Dominican Players Take Drug Tests After Cancelled Showcase

[Editor’s note: This story was updated Tuesday, Nov. 1, to reflect additional reporting.]

An international draft protest prompted Major League Baseball to cancel its Dominican national showcase last week. Soon thereafter, some Latin American players were surprised with drug tests, but MLB officials said that the timing of the tests was not related to the protest.

MLB had scheduled its two-day showcase for Wednesday and Thursday last week, but with players planning to skip the event as a protest against an international draft, MLB cancelled the showcase on Tuesday night.

Beginning on Wednesday, representatives of MLB’s drug collection agency, Drug Free Sport, told some players who were on the showcase roster and some who were not on the roster that they needed to take drug tests, according to multiple sources, with some players reporting the following day for testing. Not all of the players invited to the showcase were told they needed to get drug tested.

MLB officials said the timing of the tests coincided with the start of the routine drug-testing process for the 2017-2018 international signing period.

“I can definitively say, with 100 percent certainty, that any implication these players were chosen to be tested because they didn’t show up to a showcase is false,” said Dan Halem, MLB’s chief legal officer.

The players, who are 15 and 16, will be eligible to sign next year beginning on July 2. MLB does drug test the players it determines to be the top amateur prospects in both Latin America and the draft on a pre-contract basis, though those tests typically don’t occur until the year in which the players are eligible to sign. Players who test positive for a banned substance on a pre-contract basis are not subject to suspension, though teams will know the results of a player’s test if they inquire with the commissioner’s office.

The use of anabolic steroids is a problem throughout baseball, from the major league level to the amateur ranks, including in Latin America. Several Latin American amateur players who became eligible to sign this year on July 2 tested positive for steroids, and some club officials suspect players are put on steroids at 14 and 15, only to cycle off in time to avoid detection.