Geovany Soto Loves A Challenge

Another challenge is replacing Gatorade with Bourbon

Last season, Geovany Soto batted .285 with 23 home runs.  He was selected to the All-Star team and received votes for NL MVP and Rookie of the Year.  This season hasn’t gone quite so well for the Cubs backstop.  So far, he’s hitting .227 with only 6 dingers and will likely not make an All-Star appearance.  Also, I guarantee you he won’t get any votes for ROY.  So what has caused this decline in production so early in a young man’s career?  Obviously, it isn’t steroids or he’d likely be putting up bigger and better numbers, but let’s not rule out drugs just yet.  Rather than performance enhancing drugs, Soto apparently, at least at one point in the off-season, was experimenting with performance hindering drugs.  And Geo’s PHD of choice was the same as ultimate Frisbee players across the nation. 

The International Baseball Federation will hand Soto a 2-year ban from international play after he tested positive in March, while playing in the World Baseball Classic for Puerto Rico, for marijuana.  MLB has already stated that he faces no punishment from them and Soto has publicly apologize and assured fans that it was a mistake that he will not make again.  To back up those claims, he reportedly has passed random drug tests since the WBC and come out clean.  But that doesn’t mean we can’t still have a little fun. 

Obviously, Soto’s performance through 58 games this season suggests that the pot is having a negative influence on his ability.  Considering baseball has taken a hard-line stance against PEDs recently, I would like to suggest that they reward Soto for his actions.  If you’re going to punish players for getting an unfair advantage, shouldn’t you do the opposite for players who do the opposite?  By taking a PHD, Soto made baseball harder.  By getting high, he intentionally gave every player he played against an advantage.  That would be like some major league franchise putting Robbie in the everyday line-up.  At the very least they deserve some sort of tax-break for that kind of competitiveness sacrificing charity.

Even though MLB will never admit that rewarding players for increasing the challenge of the sport is a fantastic idea, you and I will know the truth.  And for you Cubs fans, don’t be too hard on Geovany.  He just thought that winning the first title in over 100 years wasn’t a daunting enough task.

Tags: baseball, Chicago Cubs, Geovany Soto, MLB

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