According to multiple reports, Chicago White Sox catcher Welington Castillo will be suspended 80 games by Major League Baseball for using a performance-enhancing drug.
BREAKING NEWS: According to dominican journalist @_acelado, Dominican born Chicago White Sox catcher Welington Castillo will be suspended for steroid use. Will be announced tomorrow.#ZDeportes @z101digital @ZDeportes
— Héctor Gómez (@hgomez27) May 24, 2018
Sources confirm to The Athletic: #WhiteSox’s Welington Castillo will be suspended 80 games for using a PED (not a steroid) in violation of baseball’s Joint Drug Agreement. https://t.co/ZE97Z7NrTp
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) May 24, 2018
Along with the White Sox, the 31-year-old Castillo has played for the Chicago Cubs (first six seasons), Arizona Diamondbacks, Seattle Mariners, and Baltimore Orioles.
Castillo has a .270/.314/.477 slash line and 0.6 WAR (per Baseball Reference) on the season. He had a very productive 20-homer, 2.7 WAR (per FanGraphs) season in 2017 with Baltimore, and was rewarded with a two-year, $15 million deal from the White Sox on the open market. Chicago hoped that the veteran backstop would be an asset for the team’s young pitchers.
The rebuilding White Sox are 15-31, so this news doesn’t really change anything for how their season will ultimately go (from really bad to maybe a little worse).
It’s unknown what PED Castillo took.