The career of Elvis Martinez was shelved two days after he made his major league debut.
The top position-playing prospect for the Blue Jays, a Dominican infielder, was given an 80-game suspension for breaking Major League Baseball’s policy against performance-enhancing drugs.
General manager Ross Atkins of the Jays stated in a statement made public early on Sunday morning, “We were both surprised and disappointed to learn of Orelvis Martinez’s suspension.” “We’ll exert every effort to make sure Elvis has learned from this error.”
Martinez, who was called up on Tuesday to take Bo Bichette’s place on the Jays’ active roster due to injury, made his debut on Friday night in Cleveland, playing second base and went 1 for 3 with a single in the Jays’ 7-1 defeat.
This season, Martinez led the Jays organisation with 16 home runs at Triple-A Buffalo, giving him 74 total since the beginning of 2022.
Clomiphene, a medication frequently used to treat infertility, was the one that showed up on the positive test. It causes ovulation in females when consumed. Men who take it experience a rise in testosterone levels.
The 22-year-old said in a statement released by the Major League Baseball Players’ Association that he and his girlfriend had been attempting to establish a family for the previous few years and had sought therapy in private.
Martinez continued, saying, “Our doctor assured us that performance-enhancing drugs were not part of this treatment (Rejun 50).”
However, it just took a little over a half-minute to find out that Rejun 50 contains clomiphene, a drug that is prohibited by Major League Baseball.
The only other current Jay who has been suspended in accordance with MLB’s Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Programme is Chris Colabello. 80 games were banned from him in April 2016.
With the American League East-winning 2015 team, Colabello had been a revelation, hitting.321 with 15 home runs and a.886 on-base-plus-slugging percentage, all by far career highs.
The 32-year-old was banned for life for taking chlorodehydromethyltestosterone, and he never again participated in major league baseball.
The Blue Jays are hoping that Martinez’s situation will change, but there aren’t many players who had successful big-league careers after serving suspensions for using performance-enhancing substances.
In the spring of 2017, Starling Marte of Pittsburgh, fresh off his first all-star season, received 80 games. Although he didn’t return to be an all-star until 2022 when he signed with the New York Mets, his OPS before and after the suspension only differed by 11 points.
Since 2017, six other position players—including Robinson Cano, who twice stood a good chance of being inducted into the Hall of Fame—have been suspended for using illicit performance-enhancing drugs. None of them have been able to return to their previous level of productivity as major league hitters.
Martinez can make a comeback on September 22. The next day marks the start of the Jays’ last homestand of the season.
The team was six games behind the Kansas City Royals for the last wild-card slot in the American League going into Sunday’s game in Cleveland, where they were on a five-game losing run.
The Jays could be about to launch a youth movement for the second half of the season after a challenging week that includes four games at home against the top-seeded New York Yankees and three games at Boston. Martinez might have played a key role in that.
If the team had chosen to be buyers at the trade deadline, he might have also been the most alluring piece they could have dangled in a deal. It’s going to bore no one now.
Martinez, unable to play in games, will spend the remainder of the season at the Jays’ player development complex in Dunedin, Florida.
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