pebadger

With Axford rocking the George Armstrong Custer look I'm just happy they aren't playing the Indians today.

Gomez not quite as good as last year. RBI but his TB took a hit.

Gomez not quite as good as last year. RBI but his TB took a hit.

Insert mandatory "roof not open" complaint here.

Insert mandatory "roof not open" complaint here.

Holy cow. Lots of empty seats.

Holy cow. Lots of empty seats.

This may just be my perception, but it seems to me that the Brewers pitching staff is still a bit underrated when compared to STL or CIN for a variety of reasons. STL and CIN are just sexier baseball traditions than is Milwaukee, too. I say that knowing full well that modern objective analysis is supposed to look past all that stuff, but I contend that old-time notions that reside deep in the mind die really hard.

Of course stuff will come out, but it's more than likely going to continue coming out in drips and drops and not in a fully controlled narrative that is formally issued by Braun's people. Regardless of the initial leak, the actions of others have not relieved Braun of his continuing confidentiality obligation under the JDA. I have no doubt that there are writers investigating this right now in hopes of telling "the whole story". As with any factually complex situation, the real question is from which perspective the "whole truth" will be told.

I think we're gonna need a bigger thread.

I agree, but then the same thing could have happened if he was washing his truck.

Litigation is not a preferred means by which to convey a story to the public. Litigation has a tendency to cloud the message and, even worse, take it places where you don't want it to go. In any event, Braun doesn't need litigation to tell his story. All indications are that he has all the info he needs to present his side of the case. At the very least the info he has now was good enough to win. He doesn't need litigation to provide him with a means of gathering more information through the discovery process. As I've argued many times, there probably isn't a whole lot of information to be gathered in any event; at least not information that is relevant to the test result itself. If Braun is indeed innocent, we'll never know why the test produced the result that led to all that followed. The testers don't know why, or the case never would have proceeded. Braun's camp doesn't know why because they didn't run the test. There are only two ways we'd know for sure what happened: Braun admitting he took something (either intentionally or unintentionally, which he then realized after the fact) or somebody on the other side admitting that they intentionally or unintentionally took some action which caused the result (contamination of sample, tampering with sample, improper testing procedure, etc). Neither one of those things is going to come out in litigation if it hasn't come out already. The other point about litigation is this: None of these facts about "what really happened" probably matter in most litigation in which Braun would be involved. If he sues the initial leaker, the specifics of the testing stuff aren't relevant. That case would revolve around an alleged breach of duty by the people to whom Braun disclosed information confidential information. The facts surrounding the test would be more relevant if he were to sue the sample collector, but that's probably not a case Braun wants to pursue unless he knows even before he files exactly how strong the case is. That's not a case you just file and then hope to win on the strength of a discovery fishing expedition. Frankly, if they had more info on a specific individual doing nefarious things (as opposed to perhaps just being negligent or non-compliant with standards and practices), I'm confident that would have come out by now. Braun can tell us a lot right now. He's just not going to, if for no other reason than that he's subject to an agreement that says he can't say anything about it. Much as many might think that that shouldn't matter anymore due to all the disclosures that have already been made, the agreement is still in force. We can spin the repercussions of that fact any way we want to, but it's still a fact.

Pretty sure Joba will be done for the season. http://espn.go.com/new-york/mlb/story/_/id/7727304/2012-spring-training-new-york-yankees-joba-chamberlain-suffers-severe-field-ankle-dislocation Open ankle dislocation. Not a pleasant visual. Probably not pleasant audio either.

The sad thing is that if Braun "only" OPS's let's say .925 or so and "only" has 70 XBH instead of 75, we'll be reading columns about "what it really means (wink-wink)."

First, he's protecting himself. I have little doubt that the bigger a deal he would make out of this the more animosity he would garner from inside MLB. He's still subject to the confidentiality provisions of the JDA, so he risks liability by saying anything. Second, as cynical as well all are today, it's not outside the realm of possibility that Braun really does care about the integrity of the game and the process. By saying anything out of school, he likely inflicts a lot of damage to both. Things will come out over time. Time is something that works in Braun's favor IMO. If he just goes out and continues to produce at a HOF level and the people that matter in terms of voting and whatnot eventually get the whole story, what's the difference from Braun's POV? He wasn't suspended, the people that matter to him know the score and the people that will hold power over his HOF legacy will know the score when it matters. Right now all that matters is that he gets to keep playing.

I think we can all agree that it takes a special kind of player to inspire this kind of discussion after he's gone.

I'm sure some of you are already aware of this, but for those that aren't the Brewers own Brian Anderson will be doing the play-by-play on the games from Portland this Thursday and Saturday on TBS. He's done some work on Big Ten Network hoops games the past couple of seasons. I like BA, but I was surprised to see him get called up to the big leagues in hoops this quickly. Hope he has some good calls - he should certainly have some good games out there. In any event it will just be a reminder that very soon I'll be back in the routine of Brewers every night.

That's a huge question that hasn't been discussed enough: What is a "positive"? The answer is that a positive is what MLB says it is and a violation is what MLB says it is. I very much doubt that there were two other IRMS positive results, but I can envision a scenario (as above) where there were T/E ratios that did not trigger further action. If I had to bet, I'd imagine that it happens "regularly" in the sense that, while rare, it is an occurence which is planned for. The fact that you do see significantly varying T/E ratios in these testing programs is the the reason we now have IRMS testing.

I think the only thing we know for certain about the written decision is that MLB and MLBPA have jointly announced that they will not release the document to the public. It would be nice to know a whole lot more about the "three positives" rumor. I doubt that there was ever any formal action on the other two results. I've written on this before but my hypothesis on this point is as follows: 1) Suppose that there were 3 high T/E ratios from the three samples collected that day 2) Suppose that all 3 samples were subjected to IRMS testing, and that only Braun's came back as a "positive" 3) Suppose that MLB is only interested in pursuing IRMS positives (for a number of reasons previously disccused here), so the preliminary T/E results were never reported as positives to MLBPA or the players and no further action was taken. 4) In the course of thoroughly preparing his defense and investigating the effects of the delay in transferring the samples to the lab, Braun's team rightly asked about what happened to the other samples and discovered the anomalous T/E results 5) Braun's team used that evidence in his defense and it was the use of that evidence at the hearing that was subsequently leaked to Dan Patrick (which is the first place I think it became somewhat public) I think that is a plausible explanation for the "three bad samples" stuff, if indeed there is any truth to the story at all. I think it would also go a long way in supporting the assertion that Will Carroll has made about Braun's team replicating certain results. If so, that would make Braun's case much stronger. It takes the case out of the realm of Braun saying that something inexplicable happened just to his sample and illustrates that whatever happened was a consistent issue with all the samples stored with Braun's (at least with respect to the T/E result). If that is indeed the case, it puts MLB in a tough spot. It would rightly shift the burden of persuasion back on to their shoulders, and they would then be put in the position of having to defend a result based on samples that have already been shown to be compromised in some unknown manner. The lab experts coming in and testifying that they found nothing wrong with the sample (and thus the IRMS result should hold) would only make things worse, as a reasonable person would be able to conclude that there WAS something wrong with the sample and MLB simply didn't make an effort to determine the nature of the problem. Given that lack of due diligence to determine what was wrong, and to demonstrate that it would not affect the IRMS result, a reasonable person could then doubt the IRMS result. As the test result is the only evidence produced by MLB in support of their case, and because Braun's team had done enough to shift the burden of persuasion onto MLB, Braun wins. That's no a techinicality. That's a textbook litigation victory. IF this is at all close to the truth, it also explains to a degree (in addition to a bunch of other factors) why Braun's people aren't saying more. IF there were two other samples, the immediate question to be asked by the media is "Whose samples?" Producing those names would be even more unfair than the Braun leak, if it's even possible to quantify the levels of unfairness present in the case, and Braun would be painted in many corners as the guy willing to throw his own teammates under the bus to clear his own name.

That explains why the Cubs stink: they've just been using baseball to pay their way through post-graduate programs in biochemistry.

Have tie-breaking criteria been published yet? Is it possible we'll have multiple one-game playoffs before the actual one-game playoffs?

Not a big fan. Yes, elimination games are very exciting but the reason elimination games are exciting has more to do with everything that leads up to them being elimination games than it does with the game itself. It just seems to me that MLB is trying too hard to create excitement rather than letting it spontaneously generate. Did the same thing with the All-Star game. Not everything in the world has to be "the greatest X ever". Sometimes you'll have great playoffs, other times you won't. You can't force it unless you want to turn it into professional wrestling.

Is it difficult for those who are not using anything to not have a T:E ratio of greater that 4:1? How can you expect a screen that uses that ratio to achieve perfection in catching users? T/E ratios are not especially indicative of anything. Until recently a 4:1 ratio wasn't a positive. You needed a 6:1 to be considered positive until a few years ago. That's why there is a movement to use IRMS: the test has the capacity to provide much more useful information. Of course, the question of "what is a positive" remains and is not an inconsequential matter. As noted in the blog excerpt I posted yesterday, Don Caitlin (the guy who pretty much invented IRMS testing and is still the most renowned guy working this field today) testified that what his lab considered a positive and what WADA considers a positive (WADA being more willing to pronounce a positive) are not always the same thing. Unless you have really good data on not just users, but on the "normal" population in general as well, it's hard to build reliable statistical models to answer some of these questions. To my knowledge none of that research has really been done. When certain WADA labs have significantly higher "catch" rates than other labs, presumably all testing the same general populations of athletes, it does prompt certain questions on the part of impartial observers.

Just to take the other side of this for a minute, the best counterargument to the "always using" argument is that he intermittently uses some sort of T microdosing for recovery purposes. Leaving aside whether microdosing actually works in that way, that would be the accusation I would make if I were "prosecuting" the case. Late in the year, he's run down, had problems with the hammy, needs to be fresh for playoffs, etc. Here's where I would ask if investigating to support this theory: Who is Braun's source? Does he have an independent trainer he works with? An independent "nutritionist"? Who are these people? What are their credentials and connections? Is there a clubhouse guy involved? If so, is there a deeper problem? Point being, if Braun was doing something, he most likely wasn't alone in the action. Most likely somebody advised him about a course to take. Most likely somebody else was involved in procurement. Fairly likely that that somebody else is working with other "clients". Is anybody pursing any of this journalistically, not necessarily to "nail" the other guys involved but to procure them as sources? You wouldn't have to get the actual supplier, but you can get a friend of a friend and work from there. Or is the whole public case going to continue to hinge on one disputed test result? Get digging reporters. Either there is a story here or there isn't.

And if it's B), Braun has been using PEDs all along for no measurable statistical of physical gain. Unless he has a crippling mental addiction to them which allows him to play baseball at a high level only because he thinks he must take the magic juice, you'd have thought he'd have given them up by now.