Morgan wants to deny steroid users

Hall of Fame second baseman Joe Morgan urged voters to keep “known steroid users” out of Cooperstown.

A day after the Hall revealed its 33-man ballot for the 2018 class, Morgan, 74, argued against the inclusion of players implicated during baseball’s steroid era in a letter to voters with the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

Morgan, vice chairman of the Hall’s board of directors, sent the letter using a Hall of Fame email address. “Steroid users don’t belong here. What they did shouldn’t be accepted.”

Hall voters have been wrestling with the issue of performance-enhancing drugs for several years. Accusations connected to some of the candidates for the Hall vary in strength from allegations to positive tests that caused suspensions.

About 430 ballots are being sent to voters, who must have been members of the BBWAA for 10 consecutive years, and a player needs at least 75 percent for election. Ballots are due by Dec. 31 and results will be announced Jan. 24.

Writers who had not been covering the game for more than a decade were eliminated from the rolls in 2015, creating a younger electorate that has shown more willingness to vote for players tainted by steroid use.

Morgan said he isn’t speaking for every Hall of Famer, but many of them feel the same way that he does.

“Players who failed drug tests, admitted using steroids, or were identified as users in Major League Baseball’s investigation into steroid abuse, known as the Mitchell Report, should not get in,” Morgan wrote.

Braves

Atlanta lost 13 prospects and former general manager John Coppolella was banned for life by MLB for circumventing international signing rules from 2015-17. Former Braves special assistant Gordon Blakeley, who was the team’s international scouting chief, was suspended from baseball for one year by commissioner Rob Manfred. Sanctions imposed by Manfred will leave the Braves unable to bargain at full strength for a top Latin American prospect until 2021.

Elsewhere

Major League Baseball, Nippon Professional Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association agreed to a new posting system that could allow star pitcher-outfielder Shohei Ohtani to be put up for bid next week according to a source. The agreement is still not in writing and remains to be ratified by all three groups.