USA Today writer Bob Nightengale recently wrote an article on Brewers minor league player Jon Singleton. Singleton has had a very unique path in baseball so far that includes multiple drug suspensions due to marijuana, a historic contract, and anxiety + depression. He’s now about to start his second season in Milwaukee’s organization. Here is his story.
Brewers Jon Singleton and his comeback story after drug suspensions, a historic contract, and anxiety + depression.
Singleton was drafted in the eighth round of the 2009 MLB draft by the Philadelphia Phillies. The Long Beach, California native started smoking marijuana at the age of 14. Where he was from smoking marijuana was normal.
Singleton ended up being involved in a trade to the Astros in 2011 when Houston gave up Hunter Pence. In the Astros’s organization they believed that Singleton would become a star. As a prospect he was ranked as high as 27th by Baseball America and before he played in a Major League game the Astros gave him a five year, $10MM contract.
The Astros also realized Singleton’s marijuana habit for he tested positive in 2012 and had him spend a month in a drug rehab center. Houston eventually worked around MLB’s ban on the substance by adding him to the 40-man roster. This worked because at the time Minor-league players were prohibited from smoking, but not major-league players.
Singleton ended up playing in the Major Leagues in 2014 and 2015. He played a total of 114 games, had a .171 batting average, .290 on base percentage, and .331 slugging. In total he has 14 career home runs and 50 RBI.
Having signed a historic contract and struggling to perform, Singleton said at that time “I had a lot of anxiety and depression. A lot of that had to do with the contract I signed. I became worried about what people were saying about me. I had such expectations of myself, I didn’t know how to deal with the anxiety, or how to deal with the depression at that age.”.
2015 was the last season that Jon Singleton has played in the Major Leagues.
Singleton has not played in the Major League since 2015 when the Astros had him up for just 19 games. He spent the 2016 and 2017 season in the Minor Leagues and eventually received a 100 game suspension in 2018 after testing positive for marijuana.
In 2019, MLB removed is ban on marijuana. At that time Singleton had not played in a baseball game since 2017 and didn’t make an appearance again until playing in a Mexican League in 2021. Prior to the start of the 2022 season, he signed a Minor League deal with the Brewers where he had 24 home runs, drove in 87 runs, and had a franchise record 117 walks.
Brewers manager Craig Counsell had this to say about Jon Singleton’s performance in 2022. “What he did last year was really impressive. He had a really good season, especially having not been in affiliated baseball for those years. By the end of the year, he got his name in conversations about being called up.”
Upon the conclusion of the 2022 season, the Brewers did end up adding Singleton to their 40-man roster. However, he was later DFA’d after the team signed Brian Anderson in January. Singleton initially elected free agency, but ended up re-signing with the Brewers a few weeks later. He is now a non-roster invitee in spring training and is looking to complete his come back by making the Major League roster.
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