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I think Many Parra has the straightest 2-seam fastball in the history of MLB.....

I think Many Parra has the straightest 2-seam fastball in the history of MLB.....

I may have to rethink my position after lucroy's 'brilliant' baserunning.

This is my fault. I picked Gallardo on several of my fantasy teams and he is rewarding me with a great big pile of...... Thankfully I also have Molina and Beltran on several teams... The shadows were still favoring the pitcher in the top of the 3rd and still we had fireworks. I can honestly say this is the worst I have ever seen him pitch. Interesting factoid from the TV broadcast.... Gallardo has not won an opening day start!

This is my fault. I picked Gallardo on several of my fantasy teams and he is rewarding me with a great big pile of...... Thankfully I also have Molina and Beltran on several teams... The shadows were still favoring the pitcher in the top of the 3rd and still we had fireworks. I can honestly say this is the worst I have ever seen him pitch. Interesting factoid from the TV broadcast.... Gallardo has not won an opening day start!

Kalle8, you just made my wife cry. Heck he made ME cry. Wonderful story. now i just have to convince the others on the subway that my allergies are kicking up....

And what a horrible season it was! Our worst fears come to life in the form of a division championship. Association does not prove causation. Google it and learn a bit. that's the great thing about the internet - information flows. you just need to open your mind to it, not stick your head in the ground and ignore it.....

Hey guys, the Brewers are in 3rd place right now. if we lose today and fall 1.5 games behind we might as well pack it in.....

So we should give him the benefit of the doubt? When last year he repeatedly met our worst expectations of being clueless. i could see that making sense last year when we didn't know where actions related to words, but we have a full season plus of our worst fears often coming true to just etch-a-sketch away what he says.

I never understood why this was such a big deal to some. Lucroy can't catch every game. Pitcher and catcher are 1 and 2 for most physically demanding positions in baseball. starting pitchers usually get 4 days rest between starts. While most teams go with a 60/40 or 80/20 split for catchers, our manager seems to prefer a 85/15 split (PH Lucroy as soon as wolf leaves a game). Not only can a catcher not catch every game, he shouldn't be one of the first PH options the one game he doesn't catch if we expect him to be productive the entire season. My only issue with the Wolf-Lucroy situation is that RR should have been in Wolf (or any other players) face when they publicly show up another player.

per this article, ron roenicke says he knows what the team will do if corey hart starts on the disabled list. i found it interesting that he mentioned corey patterson as part of the outfield depth Corey Patterson has no place on a mlb roster. Any manager who thinks he does is Dusty Baker's twin brother from a different mother.....

Well, Guggenheim Baseball Partners is technically the owner, but Walter won't be running the team. Stan Kasten is running the day-to-day operations. there is an ownership group. guggenheim is the largest % owner. mlb requires the owners to designate 1 owner to represent the group (walter). walter is not going to handle day to day operatiom, kasten will, but walter is the owner just like attanasio is "the" owner.

Long gone are organizations that 'wing it' or whatever you are implying. I'm not sure what 'wing it' means, but it's pretty clear that the Doug Melvin era is littered with checkers type moves while other GMs are playing chess. granted there are a lot of GMs who appear to be checker players that doesn't mean we shouldn't desire more from our GM Then, incredibly, as soon as he was traded to his hometown team, he started working on his fielding. Lawrie is from BC. Toronto isn't his home town. maybe all canadians root for the jays thinking it's us vs them, but this isn't the olympics or world cup.

Apparently, MLB and the Union won't be making the written decision public. What garbage! The article says they have to "agree" to make the decision public and they are not in agreement. MLB can't say "yes" and it happens, MLBPA can't say "yes" and it happens, they both have to say "yes" for it to happen. All we know is that they both are not saying "yes" at this point. Given the statements by both so far it's likely MLB is balking at releasing the written report as it is damning of their collection instructions.

Chalk it up as good news. Why? Because they found more damage then they expected but he didn't completely tear the meniscus? Yeah that sounds great. 'He didn't completely chop of his arm there still was some skin holding it on.....' We hope... Yep, when a minor oblique strain turned into no ST last year any Hart timetable should be doubled. it's amazing to me that all the tears Corey described will only amount to missing about a month. It's called Spin....

Yeah and designated runners so that DHs don't strain their hamstrings or hurt themselves running the bases and a designated catcher to throw the ball back to the pitcher and to second base so no catcher hurts himself throwing the ball. How about designated bunters so that none of the important players get hurt. Maybe one day we'll just have an offense and a defense (8 men each). Then baseball would look just like the sport you hate, football. Wasn't a problem years ago when all leagues had the pitchers bat. By the time pitchers got to MLB they new what the big toothpick was for, but now.....[whiney]Can someone carry my bat to the plate, I might injure myself.....[/whiney]

Awesome. I love this. He's not that great, he's a hothead, and the Cards deserve him. Money extremely well spent by the Cards. Amen. What a knee jerk response to losing Pujols, overspend on Molina. What's next a 10yr deal for Schumaker?

Polygraphs are admissible in court in some states but not in others. So to refuse to report about it based on his own belief of the reliability of polygraphs or his view that it is not "material" is grossly irresponsible in my opinion. Polygraphs are just as good as many other forms of evidence. DNA is touted as being the answer to a lot of cases and the fact is that if there isn't enough DNA then you can get a highly inaccurate reading. Unfortunately, "not enough" DNA changes from lab to lab and test to test. The issue is that any evidence has drawbacks, but for anyone to dismiss polygraphs out of hand then state that the T/E and synthetic T testing is beyond question on a sample that sat in undesirable conditions for ~44 hours reveals they have an agenda and are not seeking the "truth". Passan said (on twitter) that he has confirmed--with three sources--the synthetic T reading on the test The issue is pretty plain to me. The testing laboratory only has a clear idea what to expect from a sample that is handled in the prescribed way. Nobody has the data to support that a sample handled in the way it was collected for Braun is no different than a sample that is collected one day and arrives at the testing lab the next day. The fact that Friday collections must be marked for Saturday delivery, yet a weekend collection can sit anywhere seems to indicate to me they have inconsistencies in what they require of the collectors. How is a sample collected on Friday and delivered Monday morning any different than a sample collected on Saturday and delivered on Tuesday morning? I find it extremely hypocritical that MLB says that there is nothing wrong with the way that Braun's sample was handled yet they require all Friday samples to be delivered Saturday morning. Yet Passan doesn't seem to have picked up on any of the inconsistencies in the MLB stance. Hmmmm, yep it sounds like he's doing impartial research.

Basically it would be too expensive and take way too much time, as well as destroy the sample. Well I have some relatively expensive machinery in my research laboratory. I have weekend staff and split shifts to maximize the available time that we can run tests. I also would love to have a project with a guaranteed high level of samples to serve as a base for other business that is intermittent and unreliable. A testing lab could build in the cost of the machinery over a multiyear contract. The guys running the labs always want to make things sound like they are harder and costlier to do so that they can justify charging a higher price. If the test came out to $200 each and there are roughly 3000 samples tested in a year. That's $6,000,000. Spread across all the teams that's about $200,000 per team. I have a hard time believing that cost would be too much to have a much tighter testing system. Even if $6,000,000 is to high, only test half of the samples in any year. That should still be much better than now. As far as destroying the sample, that is true of what is put in the machine, but you don't have to run all of the urine or you can collect more from the players and use the extra to test for synthetic T.

For what it's worth, Passan tweets that he's tried to confirm Will Carroll's report on Braun's defense team being able to replicate the results, but hasn't been able to yet. Also, the replication is apparently only for the T/E ratio. Doesn't explain the synthetic testosterone. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe they only test for synthetic T if the T/E ratio is high. The question that comes immediately to my mind is why don't they always test for both. If the synthetic testosterone is accurate and indicates only something that is artificial then that clearly indicates a player is doping. Maybe it isn't that accurate and is only used as a followup if the T/E ratio is high - a high false positive rate for the synthetic T wouldn't matter if you already have other evidence of a positive test, but would be a problem if you didn't have a high T/E ratio. I would think that if the synthetic testosterone test is clean (accurate with few false positives/negatives) then it should be used every time. Can MLB really argue cost is too prohibitive? Is it really that expensive to test every sample for synthetic T? I have the feeling the synthetic T assay is far less reliable an assay than the T/E ratio and therefore can't be used by itself as an indicator of steroid (ab)use.

Also, if you're going to have montages, you should have at least one montage that represents the film year being honored. That's the place for Twilight, not in a montage with classics. Yep. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. I turned off the oscars at that point as I really was aghast that they would include Twilight in the montage. This was the weakest year in my memory so I didn't need much to get me to turn away. I've listened to the talking heads and I like some of the suggestions, like: Move all the technical awards to a separate show (probably a cable channel). Have a ticker thank you running across the bottom of the people the winner wants to thank instead of having everyone list all their agents and reps. Expanded categories The problem with expanded categories (like the golden globes with best actor/actress in a comedy/musical, etc.) is that it's a real break with tradition. The problem for the academy is that the technical awards only appeal to a small minority while the big awards are too few unless you expand. So either break with tradition or see the interest in the awards dissipate.

You can't save a game if your behind in the 9th. If they really have a logjam of young starting pitchers with promise then they'd be better off biting the bullet and trading Myers and picking up as much salary as they could to get something decent in return. If they don't have a logjam and they are just going to throw out a replacement level player then it doesn't make a lot of sense putting Myers in as your closer - He has a lot more value pitching 200 innings and saving a bullpen that is going to be overworked than pitching 60-70 IP. Unless the 'Stros are clearly telling their fans they don't care how bad the team is this year.

I've done research. Doing research is my career. And I've posted more in this thread to discredit the science of the test than any one of his commentaries has proven the science. I've spoken with a number of people involved in the arbitration hearing. Involved, but he didn't say who attended. 'I spoke to the assistant who arranged travel and she said that Das wanted extra time to speak with Braun's representatives....Sounds suspicious'. I wouldn't write as confidently as I do if I didn't have information from sources I trust. Well I hope so. I would hate to think he would be so confident if he didn't trust his sources. The problem is that the public has no idea who these sources are and whether they are reliable. Just because charles-in-charge of yahoo sports thinks members of the MLB office who are leaking information are trustworthy and not biased then we should just trust him. I cannot name these sources because they ask for anonymity in exchange for the truth. It's something my editors and I are willing to grant. Some ask for it because revealing the information could cost them their jobs. Others ask for it because Braun is a friend and they don't want to look like rats. As long as I tell the story like it really happened -- not as MLB or Braun wants to spin it -- I'm willing to sacrifice on-the-record quotes. I think it's a fair trade. Sure Whistleblowers and those who leak sensitive information usually want protection from losing their jobs, prosecution, or getting killed if the information is that vital, however, usually you have to be revealing information about a party with power and the means to shut you up. I highly doubt Braun or his group would have the power or reach to take on a whistleblower. MLB however has the means and inclination to suppress negative information that a leak or whistleblower might want to reveal. Really, MLB and the drug testing industry are the elephant in the room here and not Ryan Braun, but yes Passan wants to disparage the one person with the weakest position here while claiming to be doing the honorable thing in protection the leakers of the those with more power. Nice how he implicitly says Braun's friends have turned on him too. Telling the story as it really happened requires you to not form a conclusion as to the outcome in advance of doing "research" and gathering "evidence". Unfortunately very few columnists understand that you don't just look at the evidence that supports your conclusion, but you look at all of the evidence and weigh it appropriately and then come to an impartial conclusion. Maybe like Das DID..... Plenty of people in the media and fans don't like my conclusions. Again, having conclusions is fine. Making them after exhaustive research is the key, not before while ignoring evidence that is contrary to your belief. What really turns all of this for me is that he isn't weighing the evidence carefully, seeking out confirmation and going with a conclusion. His article screams, I have a theory and I will prove it by finding anything that supports it or anyone who will provide that information whether correct or not. Considering the arbitrator sided with Braun even though Ryan had the hardest possible case to make and the arbitrator has backed MLB every other time one would wonder maybe there is something to Braun's case. Instead Passan spends his time putting together a case for the prosecution.

Melvin? I'd pick up the option and see how the 2012 offseason went. A lot depends on the success of the Fielder replacement plan. if Gamel struggles and/ or ramirez age related drop accelerates the offense is in trouble. If we can't extend Grienke or they extend Marcum we lose 2-3 starters and likely pick up Wolf's option which would hamstring the budget for below average performance. If many things go wrong/bad we are looking at a rebuild and Melvin is not the right GM for a rebuild with the current farm system. Melvin's an old school GM who's days are numbered so this is probably his last gig and lucky for him he's working for an owner who still thinks moneyball is a lottery game. Roenicke? The players love him so that must make him a good manager. As much as i think Ron is an idiot, as long as Melvin is picking the manager we might as well keep the moron we know.

"When the lab ran the tests on Braun’s urine specimen, it did not find microbial degradation – bacteria growth – that would have tainted the sample, according to two sources. The seals on the samples remained intact, sources said." I believe the results of the bacterial growth finding. The problem I have is that the "seals on the samples remained intact". The lab receives the samples and runs the test after a few days. A sample that's marked with a number code. It appears to have an elevated T:E and is tested again. At least 14 days passed from when the lab received the sample and Ryan was notified of the result. Any questions by the Braun group about chain of custody and tampering with the sample that would require the lab to check the records would have been at least a few weeks after the positive result. What is laughable to me is that other than a record of the state of the sample when it was received there is no way to verify that the seals remained intact. I have had to go back to my technicians often and ask "do you remember sample 4225242 from several weeks ago". We both smile because we've run maybe 100's of samples since then with completely non-descript numbers and both of us know that it is near impossible to remember any details of any specific sample. What he does is go back to his notes and verify that nothing was marked down to indicate that it was out of the ordinary. If I push, "do you recall checking the seal specifically on that sample?". "well I'm supposed to, but I can't say for sure I remembered to check for that sample". Granted, I don't run a diagnostic lab that requires precise documenting of samples as they come in, but my point is that no technician will remember the exact condition of a sample. The only record is what's written down and there is always human error that they really didn't make a careful study of the seal. It's probably extremely rare that a sample would come in where the seal is clearly broken. It's only human nature to not be vigilant about observing the seal when it is almost never broken, especially if the lab is processing ten's to hundreds of samples a day. To assert that the seal was definitely not broken is an extremely weak argument, in my opinion, as there is no way to check the accuracy of that statement. The lab has to break the seal to test the sample. How can you possibly say with absolute certainty that it was sealed before the lab broke the seal. You can't.