Tyler Skaggs’ Angels teammate testifies about his drug transactions with Eric Kay

SANTA ANA, Calif. — Mike Morin, a former teammate of Tyler Skaggs, testified Tuesday that pressure to stay in the big leagues and concern about the consequences of notifying team doctors led Morin to purchase illicit OxyContin pills from Eric Kay.

Morin, who pitched for the Los Angeles Angels from 2014 through 2017, said Skaggs told him Kay could provide pills to deal with an arm injury he had suffered in 2017. Morin testified that he conducted approximately five to eight transactions with Kay, which involved leaving money in his locker cubby, where the pills would be dropped off.

Kay, the Angels’ former communications director, is serving a 22-year prison sentence for providing the fentanyl-laced pill that Skaggs ingested, leading to his death on July 1, 2019. Skaggs’ family is suing the Angels for wrongful death, alleging the team knew or should have known he was providing pills to Skaggs.

“It’s impossible for anyone to understand what it’s like to play at the MLB level,” Morin said through tears during his direct examination by Skaggs family attorney Leah Graham. “Only people that get it are in the same room. It’s immense highs and immense lows. What it feels like to devote your life to something and fail, yeah, there’s not a whole lot of other people that can fully understand what it takes to get there and to stay there.”

Graham’s questioning highlighted the physical toll of pitching, the reticence many players have for reporting pain to team doctors, and why Skaggs was a popular teammate. Morin is one of five players, in addition to Skaggs, who have admitted to purchasing pills from Kay — a list also includes Matt Harvey, C.J. Cron, Cam Bedrosian and Blake Parker. Their depositions will be played later in the trial, whereas Morin was a live witness.

On cross-examination, Morin was asked by Angels lawyer Todd Theodora if he believed Skaggs “was responsible for the decision to chop up and snort opioids.”

“I think that he is responsible for his actions,” Morin said, after a pause. The Angels’ case is centered on arguing that the team operated responsibly and that Skaggs was responsible for his own death.

Morin also said, “That makes sense,” when asked if Morin’s salary negotiations could be impacted if people found out about his drug use. The Angels’ argument regarding damages is that Skaggs wouldn’t have earned big free-agent contracts if teams were aware of his drug use.

Theodora worked to connect Morin’s drug use directly to Skaggs, noting that Morin’s purchases of drugs coincided with Skaggs’ and that Skaggs drove the dynamic between the three of them. Morin testified that he didn’t know Kay to be a source of drugs until Skaggs told him.

Morin said during his direct examination and cross-examination that his goal in testifying was to highlight the need to address this issue of players abusing drugs and make sure it doesn’t happen again. That includes rule changes, some of which, he said, had already come to fruition in MLB’s drug testing policy, which now includes opiates.

“I want people to learn and continue to learn,” Morin said, “and mitigate the opportunity for this to happen again.”

Morin was the middle witness Tuesday and the only one to testify in full. Skaggs’ mother, Debbie Hetman, began the day by finishing her direct examination and was then cross-examined by the Angels.

Angels attorney Elizabeth Lachman tried to establish early on that Hetman had the means and resources, through Skaggs’ agents, to notify the Angels of her son’s drug use had she wanted to do so.

She also pressed Hetman on her testimony that she was unaware Skaggs had been prescribed Percocet after his 2014 Tommy John surgery. Hetman testified in direct examination Monday that her son had a Percocet addiction in 2013 and had quit cold turkey.

Lachman introduced the Percocet prescription transaction from August 2014, which included Hetman’s signature. Hetman testified she didn’t know it was Percocet and hadn’t looked at the medication.

Hetman had testified during Kay’s criminal trial that her son’s Percocet abuse ended in 2013. Lachman asked Tuesday if Hetman didn’t want anyone to know he had relapsed, implying her testimony in 2022 was incorrect. “No, that is absolutely wrong,” Hetman said.

Lachman later displayed a note from the medical examiner’s office stating that Hetman and an Angels team physician had told them “he had no history of illicit drug use.” Hetman said she had no recollection of the medical examiner ever asking her that question and that she was consumed by grief the day she visited Skaggs’ body at the morgue.

The judge expressed some frustration at Lachman’s line of questioning to Hetman regarding her stepson, Garet Ramos, whom the Angels have been unable to locate as they attempt to serve him a subpoena. The Angels want to question Ramos about allegedly deleting a text message from Skaggs’ phone after his death. Hetman said she hasn’t spoken to Ramos in six months and doesn’t know his whereabouts, other than that he likely lives in Tennessee.

Lachman asked Hetman if she’d be willing to provide Ramos’ phone number, which she said she had already done. Lachman said Ramos didn’t take their call or had changed his phone number. She asked Hetman if she’d be willing to call Ramos and ask him to testify.

“I think I told him, ‘If they contact you, talk to him,’” Hetman said.

Lachman continued asking questions about getting in contact with Ramos, whom the Angels have signaled is an important witness in their case. The judge initially asked Lachman to move her line of questioning along. And later, she interrupted a question about Ramos and told Lachman she couldn’t ask it and had to move on.

On redirect from Skaggs attorney Daniel Dutko, Hetman said there are health and family issues relating to her stepson. Dutko also addressed Skaggs’ “cold turkey” treatment for his 2013 Percocet abuse, saying it was done in conjunction with his doctors.

The day ended with ex-MLB Players Association attorney Jeff Fannell providing expert testimony on behalf of the plaintiffs regarding Skaggs’ projected future earnings. Fannell worked for 10 years with the MLBPA, negotiating arbitration cases and working directly with MLB to enforce its collective bargaining agreement.

Both sides are using expert witnesses to discuss potential future earnings, which could be critical in assessing damages for this trial. The Skaggs family is suing the team for punitive damages and other damages, including loss of life and loss of love.

Fannell testified his belief that Skaggs would have earned somewhere between $109.3 million and $120.3 million over the course of his career, citing that, statistically, Skaggs was “pitching more and pitching better” at the time of his death. His ERA, ERA+ and FIP were all much better in 2018 and 2019, compared to the first five years of his big-league career.

The Angels believe Skaggs would have earned between $0 and $30 million over his career, according to a source familiar with their line of thinking and who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. They plan to call ex-Baltimore Orioles and Boston Red Sox general manager Dan Duquette to be their expert witness.

Fannell utilized comparisons to free-agent pitchers at the same time of Skaggs’ free agency in 2020, specifically tying Skaggs to Taijuan Walker, who inked a three-year, $23 million contract, before opting out after two years and signing a four-year, $72 million free-agent deal.

Though Skaggs had undergone Tommy John surgery in 2014 and missed the 2015 season, Fannell noted that Skaggs was healthier in the latter years of his career and would have earned upward of $7 million in the final year of arbitration.

Angels attorney David Keithly had only two minutes to cross-examine Fannell before the day ended. His brief questioning centered on Fannell’s role advocating for players but never working on behalf of a team. His questioning will resume Wednesday morning.