burnzy24

Buster Olney is basically engaging a twitter war vs. anyone who is calling him out for his article regarding Braun and the MVP award. He is actually telling people that he never said Braun should "give" his MVP award back but that he actually wrote he should "offer" it back. Its the type of semantics argument that is so pointless it makes you wonder how this man was ever given a national platform to write about baseball.

Just read an interesting comment from Corey Hart regarding Prince's leadership in the clubhouse. This was from an article on ESPN. And while the Brewers will miss Fielder's big bat, they don't seem overly concerned about replacing his leadership. In that respect, Corey Hart said veterans Craig Counsell, LaTroy Hawkins and Mark Kotsay will be missed more. "It's more of what he can do on the field for you than what he does in the clubhouse," Hart said. "I think losing Counsell and 'Hawk' and Kotsay, those guys are more fixtures in kind of the leadership role. Prince is more leading by production."

If Prince signs for well below his asking price in years or money, then Boras will have choked. Especially considering what an older Albert Pujols got from the Angels. Boras should have known that the market wouldn't have been great but I think what really hurt him was the Dodger's financial problems and the Cubs complete rebuild and because of this he clearly misread the market and didn't do his job. I really think that Boras and Fielder both thought he would go to the Cubs. Either way, this has been a bad off-season for Boras. Between the Phillies choosing Palpebon over Madsen and then Madsen having to take a one year deal at a reduced rate, allowing K-Rod to become a set-up man to Axford rather than find him a closing job, and several of his big clients are still unsigned in late January. I also read recently that Edwin Jackson's price has gone down so Boras' clients aren't controlling the market like they have in previous years.

Well considering that the bidding hasn't even opened on the Dodgers I would say they would be lucky to have a new MLB approved owner until March or April.

According to this report Seattle is out of the bidding too and they only have $3-4 more million to spend this off-season. So its Washington and maybe Toronto? Poor Boras is running out of teams to get into a bidding war with.

MLB is horrible at leaking names. Look at the 2003 initial survey of steroid testing before the new drug testing program where A-Rod name was leaked, and this was testing that didn't even result in suspensions and was supposed to be kept sealed. Do you think A-Rod's people leaked this info out too?

What does the fact that MLB has given thousands of tests with no leak prove? No one cares when a player doesn't fail a test. How many of those thousands of tests have come up poisitive since it has been implemented? Less than a dozen? Most of those weren't big names either to make it even worth while to leak it. The testing finally netted a big fish and someone decided to leak it during the appeal because it was a juicy story and that person probably made some money off of it.

I wonder if paying $50 million for the right to negotiate with Yu and the ensuing large contract he will get will put the rangers out of the market for Fielder.

Because neither side can say anything. This has been explained multiple times and Braun's camp even initially stated when the report first came out they cannot say anything due to the arbitration agreement. That is why all we are hearing is from leaked sources to ESPN and "friends of Braun".

However I believe that ESPN also reported that Braun tested positive for a PED, which Braun's camp has denied. The headline from the initial story read "Ryan Braun tests positive for PED" There is a big difference between failing a test and because of a unknown side affect of a medication (assuming his story is true) and intentionally taking performance enhancing drugs like steroids to gain an advantage. All ESPN knew from their source was that Braun failed a test and the secondary test showed non-natural testosterone. ESPN then made their own deduction that this means he was taking PED's and reported this as fact, despite the fact there are other reasons to have non-natural testosterone in your body. In this case, using truth as a defense would be significantly weakened. (Side note I am also not an attorney but am in law school and just took my advanced torts final which covered defamation and libel so this is all very interesting to me.) For instance, there was alibel case we read aboutwhere a newspaper reported that a man had been indicted for a crime, when in fact he never was indicted but instead was being investigated for the crime. The court found that when you use a term like indicted, you must use the ordinary meaning of the term, which was that they were actually indicted. The newspaper tried to argue that they had a reasonable grouds to believe it was true since the he actually admitted that he committed the crime to a grand jury but the court found that this was not "substantially close" enough to actually being indicted. Now Braun's case is obviously different since he is a public figure and he will need to show actual malice. But if somehow the facts show that ESPN never actually had proof that he was taking a PED, still reported the PED part as fact and what he took is not by definition a PED, there could possibly be an issue. Of course this would also depend on what MLB defines as a PED.

I believe the definition of malice in regards to defamation is that there was knowledge that it was false or there was reckless disregard of the truth. Calibri;mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA"> Braun could make pretty decent argument that there ESPN recklessly disregarded the truth if in fact all along it was his medication that caused the failed test. This is considering that audio interview that was linked in this thread with T.J Quinn who was one of the two reporters who broke the story admitted that he intentionally left out of his story the statements made by Braun's camp, categorically dismissed any of Braun's claims as false, and basically stated that the fact the MLB has never overturned failed test means that Braun is guilty.

I wonder if Team America is among that DVD collection.

No matter what Braun says or does it will never fully please anyone. If he says absolutely nothing and waits for the hearing then people take it as an admission of guilt. If he does like he has and mounts a vigorous defense, then people like Passan call it a "spinfest." The likely reason that he is not having a press conference is doing so would be in violation of the arbitration agreement which was agreed to in the CBA. He is in a lose-lose situation which makes it even more upsetting it was leaked MLB's final verdict. As I understand it, that defense is not going to work. It's the same thing Palmeiro tried to no avail. Claiming you didn't know drug-supplement-vitamin X would elevate your T levels is not a justifiable defense. Otherwise every one would claim this. Actually I believe one of the few defenses baseball even allows for a positive test is that the player took something that no reasonable person should have known would cause the positive test. Palmerio's defense was that he took a B-vitamin shot that was tainted with steroids from Tejada which doesn't exactly pass the smell test since. That is why I am interested to hear what Braun's defense actually is. It would be difficult to prove but it is far from impossible otherwise why even have it available as a defense.

Remember Manny got a stint in the minors too right before his 1st suspension with the Dodgers was up.

This is what got me listening to TJ Quinn's interview that Mass posted. He seems to think that that 13-0 record automatically proves Braun's guilt and justifies him publishing the story. I also had a hard time understanding when Quinn said he know about the "insanely high" testosterone levels in the test before he published the story but intentionally left that part out because Braun's camp wouldn't tell him the exact numbers. Well T.J. it is under arbitration and just because someone in the commissioner's office decided to tell you something that they shouldn't have doesn't mean everyone has to. Quinn did not come off as impartial in the interview, I wish the interviewer would have asked him how damaging he thought this story could be to Braun's reputation if the test is thrown out.

Apparently Braun's testosterone levels were double the highest ever tested. Link Is that even physically possible? Couldn't levels that high cause extreme physical harm? Seems fishy. Maybe Braun is telling the truth.

Gates only gets a 6 game ban. Pathetic. Cinci's coach was talking so big after the game about how he needs to decide if people will still be on the team and then issues this puny punishment.

Good question. I am guessing that MLB has specific distinctions between the two for a reason but someone with more knowledge on medications can answer that. Maybe there are supplements that are banned but not given the "PED" label?

Yes because drug tests are 100% infallible. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/eyes.gif If that was the case, then MLB wouldn't need an appeals process. Once MLB issues their findings and the arbitration is complete, judge away. Otherwise it is nothing but bits and pieces of unconfirmed information.

As should the guy (#13) who stomped/kicked Frease's head after he fell to the ground after being punched. What a bunch of idiots. Haven't these players ever seen the clip of when Kermit Washington almost killed Rudy Tom Johnavich.

His camp has admitted nothing. This is the full statement from his agency: There are highly unusual circumstances surrounding this case which will support Ryan's complete innocence and demonstrate there was absolutely no intentional violation of the program. While Ryan has impeccable character and no previous history, unfortunately, because of the process we have to maintain confidentiality and are not able to discuss it any further, but we are confident he will ultimately be exonerated." Neither he nor MLB can comment on this at all due to the impending arbitration. You can trust this anonymous source all you want but I am going to wait until the process plays itself out before I condemn Braun. ESPN should never have reported this in the first place until the appeal was finished. If he is exonerated by his appeal it will be tough to bring his reputation back to where it was before the report.

Nothing over the top and comical about a potential defamation suit. If Braun is vindicated, however remote the chances are, I can't think of anything more damaging to a players marketability than being wrongly linked to PED's by a report by ESPN.

So let me get this straight, if he pitched the 9th and Axford the 8th, you would be ok with this? How does that make any sense? K-Rod is A closer, not THE closer. We basically have closer 1a and 1b and that is not a bad thing at all and K-Rod will close when Axford needs a rest. I would want someone in the bullpen for next year who is capable of filling in for Ax should anything happen. Who on the team would fit that role without K-Rod? What Axford makes is extremely relevant to the discussion. If we were paying Ax over $5 million a year then having K-Rod on the team doesn't make any sense. But since we are paying Ax and several other members of our bullpen next to nothing K-Rod at $10-12 million won't hurt us as much.

In a perfect world yes. However, Hairston was long gone before we had any idea about K-Rod and Doug offered him a contract but got outbid because he didn't want to give a second year, which K-Rod's acceptance of arbitration had no bearing on Hairston's leaving so Hairston really shouldn't be included in this discussion. Hawkins' leaving was affected by K-Rod, but I'd rather have K-Rod than Hawkins if I had to chose between the two. Loe should be non-tendered IMO and the money saved by him could be used to sign Saito instead. So essentially you would rather have Hawkins Loe and Siato over K-Rod. I would rather have K-Rod and Saito and let Melvin fill in the rest.

I think if that was the case Fielder would have just accepted arbitration but I guess it remains an option.