The Rays Tank: Biogenesis Chaos, Jesus Flores Signed

No one has ever seen anything like this. Outside the Lines reported that Major League Baseball will look to suspend Alex Rodriguez, Ryan Braun, Melky Cabrera, Nelson Cruz, and plenty of others using the documents linking them to the Biogenesis Clinic and the sworn testimony of Tony Bosch, who will cooperate with Major League Baseball in exchange for help with his legal troubles.

The result of this could be a performance-enhancing drug crackdown larger than any in the history of professional sports. And the suspensions given out will not just have to do with the drugs. Jonah Keri writes that baseball is looking to suspend players both for acquiring the drugs and for lying. Baseball will attempt to suspend Braun 100 games, 50 for having drugs and 50 for lying previously. Braun continues to deny the allegations.

Keri continues Bud Selig could view this as a way to purge baseball from PEDs and change his legacy from "the commissioner under whom everybody took steroids to the commissioner who cleaned up baseball." In doing so, though, baseball may be overstepping the authority and potentially putting the labor stability of the entire sport at risk. Things are getting as crazy as ever, and the next few weeks could do a lot to determine the future of Major League Baseball.

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The Rays have signed catcher Jesus Flores to a minor league contract. Flores has experience in parts of five major league season with the Washington Nationals, but he hasn't done much, managing just a .241/.289/.375 line (77 OPS+) in 1014 plate appearances and only a 24% caught stealing percentage. Flores was once a talented prospect, but he was a Rule 5 Draft pick by the Nats, basically ruining his career. Listen to what Baseball America said about Flores after the Nats selected him in the Rule 5 Draft in 2006.

Catchers with his blend of power and defense are tough to find, but he’s not ready to jump from Class A to the majors…. A year on Washington’s big league bench would hurt his development.

Yet that is exactly what happened and we'll never know what Flores could have been with more minor league time. In any event, Flores does have some talent, although labrum surgery has limited his ability behind the plate, but most importantly he gives the Rays some catching depth with Chris Gimenez on the Triple-A Durham DL.

Here are your links for today:

-Alex Torres wowed Joe Maddon and the Rays with his performance in Tuesday's game.

-Alex Colome came up flat in his return to the minors.

-Babe Ruth was the worst basestealer of all time, according to NotGraphs.