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More PED suspensions reportedly coming to MLB and this is why

Mike Oz

Here we are, back in the middle of another rash of performance-enhancing drugs suspension in Major League Baseball. Six big leaguers have already been suspended this season, including reigning NL batting champ Dee Gordon and most recently Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Josh Ravin on Monday, and more are reportedly on the way.

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It's baseball biggest bout with PEDs since the Biogenesis saga and, according to a report from T.J. Quinn of ESPN's Outside the Lines, it ain't over yet. Quinn reported Wednesday that another MLB player will be suspended for drugs in the next few days and a handful of other positive tests are being processed, meaning there's a good chance the 80-game suspension list will be growing.

The soon-to-be-suspended player, per Quinn, tested positive for the steroid Turinabol, which rose to prominence in the 1970s when it was used in Germany and is considered something of a relic in the modern age. Still, it's popped up in a few drug tests since spring training and has turned into a big player in baseball's latest bout with PEDs.

(AP)
(AP)

Quinn said on Twitter there are "no big names" on the potential suspension list — though, the idea of who's a big name and who's not might vary from fan to fan and city to city.

This is the list of players busted so far this season: Gordon, Ravin, Chris Colabello of the Toronto Blue Jays, Daniel Stumpf of the Philadelphia Phillies, Abraham Almonte of the Cleveland Indians and New York Mets pitcher Jenrry Mejia, whose third positive test left him banned for life from MLB. For context: There were six PED suspensions all of last year in MLB and only one in 2014.

So why all the suspensions this year? Experts believe it's a matter of better testing and users who aren't ahead of the system. From Quinn's story:

Testing for Turinabol took a major leap forward two years ago, and as anti-doping labs have adopted the technology, users apparently didn't get the word. Any drug someone takes breaks down into metabolites, a residue of the drug that can stay in the system long after the original or parent drug has cleared. Turinabol, like most oral steroids, breaks down relatively quickly in the body and used to be undetectable after a week, and sometimes even less time. But two years ago, researchers found that by increasing the sensitivity of their testing equipment, they could detect some metabolites that stayed in the body much longer.

"The window of detection has moved out to, typically, several weeks, and in some rare circumstances up to months after administration," said Daniel Eichner, the president of the Sports Medicine Research and Testing Laboratory in Utah, which works with most major sports leagues.

As a result, players who might have used it without detection for years are finding themselves suddenly vulnerable to testing.

"That's what makes the most sense," one source close to MLB's testing program said. "There really isn't another theory right now."

Rare is the time that the authorities are ahead of the offenders, especially in the PED game, where athletic leagues are usually playing catch-up to an underworld whose No. 1 priority is not getting caught. It goes to show that even when the steroid talk goes quiet in baseball, like it had for the past two years, the battle rages on behind closed doors.

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Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!