Major League Baseball has announced that Philadelphia Phillies top reliever, José Alvarado, has been suspended for 80 games due to a violation of the league’s Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program. Alvarado tested positive for the PED known as exogenous testosterone. President of Baseball Operations, Dave Dombrowski, said it was a weight-loss drug that caused him to fail.
In addition to the 80 games lost (without pay) in the regular season, Alvardo is also ineligible to appear in the postseason, should Philadelphia reach the playoffs. The Phillies issued the following statement in response to the news:
“The Phillies fully support Major League Baseball‘s Joint Prevention and Treatment Program and are disappointed to hear today’s news of Jose’s violation.”
Alvarado has a 2.70 ERA (159 ERA+), 29.8% strikeout rate, 47.3% grounder rate, and a career-best 4.8% walk rate over 20 innings for the Phillies. This is a huge loss for a bullpen that struggled overall in the early going this year.
Unless a quick trade is made, this forces some players into uncomfortable positions. The club will need to put players into high-leverage situations that they may not be best suited for, or prepared for mentally. For a club with World Series aspirations, this could be a moment that amplifies what is already the weakest group on the Phillies roster.
The suspension will cost Alvardo roughly $4.18 million of his $9 million salary for the 2025 season. This is the final guaranteed year of his contract, which he signed a three-year, $22 million extension for in February 2023.
Philadelphia holds a $9 million club option that once seemed like a sure-shot bargain for the team. Now, the team is not only out of one of its top crunch-time options for the most important part of the season, but it also calls into question whether his improved results are sustainable.
Either way, the team that made the lowest number of pitching moves to start the season has spent a weekend needing to shuffle players around, and that will continue for the foreseeable future. More to come on what corresponding moves from the Phillies will be, but one thing is for sure — they need their group of relievers to pick each other up and continue their recent run of success.
