One of baseball’s top prospects, Forrrest Whitley of the Houston Astros, has been suspended for 50 games for a positive drug test.*
Whitley, 20, was the Astros’ first round pick in 2016. He’s a right-hander who posted a 2.83 ERA with 143 strikeouts in 92.1 innings across three different levels of the Astros’ minor league system in 2017. He finished the year at Double-A Corpus Christi and appeared to be on track to make his major league debut at some point this season. He’s a consensus top-10 prospect in all of Major League Baseball.
No word on what the drug was for which he tested positive, but this is likely to delay his arrival in the bigs.
*This initially read “for a drug of abuse,” which a reporter had tweeted. The official MLB press release did not specify the drug, however, or say “drug of abuse.” Normally, a PED suspension states the substance found, and “drug of abuse” suspensions do not. As such, it’s unclear at present what Whitley tested positive for.
