Donovan Tate Cites “Personal Reasons” For Spring Training Absence

The Associated Press has reported, Padres 2009 1st round draft pick Donovan Tate, will not be reporting to Spring Training for “personal reasons”.

Vice president of player development Randy Smith had this to say:

"“There’s Donavan the ball player and Donavan the person,” Smith said. “He needs to work on one before he can work on the other.”"

Tate’s development has been hampered by untimely injuries and twice testing positive for cannabis.

The full story can be found in The Washington Post.

This leaves a sour taste in Padres fans mouth eager to see him develop. He has not made very intelligent career choices and his failure as a ball player brings back nightmares of the Matt Bush saga.

Is it too late for Bush to rebound from this? Who knows. Josh Hamilton was able to crawl out of an alcoholic abyss so maybe there is hope for Tate.

I had all but forgotten about Tate and this news is frustrating and annoying, just adding to the hefty pile of BS accumulated this offseason.