St. Louis Cardinals Catcher Cody Stanley Suspended 80 Games for PED Violation
Sometimes it’s amazing how quickly a player can go from being a hero to rendering himself irrelevant. St. Louis Cardinals catcher Cody Stanley definitely appears to have headed down that path. After his recall on September 1, Stanley immediately gave the team a lift, delivering a clutch pinch-hit double in the ninth inning against the Washington Nationals that paved the way for Brandon Moss to hit a three-run walkoff homer. Since then, he had become perhaps the team’s best lefthanded-hitting pinch-hitter, delivering two more pinch-hit singles in three chances.
Stanley hit a major bump in the road on Saturday, though, as Major League Baseball suspended him 80 games for using dehydrochlormethyltestosterone, which according to steroid-europe.com is an oral steroid that provides high-quality weight, strength, and muscle mass gains. This is the second PED suspension of Stanley’s professional career; he received a 50-game ban in March of 2012 for using an illegal dietary supplement and a drug typically prescribed to cancer patients that can be used as a masking agent.
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The strange thing is that Stanley had appeared to be so remorseful for his previous suspension, as he discussed the ban in a February 2013 interview with Rob Rains, attributing the mistake to an over-the-counter energy pill which he said he tried only once to help him wake up for early-morning spring training workouts. Stanley expressed disgust about the suspension to Rains, saying:
"“I almost fainted, I almost passed out,” Stanley remembers. “I asked them to send me the information on what I got suspended for. That’s when I found out the ingredient in the supplement I had taken was a synonym for a banned substance.“I took one pill and got tested the next day. Had it been 24 or 48 hours later it would have been out of my system. I usually am pretty thorough in checking the ingredients before I take something, but this time I failed to do that and I failed a drug test because of it.”“I would never do anything intentional to hurt the reputation of the club, the reputation of my family and the reputation of myself,” Stanley said. “It’s not worth it. I would rather quit and go home and find a new job than crush a reputation.”"
Stanley’s suspension sheds some light on the team’s odd decision to recall catcher Ed Easley on Friday, four days after the minor-league season had ended. Easley, who was with the team for 24 days earlier this season but played in just two games, will be the third catcher the rest of the way, though he’s a much less attractive pinch-hitting option than Stanley, as he hits from the right side and had a .682 OPS in Triple-A this season.
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In a strange way, there might not be any two people happier to hear the news about Stanley than infielders Xavier Scruggs and Dean Anna, who were likely candidates to become the 40-man roster casualty when reliever Matt Belisle returned from the 60-day disabled list. But with Stanley now being added to the restricted list and therefore not counting against the 40-man roster, the Cardinals were able to activate Belisle on Saturday without having to designate a player for assignment.
Even when Stanley completes his suspension, his future with the organization will be very much up in the air. The Cardinals’ Double-A catcher this year, Mike Ohlman, definitely earned himself a promotion to Triple-A for 2016 by hitting .273/.356/.418 with 12 homers and 69 RBI in 366 at-bats this season. Ohlman will participate in the Arizona Fall League and looks like a better candidate than anyone else in-house to replace Yadier Molina when his Cardinals career eventually comes to an end, or at the very least supplant Tony Cruz as the backup. The Cardinals could easily use Easley and Ohlman as their Triple-A catchers last year and simply let Stanley walk due to his repeated boneheaded mistakes.