player, there should be a list of termination events which includes PEDs and DV.
 

Bozo Texino

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Pharmacy tech here, but I still had to do some digging.

Clostebol IS used to treat minor wounds, usually combined with neomycin. So if he used it after the crash, that much tracks. Why he'd say ringworm is beyond me, but maybe it's because he didn't realize the difference between the drugs he used (if he had ringworm, he probably used clobetasol).

And before anyone says, "Yeah, but his PR team should know the difference," you may be right, but I have a counterargument based in 20+ years of experience in the field:

The smartest people become really, really, really stupid when having to pronounce and spell medication names that aren't ubiquitous, and even then it's 50/50. I'm sure part of it is because the names are often alphabet soup with roots in Latin (because we've steadfastly refused, as a planet, to update the root language of all our medical names, despite the root language being long dead and not taught anymore), the emphasis is often in a weird place*, and the ongoing war in a lot of people's minds over what is the lesser offense: sounding like you can't read or sounding like you can't pronounce what you read.

It's UNLIKELY that the PR team would make such a simple mistake, but not to the point where the chances of it being an error are not infinitessimally small.

As anyone in the pharmacy field will tell you, there are a LOT of drugs with similar names. In addition to clobetasol/clostebol, there's clobazam and clonazepam, prednisone and prednisolone, glipizide and glyburide, guaifenesin and guanfacine, and so many more. It's so easy to mix them up that there are strategies, like the Tallman lettering (in such some letters in the first part of a drug's name are capitalized to highlight the differences) system, that facilities use to help avoid drug errors. And that's for the pros!

And because so many people find these words to be tongue-twisters (I've heard "atenolol" said as "atinol," metoprolol as "metropol," atorvastatin as "avastatin," and so many more - I've even heard clonazepam pronounced as "clozepam," which explains why clobazam is sometimes used erroneously), they often rely on the pharmacy and medical staff to say the correct pronunciation and just agree if it sounds right.

There are nurses who can't say the names right, and there are even doctors who struggle with them. A PR firm, going off FTJ's memory and medical records from another country, is just as likely to miss that little difference, especially if he did use both drugs at one point.

Now, this isn't all to say that he's a victim of circumstance or wasn't knowingly doping, but his statement did call specific attention to a test taken in March that he apparently did not fail, which is interesting. We know Ortiz was tested multiple times a year when he was playing, so it tracks that Tatis was tested more than once. If he'd failed the test in March, I can't see the appeal going this long and I definitely do not see MLB saying, "Ah, we won't count that one," if he did fail, so that could add some credibility to his story.

The only problem with that story is that he's likely long stopped taking the wound topical, especially if it was only for minor cuts and scrapes (larger, open wounds usually need something like Santyl, a collagenase ointment specifically used for that purpose and lacking in clostebol). So if he still has clostebol in his system, it's probably not from the wound stuff, UNLESS he still has the wound stuff and is using it on every little thing out of paranoia.

Most likely verdict is he did take something he shouldn't have, though as to whether he knew it had a banned substance in it will be up for debate for as long as he keeps the story to himself.

*I take a medication commonly called Keppra, but really called levetiracetam. To someone trying to sound that out, it might read as "lev-eh-tirr-aa-sih-tam," but it's actually pronounced "lev-ih-teer-uh-see-tum." Very few might guess that on the first or even second try.
This is a quality post. I swear, there's an expert for everything on SoSH.

I miss the days when my Duloxetine was called Cymbalta.
 

Mueller's Twin Grannies

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Thanks.

It's also worth noting that clostebol is a Schedule III drug* in the US, meaning it has a high potential for abuse and you need a prescription to take it. If he's claiming it was for ringworm, there should be a prescription on record. If it was from the DR, then it's very possible they gave him something that's not FDA-approved in the US. The DEA usually only tracks prescription use of FDA-approved stuff (a lot of stuff sold in stores that's not FDA-approved is just junk, so there's no reason to), so they might be interested in something like that, too.

*There are 6 schedules in prescription use (7 if you want to count over-the-counter stuff), in descending order in terms of abuse risk level and medicinal value. The lower the number, the higher the risk for long-term addiction and abuse and the lower the amount of actual medicinal value to the average person.

Schedule VI is most prescription medications for stuff like blood pressure, cholesterol control, inhalers, antibiotics, antifungals, "water pills," contraceptives, antidepressants, etc.

Schedule V is mostly cough syrups with small amounts of codeine in them, and an anticonvulsant. In some states, you can buy them without a prescription. Low risk of addiction, but some, and does have a strong therapeutic effect.

Schedule IV is where you'll find non-opioid painkillers like tramadol, propoxyphene (Darvon, when it still existed), and pentazocine (Talwin), sleeping meds like zolpidem (Ambien), eszopiclone (Lunesta), carisoprodol (Soma, a pro wrestling favorite), and low-grade tranquilizers like alprazolam (Xanax) and diazepam (Valium).

Schedule III (where clostebol is found) is also the home of other "PED" drugs like testosterone and other anabolic steroids. It's also where you find medications with high amounts of codeine in them, most commonly "Tylenol #3." It's also where ketamine is scheduled. These all carry a high risk of abuse and addiction and moderate therapeutic value.

Schedule II is the "everything else" category for prescription drugs not mentioned above, including stimulants like amphetamine salts (Adderall), methylphenidate (Ritalin), and methamphetamine (Desoxyn). It's where the heavy-duty painkillers are found, your oxycodone (Roxicodone) and its now-infamous extended-release version (Oxycontin), fentanyl (Duragesic in the patch form), hydromorphone (Dilaudid), hydrocodone (combined with acetaminophen makes Vicodin), methadone (Dolophine), opium tincture, et al. Phenobarbital and its ilk are here, as is a kind of synthesized cannabis that's an appetite stimulant called dronabinol (Marinol). High potential for addiction, virtually no therapeutic value beyond short-term gains.

Schedule I is ALL illegal stuff that has no medicinal value at all and carries the highest risk for abuse and addiction. Heroin, cocaine, cannabis (though many argue it should be rescheduled), Ecstasy, LSD, and all that fun stuff.
 

Humphrey

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Yikes. Next thing you’ll tell me, giving 23 year olds half a billion dollars guaranteed can lead to unintended risks!
So since signing his record-breaking 14-year contract, he's had:
  • Repeated left shoulder subluxations, which he refuses to get surgery to fix and limits him to the outfield.
  • Multiple motorcycle accidents in the same offseason, one of which resulted in a broken wrist that caused him to miss 4 months of baseball.
  • an 80-game PED suspension.
13 years and 335 million left.
Well you can subtract a quarter of his 2022 salary and a quarter of his 2023 salary from that.
 

DeadlySplitter

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The deal is backloaded so it's like 3 million at most.

That deal is backloaded. Tatis’ forfeited salary during the suspension, while substantial, isn’t nearly as significant as it would have been had he tested positive a couple years from now. He’ll lose the remainder of this year’s $5MM salary (approximately $1.5MM) as well as around a month’s worth of next year’s $7MM salary. The extent of his salary forfeiture is dependent on how many games he loses next season, which is subject to how far into the playoffs the Friars get this year. He’s likely to miss around 20% of the schedule, which would translate to around $1.3MM in lost salary next year.
- MLB Trade Rumors blurb https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022/08/fernando-tatis-jr-suspended-80-games-for-performance-enhancing-drug-violation.html
 

Rovin Romine

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AlNipper49

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I have an irrational fear of ringworm. In high school I had a buddy who never ever took off his watch, even to shower. Eventually he did and underneath was this puss red ring thing that looked like something out of Stranger Things. I swear to go it even looked like it was pulsing. I'd douse the fuck out of it with agent orange and take the 80 game ban if it were I. Screw ringworm.
 

Van Everyman

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This is entering “Wade Boggs cracked a rib putting on his cowboy boots in a hotel” territory. Between his dad’s haircut story and @Mueller's Twin Grannies excellent dissertation about drug names, I actually am beginning to think it all might be … true? Stranger things have happened. But what a mess regardless.
 

pedro1918

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I have an irrational fear of ringworm. In high school I had a buddy who never ever took off his watch, even to shower. Eventually he did and underneath was this puss red ring thing that looked like something out of Stranger Things. I swear to go it even looked like it was pulsing. I'd douse the fuck out of it with agent orange and take the 80 game ban if it were I. Screw ringworm.
What is the irrational part?
 

snowmanny

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There's always an excuse. Some may be founded in truth.

But I am pretty sure that players can contact MLB and ask if prescription X contains a banned substance, and, if it does, can they they get a therapeutic use exemption. If they have an agent the agent could help them with this process! So, at the end of the day it is the end of the day. I wouldn't put Preparation H cream on without calling New York.
 

Daniel_Son

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Daniel_Son

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CarolinaBeerGuy

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"MLB needs to have some regulations before they made public news like the one that happened to Tatis Jr. I think they haven't handled this situation the right way. We can't kill our product, we're talking about an amazing player."

View: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10045522-david-ortiz-says-fernando-tatis-jr-ped-suspension-wasnt-handled-right-way-by-mlb
Yeah, that’s terrible. Where was the outcry when all the other players got suspended over the years? Maybe nobody was quite on Tatis’ level, but Braun was at his peak when he got popped.
 

Sad Sam Jones

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"MLB needs to have some regulations before they made public news like the one that happened to Tatis Jr. I think they haven't handled this situation the right way. We can't kill our product, we're talking about an amazing player."

View: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10045522-david-ortiz-says-fernando-tatis-jr-ped-suspension-wasnt-handled-right-way-by-mlb
I don't understand what he thinks the "right way" is… Ignore the results because he's star? Don't suspend him because maybe he really had ringworm? Secretly suspend him 80 games while he fake retires to pursue his dream of playing D-League basketball?
 

Daniel_Son

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Yeah, that’s terrible. Where was the outcry when all the other players got suspended over the years? Maybe nobody was quite on Tatis’ level, but Braun was at his peak when he got popped.
I don't disagree in principle, but I think there's a good chance that Ortiz feels more comfortable commenting now that he's not an active player.
 

snowmanny

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ARod kind of threw his parents under the bus: If only he’d been raised right like the Captain he wouldn’t have made so many mistakes. Nobody taught him about lying and cheating.
 

Jinhocho

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I read it as:

As a dermatologist I frequently prescribe Clobetasol (for certain conditions).

With my knowledge/expertise, I would NOT prescribe it for ringworm as it would make that condition worse.
I have been on it for eczema off and on through my adult life. It works great for a while then slows down and I switch to another one, but eventually end up back.