Luis Jimenez suspended

[numez]

Yahoo! link

 

 

I saw this on my yahoo homepage and it said "brewers minor league pitcher suspended" so I held my breath hoping it wasn't Inman or Yo.

[DHonks]

I wonder if they can have him assigned to the W. Va squad to serve the suspension in April/May, then have him go to the AZ team in June

[jackalope02ca]

I would hope they just release him.

[Mass Haas]

There probably could not have been a more obscure pitcher in the organization -- let's hope that nonsense ends there.

[saget]

17 years old?

 

Well maybe it was a stupid teenage-mistake that he'll regret.

[TheCrew07]

Isn't that the same guy that had an era of like 99 for the first month of the AZ league?

[plowjockey]

Quote:

---

I would hope they just release him.

---

Never made a mistake as a 17 year old? Would you like some decision you made as a 17 year old to prevent you from ever acheiving your potential for the rest of your life? If someone lived in an impoverished country and some junk was out there that made it a better shot of getting out, you can't blame a kid who makes a questionable decision. They know there is no test before hand, and they said this stuff was in his system before he got to the U.S. He'll serve his time and hopefully be done with it. Melvin mentioned that it's almost always the latin players. You don't think these kids are being sold a bill of goods by some "advisor" as their ticket out?

[jackalope02ca]

Release him. No mistake would be made.

 

As for would I like it if it were me well it isn't and it never would have. I grew up playing high level hockey until I had to quit because of a bad back injury which kept me out for over a year. 3 of the guys on my 15 year old team made it to the NHL. Not once did I even think of using what was available and have never regretted it.

 

I'm really getting sick and tired about hearing oh this poor kid didn't know what he was using it's a language thing. Blah, Blah, Blah. In the history of sport I doubt there is more than one or two that didn't know what they were doing and that's because they are just too stupid to understand it all. That would prevent them from making it to the show anyways.

 

That's why even though I like him it's bothers me a little every time Turnbow succeeds.

[biedergb]

Well there had been a write up this past spring about the players who have been suspended (I think the write up occured about when Alex Sanchez was suspended) about the high proportion of Latin players who are violating the rules. And an argument was made that emphasis of the rules were either not made to the Latin players, or it was not translated (ie, written, or spoken via other players or coaches) properly. Now I generally agree with the type of arguement that jackalope02ca made. While I wasn't much of an athlete in high school or college, I still had enough sense to avoid making the types of mistakes that can effect or ruin a career. But, the disparity between US/Canadian players and Latin players in terms of the proportion of those suspended still makes it an interesting debate.

 

And with regard to Luis, I would have to side with those who state that let him learn his lesson, and give him a second chance, I mean he is only 17.

[DHonks]

He's 17 and a high bonus prospect. There's no way he gets released. Remember, the minor leagues have had one of the most stringent testing systems in American Professional Sports for about 5 years now. He'll learn from it, and maybe it'll prevent others from the same mistakes

[bork]

Melvin discusses the high percentage of Latin players in today's notes.

 

Quote:

---

"It's something the commissioner's office needs to look at," Melvin said. "So many of these players are from Latin countries. It seems like they're naive to these things.

 

"Maybe we should test them before we sign them. There's no mechanism in place to do that. Some type of educational process needs to take place."

---

 

www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=489840

[SoCalBrewfan]

One of the articles alluded to the fact that a lot of these kids take stuff from their agents, whom they trust...while the players are likely not aware of the rules and the potential consequences, the agents are a different story. I would not be surprised in the least to hear that unscrupulous agents know exactly what they're doing but don't care...if they get a kid signed they make money, and what happens down the road is much less a factor.

 

Here's the quote, for the mlb page:

 

Quote:

---

"We think that he may have done it prior to signing," Melvin said. "It's something that we are looking into. If you look at it, there is a very high percentage of Latin players being affected by the new rules, and that is something that should be looked into. Those players rely a lot on their buscone -- their agent -- and I think in a lot of cases players are naive to the testing program."

---