Fastball Fans

Major League Baseball and the Players Association have agreed to delay the 15-day suspensions handed to outfielder Jose Guillen of Kansas City and outfielder Jay Gibbons of Baltimore.

The stay of discipline will be for 10 days to allow for further negotiations over revisions of the commissioner’s drug agreement.

“Pretty surprising,” Gibbons said after Friday’s announcement. “Put it this way: I’m cautiously optimistic — at least they’re talking.”

Negotiators are close to an agreement that would call for more frequent drug testing and would strengthen the authority of the independent program administrator. If there is an agreement, the suspensions of Gibbons and Guillen would most likely be eliminated as part of an overall amnesty for players implicated in the Mitchell report.

Guillen said he is optimistic things are moving in the right direction.

“I think they are,” Guillen said before the Royals’ exhibition game in Milwaukee on Friday. “Again, we’ll see when that decision comes. We’ve just got to let those people make their own decision.”

The suspensions would start April 9 if an agreement isn’t reached and no other actions are taken.

“There’s no guarantees that they don’t stay it again after 10 days if they think they’re close and don’t have an agreement,” Orioles president of baseball operations Andy MacPhail said.

Players and owners would be strengthening drug rules for the third time since their initial agreement in 2002. The sides also made changes in January 2005, when sanctions for first offenders began, and in November 2005, when the penalty for an initial positive test was increased from 10 days to 50 games.

I don’t like this all — if a guy was caught doing drugs and there’s a punishment in place — abide by it…