Jurickson Profar comes out of hiding for first time since suspension

Jurickson Profar took the field yesterday for the first time since his second PED suspension as a member of the Braves — a 162-game ban that cost him all of 2026.

He went 2-for-4 for Tiburones de La Guaira of the Venezuelan Winter League and told reporters afterward he’s just there to get reps after missing all of last season.

It’s the first anyone has seen of Profar since the ban. Ronald Acuña Jr. said on his podcast that Profar essentially ghosted everyone in the organization after he left — which only hardens the case that he has no business sticking around.

The Braves owe Profar $15 million next season whether he plays or not, and that’s the one wrinkle keeping this from being completely open-and-shut — something Alex Anthopoulos acknowledged earlier this offseason.

“We’re going to have to sit and talk internally just across the board about the whole thing,” said Anthopoulos, via Jesus Cano of The Athletic. “It wasn’t productive (at the time of his suspension). There was no point at that moment in time because it wasn’t changing, right? He was gone for the year, and we had spring training to take care of. This is now the time to have those discussions.”

Atlanta is a club built around value, and strictly on that axis, cutting Profar doesn’t add up. Even a handful of useful moments in 2027 beats $15 million going completely to waste.

But this is also an organization that prides itself on culture, and keeping Profar around would send a brutal message to the teammates his cheating screwed over. The front office has to decide which matters more — and those conversations shouldn’t take long.

There’s no way the Braves can let Jurickson Profar stick around for another season. Money be damned. He cheated, lied about it, and left the organization holding the bag two years in a row. There’s no rectifying that. The $15 million is already gone — a sunk cost — and the sooner Atlanta treats it like one, the better.

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Photo: IMAGO / NurPhoto