Jurickson Profar's season-long suspension leaves the Braves unmistakably disappointed — but not doomed

NORTH PORT, Fla. — There was nothing left in Jurickson Profar‘s locker but a row of white hangers.

No bats, no cleats, no gloves, no belongings, no evidence that the twice-disgraced Atlanta Brave had ever stepped foot in the club’s spring training clubhouse. Even the nameplate above his cubby, sandwiched between those of Ronald Acuña Jr. and Ha-Seong Kim, had been removed. For the second time in less than a year, Profar had become less than a ghost.

There was nothing to blame but his own recklessness.

News broke Tuesday, via ESPN’s Jeff Passan, that Profar had tested positive for a banned substance. Because it is the second positive test of his career, Profar will serve a 162-game suspension. He’ll miss the entire 2026 season and is ineligible for the postseason if the Braves make it there. Technically, Profar and the MLBPA are appealing the result, but that is little more than a procedural move.

Profar, 33, signed a three-year, $42 million deal with the Braves last February after a sensational 2024 season with the San Diego Padres. But just four games into his tenure with Atlanta, the outfielder was saddled with an 80-game suspension for testing positive for human chorionic gonadotropin. He returned in early July and proceeded to perform well enough to put his misdeeds in the rearview mirror, at least temporarily.

Profar entered camp this spring as a key part of Atlanta’s 2026 plans, penciled in to hit at the top of a lineup looking to make amends for an underwhelming 2025. cInstead, he’ll spend the entire season on his couch, not getting paid.

“Yeah, look, I mean, obviously disappointed,” new Braves skipper Walt Weiss, elevated from the bench-coach role over the winter, told media Wednesday at Braves camp. “I found out about 10 minutes before it got announced, maybe five minutes. So still processing a lot of this.”

Weiss and the handful of Braves players who spoke Wednesday attempted to minimize the scale and scope of Profar’s suspension. Pitchers Spencer Strider and Chris Sale both framed the news as yet another morsel of the adversity that ballclubs face throughout a long and winding season. Both insisted that the team’s focus remains on controlling the things they can control.

Understandably, Weiss, Sale and Strider all leaned on cliché, opting against a direct, scathing critique of Profar’s character. Considering the callousness and selfishness of his actions, it was an impressively level-headed display. For the second straight year, Profar’s contemporaries took the high road, whether or not he deserved it.

But beneath the Braves’ diplomatic tone lingered an unmistakable sense of disappointment. Asked what “playing clean” means to him, Sale — one of the more candid personalities in the game — didn’t beat around the bush.

“I think it’s important to do things the right way,” the nine-time All-Star asserted, acknowledging that he had a conversation about Profar’s suspension with his teenage son. “Today, I think we have an example to set for not only our children but the next group of big leaguers that are coming up, the next generation of kids that want to play, you know, higher levels of baseball.”

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Steroid use in baseball has been in sharp decline since the muscle-maxing heyday of the late ‘90s and early 2000s. Profar’s is just the fifth PED suspension in the big leagues since the start of 2025. Across the league, in all clubhouses but their own, users are often scorned, derided and judged.

“There’s drug testing in place now, and everybody is very familiar with it,” Weiss said, when asked by Yahoo Sports how the perception of PED use has changed over the years. “And we all get tested, tested, tested. I got tested as a coach, I get tested as a manager. So we all know that that’s the deal now.”

That’s part of what makes Profar’s malfeasance so embarrassing. There is no gray area anymore. He used, parlayed that into a payday, got caught and somehow had the audacity to use again.

In the 24 hours since Profar “got popped” for the second time, numerous players, speaking off the record, expressed their incredulousness at the sheer brazenness of his cheating. And while they declined to admit as much publicly, it’s likely that some Braves players feel similarly behind the scenes.

But the suspension does not single-handedly doom the Braves — far from it. Atlanta added veteran outfielder Mike Yastrzemski on a two-year contract over the winter, a move that was going to mean more DH time for Profar. Without Profar, perhaps the Braves will scoop up a veteran bat such as Andrew McCutchen, Rowdy Tellez, Jesse Winker or Wilmer Flores, but the likeliest scenario involves Atlanta weathering the storm until catcher Sean Murphy returns from injury. Between him and 2025 NL Rookie of the Year Drake Baldwin, Atlanta could cycle its backstops through the DH spot, as both are impactful enough offensively.

Besides, the success of Atlanta’s 2026 season was always going to depend on the health and production of cornerstones such as Ronald Acuña Jr., Matt Olson, Michael Harris II and Austin Riley. Some of the money the team no longer has to pay Profar ($15 million) could be repurposed in trade or free agency. Lucas Giolito and Zack Littell are two quality starters still on the open market. Either would provide cover for a Braves staff set to be without Spencer Schwellenbach (elbow) and Hurston Waldrep (elbow) for the foreseeable future.

“It doesn’t change anything we do here,” Weiss maintained of Profar’s absence. “There’ll be opportunities created because of this. It’s not something that we would choose, but that’s where we’re at, and it’s onward.”

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The news also further calls into question the legitimacy of Profar’s breakout 2024 season. Once considered the top prospect in all of baseball, for years he failed to make good on the generational hype set on his shoulders. He eventually settled into a life as a capable, if unspectacular, utility player.

Then his career appeared to be sputtering out as he inched toward 30, leading to his release by the Colorado Rockies after a horrible stretch in 2023. Profar latched on with San Diego for 2024 on a one-year, $1 million, “prove-it” deal. He proceeded to deliver by far the best offensive year of his career: an .839 OPS with 24 homers and an All-Star Game start.

At the time, it was a perplexing emergence, as little about Profar’s approach, swing decisions or mechanics appeared to change in any significant way. Yet he was striking the ball with way more authority. His average exit velocity increased by nearly 5 mph, pushing him from the ninth percentile to the 80th in that metric — an unprecedented, shocking year-over-year jump.

Profar’s numbers were quite literally unbelievable. Rarely do players in their early 30s experience such an increase in raw athleticism.

Now we know why. The answer, as it turned out, was in the urine test.

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