By Chris Brown – STL Baseball Today
Three days after Mike Matheny said there were no further promotions planned for the team, veteran backstop Ed Easley was recalled on Friday, becoming the fourth catcher on the Cardinals roster. One day later, we know the reason for the move.
Major League Baseball announced on Saturday morning that Cardinals catcher Cody Stanley has been suspended 80 games without pay, effective immediately, following a positive test for the performance-enhancing substance dehydrochlormethyltestosterone.
It’s the second time Stanley has tested positive for a banned substance in his career, as the 26-year-old missed the first 50 games of the 2012 minor league season due to a suspension for different drugs, Methlhexaneamine and Tamoxifen.
A fourth round draft pick in the 2010 Amateur Draft, Stanley is a career .269 hitter at the minor-league level. He picked up four hits in ten at-bats with the big-league club this season while spending most the year at AAA Memphis, where he posted a .214/.304/.359 batting line with seven home runs and 45 RBIs.
Update: Manager Mike Matheny and GM John Mozeliak spoke to Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about Stanley’s suspension on Saturday. Here’s few excerpts from Hummel’s article:
Matheny: “It’s embarrassing that our organization has to have this conversation but I can’t help to think about the (26-year-old) kid and just ‘what if?’ ……
“We have a high level of expectation,” said Matheny. “With that previous experience, this is hard to let completely go.”
But, Matheny added, “There’s also a human side to it.” ……
Mozeliak, who like Matheny, spoke to Stanley, said the organization would have to “look at our options” as to whether to hang onto Stanley.
“Obviously, it’s his second mistake and unfortunately it’s a very stiff penalty,” Mozeliak said.
“He clearly was having a nice year and we thought enough of him to bring him up. To everybody involved, it’s disappointing.
Read Hummel’s full article from the Post-Dispatch.
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Feature image used under Creative Commons by Joel Dinda. No changes made. Image license.
