For a moment late Friday afternoon, I thought I had accidentally called up an old email. Or that Major League Baseball had accidentally sent an old email.
Nope. Jenrry Mejia, amazingly, had once again tested positive for an illegal performance-enhancing drug, becoming the first baseball player ever to draw a lifetime suspension for drug usage.
It isn’t quite that simple, though. I admittedly had to study up on the nuances of baseball’s Joint Drug Agreement when it comes to lifetime suspensions. It isn’t just that Mejia established a precedent. It’s that he established a precedent that I — and I suspect most others — never envisioned getting established at all.
Not that I thought such repeat offenders would necessarily give up on trying to get illegal advantages. I just figured they’d find better chemists.
Anyway, it’s good to know these details as we ride through them with Mejia. It’s even better to know them should a higher-profile player down the road behave equally foolishly.
Here’s a primer:
1. You probably know by now, if you’ve been following this story, that Mejia’s suspension is not guaranteed to be permanent. The true, collectively bargained guarantee is two years. As per the terms of the agreement, Mejia can apply for reinstatement one year after his banishment and get an answer on his application within no more than 60 days. So if he were to get reinstated upon issuing a timely appeal, Mejia would have at least 10 months to prepare for his return.
2. All we know so far about Mejia’s case is that he reportedly told a Dominican sports journalist that he did nothing wrong and he will “appeal.” It’s quite possible that something got lost in translation here. Mejia’s representatives have not issued an official comment on behalf of their client. But Mejia’s chance to “appeal” already has passed. When cases stay private until a decision, as this one did, all of the battling goes on before the public proclamation. It’s only in instances like Alex Rodriguez’s that the appeal occurs after the public issuance of the suspension.
3. What are Mejia’s chances of getting back into organized ball? Lousy, especially if he clings to his innocence. He already went through due process and lost, so unless he can come up with some exciting new scientific explanation for his positive test between now and then, he’ll be beating a dead horse. He’ll have better odds if he fesses up and bemoans his poor decisions.
Even if he does the latter, though, it’s unlikely baseball commissioner Rob Manfred (he’s signed through 2020, so he’d be the guy if Mejia applies as soon as possible) will be sympathetic. To the contrary, in order for MLB to appease the many finger-wagging moralists, it wants its “lifetime” suspensions to actually last a lifetime. Assuming Manfred turned down the appeal, Mejia could then take it to an independent arbitrator. The pressure would be on Mejia and the Players Association to come up with something good, for they’d be blazing a trail for future three-time offenders … assuming there are any.
4. For argument’s sake, let’s say Mejia wins his appeal next year and gets reinstated for 2018. What’s his deal? Is he a Met? A free agent?
The answer at this moment is: “We don’t know yet.”
Because Mejia signed a one-year, $2.47 million contract with the Mets for 2016, and though he won’t see a cent of it, he remains Mets property for the duration of this season. He also gets major-league service time, meaning that by the end of the season, he’ll have four-plus years of service. In December, the Mets must determine whether to tender him another contract.
They’ll probably non-tender him. He just isn’t worth it anymore, right? He isn’t that good.
But what if Mejia were an elite starting pitcher with similar service time? It would make sense for the team to keep tendering him contracts, right? The player would forfeit his salary due to his suspension, but he’d keep accruing service time, and from the team’s perspective, it would retain its rights to the player.
Under this scenario, Mejia would be a five-plus player, with one year to go before free agency, in 2018. It very likely won’t happen. But that avenue is available.
And if this were to happen to a player signed to a long, multi-year contract? Then he would remain under the team’s employ, just not getting his salary, until the contract ran out.
5. Since this issue often comes up in question, but rarely occurs in reality: Mejia can’t play in Asia, because the Japanese and Korean leagues honor MLB discipline. He could play independent ball with the Mets’ permission, and the Mets — going back to the idea that Mejia isn’t talented enough to tolerate anymore — might very well grant that permission.
The bottom line is we very likely haven’t heard the last of Jenrry Mejia. And now we’ll be better prepared for the next time someone does this. I would say it’s highly unlikely there’ll be a second such offender, though I would’ve said the same thing about a first one.
Let’s catch up on a pair of recent Pop Quiz questions:
1. From Gary Mintz of South Huntington: Name the iconic baseball team mascot who can be seen on a poster in the 2015 film “Trainwreck.”
2. From Andy Romanic of Freeport: Name the former Mets pitcher who co-starred with his wife in a TV commercial for Phillips 66 gasoline.
Your answers:
1. Mr. Met
2. Tom Seaver
An amendment to a recent Pop Quiz question: I asked you to name the baseball announcer who did TV ads for The Money Store, and I gave you Phil Rizzuto as the answer. Yet Howard Gold of Kearny, NJ, and Sal Buono of Apollo Beach, Fla., both pointed out that Jim Palmer also pitched The Money Store on TV. My bad.
If you have a tidbit that connects baseball with popular culture, please send it to me at kdavidoff@nypost.com.