September 21, 2019

By Jay Blue

Blue Jays from Away

The minor league season is done but there's bad news for one Blue Jays minor leaguer as pitcher Luis Quinones was handed an 80-game suspension after testing positive for Nandrolone, an anabolic steroid.

While the one suspension this year and one last year (Griffin Conine for stimulant use) is certainly down from the seeming pandemic of 2017 in which several young Latin-American players were suspended, this is a troubling development for Quinones, who had a spectacular professional debut.

Quinones, a 22-year-old Puerto Rican, was the Blue Jays' 34th-round pick in the 2019 draft, selecting Quinones out of San Jacinto College, a well-known junior college for developing baseball players. Quinones made two appearances for Bluefield, allowing just two runs on a hit and two walks with a whopping 10 strikeouts and just two walks in 6 1/3 innings before he was moved up to Vancouver.

With the Canadians, Quinones tossed 30 1/3 innings with a 2.97 ERA and a 1.09 WHIP, striking out a whopping 47 batters while walking 17, and, while we haven't formally announced our award winners for the 2019 Vancouver Canadians, Quinones is our Reliever of the Year for the club after his outstanding debut.

Because of the suspension, Quinones is frozen to the Vancouver roster which means that he would miss the entire 2020 season. That said, players have been moved in the offseason before while under suspension and it's likely that the 80-game figure was arrived upon figuring that Quinones would be on the Lansing roster, enabling him to return around July. Usually, for a first suspension for a player in a short-season league, the number of games in the suspension will encompass a full season (like Jol Concepcion's 60-game suspension from when he was in the GCL). Because the other suspensions handed down in this round of MiLB suspensions were for 72 games (for players who were in the DSL) and Quinones's was longer, I would expect to see Quinones moved to the Lansing roster and will be able to pitch past the midpoint of the 2020 season.

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The 2019 Toronto Blue Jays Minor League Handbook is available now! Visit the Handbook page for more information!