Let’s start things off by catching up on Pop Quizzes. We have three questions:
1. From Rob Edelman of Amsterdam, N.Y.: Name the “Law & Order” star whose grandfather was a major-league player, manager and umpire.
2. Another one from Edelman: Name the 1970s Mets player who appears in the 1991 film “Talent for the Game.”
3. From Ed Botti of Matawan, N.J.: Name the artist who asks “You like the Yankees or the Mets this year?” in his 1986 song “Right or Wrong.”
The Mets announced their signing of Bartolo Colon on Saturday, and while there was no statement from any Mets official explaining the move, the last line of the press release reads, “Colon was suspended 50 games in 2012 after violating Major League Baseball’s Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program.”
(This piqued my curiosity, so I looked up the Cardinals’ press release when they signed Jhonny Peralta. Yup – last paragraph, there’s the suspension. Let’s stay tuned for when a team signs Nelson Cruz.)
I suppose not mentioning the suspensions would be ignoring the elephant in the room, as it’s certainly part of the conversation when a team is contemplating whether to acquire a player.
Is there any rhyme or reason to how players perform after returning from a suspension for illegal performance-enhancing drugs? The short answer is, “Not much.” But it’s interesting to look at the data we have since Major League Baseball initiated its discipline-based drug-testing plan in 2004, and The Post’s Mark Hale has compiled this:
The Good
1. Rafael Betancourt was suspended for 10 days (gosh, the penalties were light back then) on July 8, 2005. From 2006 through 2013, he pitched in 480 games with two teams and posted a 3.23 ERA
2. Marlon Byrd was suspended for 50 games June 25, 2012. He came back in 2013 with an outstanding year while playing for the Mets and Pirates and earned a two-year, $16-million contract from the Phillies.
3. Colon. As implied above, he came back and registered an All-Star 2013 season with the A’s, and now the Mets have rewarded him.
The Meh
1. Mike Cameron was suspended for 25 games on October 31, 2007, effective the start of the 2008 season, for using a stimulant. He played in 395 games from 2008 through 2011 and put up a .766 OPS in his age 35-38 seasons. His OPS in the 11 years prior had been .788
2. Yasmani Grandal was suspended for 50 games on November 7, 2012, effective the start of the 2013 season. His OPS dropped from.863 in ’12 to a .693 OPS in ’13. Very small samples, though – just 108 plate appearances in ’13, before he suffered a serious right knee injury _ so let’s not draw too many conclusions.
3. Guillermo Mota was suspended for 50 games on November 1, 2006, effective the start of the 2007 season. He got busted again on May 7, 2012, drawing a 100-game suspension this time. In six seasons after his first PED bust, he posted a 4.30 ERA in 305 games. Although, you might recall, he was dreadful in ’07 with the Mets after being insanely good for them in the ’06 stretch run.
4. JC Romero was suspended for 50 games on Jan. 6, 2009 (PED). He had put up a 2.34 ERA in two previous seasons. Over the next three seasons, his ERA shot up to 3.58.
The Ugly
1. Melky Cabrera was suspended for 50 games on August 15, 2012. He dropped all the way to a .682 OPS with the Blue Jays in 2013, after tallying an .849 the prior two seasons with the Royals and Giants.
2. Manny Ramirez was suspended for 50 games on May 7, 2009, for a non-analytical positive. He was never even remotely the same player again, and he committed a second violation, failing a test, early in 2011. He retired for the rest of that season, but has tried to come back in 2012 and 2013 and never made it back to the big leagues.
3. Carlos Ruiz was suspended for 25 games on November 27, 2012, effective the start of the 2013 season, for amphetamine usage. He plummeted from a .935 OPS in ’12 to a .688 OPS in ’13, his worst since 2008. Nevertheless, the Phillies re-signed him to a three-year deal; it’s hard to find a good catcher.
4. Edinson Volquez was suspended for 50 games on April 20, 2010. He has a 4.99 ERA in 97 games since then, compared to a 3.44 ERA in 42 games before it. All of those post-numbers also have come post-Tommy John surgery, too. Good luck figuring out which has been the bigger factor.
The conclusion
It’s quite challenging to draw any sort of conclusion. In the case of Colon, the Mets already have a year post-suspension to examine, and Colon thrived while passing all of his drug tests.
Colon is such a freak, statistically and physically, it’s hard to identify the biggest risk the Mets have assumed here. Is it his age? His girth? The fact that he’s a one-time offender and therefore, if he fails another test, the penalty will be steeper? Or is it an all-of-the-above deal, that a man of Colon’s age and accomplishments might push his luck chemically in a way that others wouldn’t?
Pretty hard to say at this point. But because of his unique history, how Colon performs with the Mets will go into several databases. Not just the illegal PED one.
Your Pop Quiz answers:
1. Michael Moriarty. His grandfather George Moriarty played for the Cubs, Highlanders, Tigers and White Sox, managed the Tigers and worked as an American League umpire.
2. Lenny Randle
3. Joe Jackson
If you have a tidbit that correlates baseball to popular culture, please send me an email.