Some details of the Mitchell Report have come to light and there are 11 free agents on the list right now, including the newly outed Jose Guillen. Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe confirmed this today:
Player agents who attended yesterday’s union meeting in New York were told that 11 current free agent players are named in the George Mitchell report on the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball, which could come out sometime around the first of the year, and that all 11 players have been notified by the commissioner’s office. Two agents who were there confirmed this today.
With those 11 players being named, it will surely cost them money in the free agent market. It will also be very interesting to see which 11 players are named. Will a team be willing to take a chance on these players? We know from an earlier report about that there will be star players included in the Mitchell Report.
It had been thought that the Mitchell Report would come out any time now but it appears from the article that it will come around the first of the year. The Mitchell Report Commission has set a deadline of Saturday for all evidence to be submitted.
Also Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated is reporting that an active player will “voluntarily” help out Mitchell with his investigation.
According to a source familiar with the investigation, the player, whom the source did not name, volunteered to speak with Mitchell in the coming weeks, ending the wall of silence Mitchell had encountered in trying to get active players to cooperate without the leverage of subpoena power.
The source described the player as one of several players Mitchell wanted to question because of their previous public comments opposing steroid use, not because the player was connected to any steroid use of his own. The source said the interview with the player was scheduled to take place “very soon.”
The only person I know of that has really spoken out against steroids is Curt Schilling.
