Just three players were suspended this year under the major league program, all for 50 games: San Francisco catcher Eliezer Alfonzo, Colorado catcher Humberto Cota and Florida pitcher Henry Owens. Suspensions were far more prevalent under the minor league program, with 66 penalties, including 40 from the Dominican Summer League and 10 from the Venezuelan Summer League.

“My view on the numbers is really simple: We run the very best program we can possibly run, and the numbers turn out how the numbers turn out. I can’t control the numbers,” said Rob Manfred, MLB’s executive vice president of labor relations. “I think the move to the independent program administrator with the authority that was invested in him was a huge improvement. That in my view was the biggest single change.”

The administrator was to have released the first of his annual reports on the drug program by next Monday, but it likely won’t be issued until January, a baseball management lawyer said.

Mitchell said the timing of the review wasn’t important, only that it’s done annually.

“The most important thing is to create an attitude which reflects the awareness that this is a dynamic ongoing program,” he said. “You can never reach the stage where you can say, we solved it, that’s it. You may have solved this drug, but there’s a lot of money involved and there are a lot of people who are seeking to make some of that money by creating new illegal drugs. And so you have to have a constant attention, constant focus, constant effort.”

The players’ association, which resisted Mitchell’s probe, agrees with that analysis and agreed in April to accept his recommendations.

“Fundamentally, we thought we had a good program. All the evidence we had was that it was working extremely well for some substantial period of time before the Mitchell Report came out,” union head Donald Fehr said.

Now, Mitchell awaits to see if more names will be implicated in the case of Dr. Ramon Scruggs and two alleged associates at the New Hope Health Center in Costa Mesa, Calif. A federal indictment unsealed in April charged that unidentified agents for baseball players steered clients to him.

“That’s a dimension that did not arise during our investigation,” Mitchell said. “It validates what I said. We didn’t find out everything.”

Also on NBCSports.com PFT’s Picks: Patriots will roll, Chargers will survive Circling the Bases: Handicapping the Halladay race College football: What was Yale coaching thinking? Opinion: So far, Nowitzki is NBA’s MVP  |  Fan Ranker Twitter: Follow us @nbc_sports

MORE FROM BASEBALL

Baseball Section Front

Handicapping the Halladay chase Blyleven: Pitching to be had beyond Halladay DeMarco: Red Sox should take measured approach CTB: A prediction — Lackey will sign with Yankees   CTB: Indians unlikely to deal Wood this offseason   CTB: Mets could be interested in Royals’ Guilllen Complete list of free agents Circling the Bases: Blogging on news, rumors, buzz SCORES, SCHEDULES, STANDINGS, STATS Latest baseball videos Baseball Section Front   Add Baseball headlines to your news reader: