Tres Barrera Joins “The List”
This morning the Washington Post broke the news that backup catcher Tres Barrera has been suspended for 80 games after a positive test for a PED.
As the headline says, Barrera joins a very long and ignoble list of Washington Nationals players to have been suspended since the franchise relocated from Montreal in 2005. He is the second 40-man player, following in the footsteps of Raudy Read in 2018.
This is not the normality we were looking for. I’d much rather deal with the usual lies about injuries.
You can click on the first link above if you want more information on which steroid or the obligatory denial/apology. Thus far, there has been no word on who will take his place in the 60-man player pool.
I’m surprised and disappointed. He was one of the last Nationals I would have expected to get popped for PEDs; everything I’ve ever seen or read about him pointed to someone with high makeup, intelligence, and integrity. Very unfortunate.
This was a very important year for him. He has shown lots of ability defensively but needed to work on hitting this year.
A lot of players never recover from the lost development.
Is there any indication of how the suspension will be served? Will he be obligated to miss the first half of the 2021 season? Or will he be “credited” with the 60 games in 2020 and only owe 20 more? I was already curious about how 2020 was counting because of Fuentes, particularly since the Nats put him on the 60-man list. I’ve forgotten the number of games for which he’s still suspended, but I recall that it’s about a month’s worth.
Barrera now filing class action lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Texas alleging “junk science” in the testing. The plot thickens . . .
Was very surprised to see A.J. Cole last night with the Blue Jays. Good for him. Hard to believe after all this he’s still only 28.