Top Houston Astros prospect suspended

By Ross Kelly February 21, 2018 at 10:55am

The Houston Astros enter the 2018 season as defending World Series champions for the first time in their 57-year franchise history.

However, one of the players who many expected would help them defend their title won’t be eligible to play in the first 50 games of the season.

Pitcher Forrest Whitley has been suspended without pay for a violation of the minors drug program.

Whitley was the Astros’ first-round pick in 2016 and was expected to join the majors at some point this summer. Now, with his season not likely to officially start until the summer, Whitley isn’t expected to join the majors until September call-ups, if he joins at all this year.

“We’re disappointed in the outcome. We support Major League Baseball’s drug program and we do everything we can to educate our guys and keep them from making decisions that result in suspensions,” Astros GM Jeff Luhnow said Wednesday morning. “But in this case obviously, as an organization, we’re going to suffer a little bit. But we’re still hopeful and optimistic that Forrest is going to be a big part of our future.”

Whitley is a top 10 prospect according to all of the major publications that cover minor league baseball, including Baseball Prospectus, Baseball America and MLB’s own rankings.

Baseball America ranks him as the No. 2 pitching prospect, trailing only Angels pitcher/outfielder Shohei Ohtani.

The suspension will go into effect at the start of the Texas League season. Whitley last pitched for the league’s Corpus Christi Hooks, where he had a 1.84 ERA in four appearances in 2017.

Whitley hails from San Antonio, whose KABB-TV provided details on what caused the failed test:

Can confirm @Buster_ESPN report. Forrest Whitley suspended for 50 games. Source tells me Whitley was at an out of state college baseball game as a fan after his season was over and was given an unknown stimulant by a friend in order to help keep him awake on his long drive home.

— Chuck Miketinac (@MaxSportsSA) February 21, 2018

Source says the Whitley’s hired an attorney to try to challenge the MLB ruling because they’ve known for weeks this was coming down, but were unable to stop the ruling.

— Chuck Miketinac (@MaxSportsSA) February 21, 2018

Whitley issued an apology through his agent, Matt Laird, saying, “I made a mistake and take full responsibility for my actions. I want to apologize to the Astros organization, my family and those closest to me. I will learn from this mistake and continue striving to be the best baseball player that I can be.”

After being drafted out of high school in 2016, Whitley rose all the way to Double-A, which is a rare feat: According to AstrosFuture.com, Whitley was just the sixth pitcher ever to reach that level the year after being drafted out of high school. Clayton Kershaw is one of the other five.

Despite their success last season, the Astros have had a string of bad luck when it comes to recent first-round draft picks.

Houston had the No. 1 overall pick in three straight drafts and Carlos Correa (2012) is the only one who is even in the majors.

In 2013, the Astros selected pitcher Mark Appel first overall and after three years in their system he was traded to the Phillies. But due to injuries and struggles on the mound, Appel never appeared in MLB and decided to step away from the game earlier this year.

In 2014, Brady Aiken was the first overall pick by Houston, but he couldn’t agree on a signing bonus with the Astros. He never signed and went back into the 2015 draft, where he was taken 17th overall by Cleveland. He’s pitched in the Indians organization for the last two seasons but has not made it beyond Single-A ball.

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