Seattle Mariners prospect Eric Filia will be suspended for the first 50 games of the 2018 season after testing positive for a substance of abuse.
After being one of the top players in the Arizona Fall League, Seattle Mariners minor league outfielder Eric Filia won’t be on the field until late June next year. Instead, he will serve a 50-game suspension without pay at the beginning of the 2018 season after testing positive for a substance of abuse.
Sources say the substance of abuse is marijuana. It’s the second positive test for Filia. He was expected to start the year in Double-A and hoped to move quickly through the minors after having great success in his first two professional seasons. Now he’ll have to hone his batting skills off the field for the first couple months.
Filia previously tested positive in 2016, when he played for the Everett Aquasox. I remember watching him play with the Aquasox that year. The first thing I noticed was the way he set up at the plate. He was very deliberate, easily taking longer to get set in the batter’s box than the other players in the short-season Northwest League.
As he stepped to the plate he placed one foot in the batter’s box, then the next foot, then did a knee bend with the bat held horizontally in front of him as he looked down at the ground in front of him. Next came what is now known as the “Filia Shimmy,” a move that involves the simultaneous wiggle of the hips and shoulders. All this time the young umpire behind the plate patiently held his hand in the air for a time.
When Filia finally established himself in the box, the left-handed hitter used a wide-open stance that had his front foot nearly out of the box on the first base side. As the pitch came in, he brought the foot back square and stepped toward the pitcher. More often than not, he took the pitch. He finished the season with a .450 on-base percentage. When he swung the bat, he hit ropes, leading the league with a .362 batting average.
Filia helped the Aquasox make it all the way to the league finals, where they lost to the Eugene Emeralds. Because of a scheduling conflict, the Aquasox played Game 2 of the championship series at Safeco Field of the Seattle Mariners, rather than Everett Memorial Stadium. I attended that game with my sister and 10-year-old niece. After the Aquasox’ victory, my niece hopped the fence to get on the field so she could have her picture taken with Filia, both of them showing off happy smiles. He seemed like a great guy, someone who was easy to root for.
His numbers were impressive: .362/.450/.496, with 43 runs, 46 RBI, and 10 steals in 68 games. Just based on the stats, it looked like the Seattle Mariners had a top prospect. There was a caveat, though. Filia had that great season in low-A as a 23-year-old. That’s ancient for a player at that level. The average low-A player is just under 21 years old. At 23, Filia was older than the vast majority of the players in the league. He would need to play well and move quickly just to become a prospect.