He loses $15 million
Doping scandal: Baseball star suspended for 162 games
March 4, 2026 – 9:49 a.mReading time: 1 min.
Another doping offense earns Jurickson Profar another long ban. The baseball professional plans to take action against them.
Baseball star Jurickson Profar has been banned for 162 games for another doping offense. The 33-year-old will miss the entire Major League Baseball (MLB) season and will also lose an annual salary of $15 million from his three-year, $42 million contract. In Profar, externally supplied testosterone and its metabolites were detected.
The punishment for the Atlanta Braves outfielder is so drastic because it is not his first offense. In March 2025 he was banned for 80 games for doping with the hormone chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) and forfeited half of his salary of $12 million at the time. The Curaçao-born professional is the seventh player to be banned for 162 games for a second doping rule violation
The current ban comes into effect on Friday. As the AP news agency reports, Profar intends to appeal the decision. During his first ban he stated that he would “never knowingly take a banned substance”. The Atlanta Braves said in a statement they were “incredibly disappointed” by their 2024 All-Star’s positive test.
This year, four players have already been sanctioned for positive doping tests, including German baseball professional Max Kepler from the Philadelphia Phillies. The 33-year-old Berliner was suspended for 80 games on January 9th after testing positive for the anabolic steroid Epitrenbolone.
