Mets release reliver Jenrry Mejia despite reinstatement
Mets pitcher Jenrry Mejia leaves the mound during a game against the Dodgers July 26, 2015 at Citi Field. Credit: JOSEPH D. SULLIVAN
More than three years removed from his most recent major-league pitch, and four months removed from his door to the majors re-opening, Jenrry Mejia is officially no longer a Met.
The Mets released Mejia, their righthanded former closer, on Tuesday prior to the deadline to set their 40-man roster in advance of next month’s Rule 5 draft. Once served a purported lifetime ban from baseball after three positive tests for performance-enhancing drugs, Mejia is pitching in the Dominican Winter League as part of his comeback attempt, which included a pseudo-reinstatement by Major League Baseball in July.
And so ends the long, weird saga of Mejia the Met. Once one of the top prospects in baseball — Baseball America ranked Mejia in the middle of its top 100 before the 2010 and 2011 seasons — Mejia broke into the majors in 2010 and ascended to closer in 2014, shortly after transitioning to the bullpen.
Then he got caught cheating — repeatedly.
In April 2015, Mejia was suspended 80 games after testing positive for stanozolol, which he admitted to taking. He returned to appear in seven games that July, but another positive test — for stanozolol as well as boldenone, an anabolic androgenic steroid — earned him a 162-game suspension. In February 2016, a third positive test meant a “lifetime ban” for Mejia. He said in March 2016 that MLB was conducting a witch hunt against him after he did not provide information that would incriminate another player.
As a part of the joint drug program collectively bargained by MLB and the MLBPA, a permanently suspended player can apply to be reinstated after two years, at the discretion of commissioner Rob Manfred.
For Mejia, that conditional reinstatement came this past July. Mejia, technically still on the restricted list, was allowed to participate in non-public workouts at Mets facilities and go on a minor-league rehabilitation assignment, which he did, getting into two games for the Mets’ Dominican Summer League team.
Pitching in the Dominican for Toros del Este — the same team Mets reliever Tim Peterson is pitching for (3.07 ERA in 14 games) — Mejia has made three starts this offseason, allowing three runs in nine innings.
