Mathew Peters was suspended on Jan. 26 for the 2024 ACL season after testing positive for Dehydrochlormethyltestosterone (better known as Oral Turinabol), a performance enhancing substance in violation of Major League Baseball’s Joint Minor League Drug Prevention and Treatment Program. The drug is believed to help improve muscle growth and strength, according to the Minor League Baseball site.
Dehydrochloromethyltestosterone (DCT) was the substance that most athlete tested positive for before the Olympic Games in London in 2012. At that time the WADA accredited laboratory in Cologne developed a better test method to detect the substance. This resulted in more athletes banned for using the substance.
Since 2010 the Anti-Doping Database has registered 459 athletes who has been banned for using DCT. We have also registered 278 baseball players banned for an anti-doping rule violation.
Before the Olympic Games in 2012 there were less than 10 doping violations involving this substance. In 2013 the number of banned athletes for this substance totalled at 79. In 2015 the number was 52, and the year after it went up to 60. After the pandemic in 2020 the number of athletes banned for this substance has been around 20 each year.
Peters is not the first baseball-player to be banned for DCT. In 2019 the Russian baseball-player Magomed Kurbanov was given a four year suspension by the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA).