pebadger

I don't think anything sums up this season better than the fact that tomorrow night the Brewers are relying on Alfredo Figaro to avoid losing a series to the 2013 Marlins.

So I ran to the store to get my wife some green bean seeds and this happens . . .

Olney's quote says a lot more about Olney than it does about Braun. It either means Buster is completely ignorant about Lance Armstrong, has a gigantic agenda to smear Ryan Braun, or both. I guess in the alternative it could mean that Buster has a whole lot of verifiable information that isn't public, but then I guess that would make him a lousy reporter. You can reasonably believe Braun is "guilty", but the Armstrong comparison is ludicrous.

Sure, the Crew is 3rd in the NL in steals. They're also well into the bottom half of the NL in SB conversion percentage (SB/(SB+CS))

A great night for Major League Baseball. We get to watch the Brewers and Phillies. Also, the US World Cup qualifier starts in about an hour.

There is so much about PED use that we don't know because enough actual well-funded legitimate scientific research hasn't been done. There is a lot of knowledge or, or at least seemingly strongly supported conjecture about how PEDs work among the underground that deals in this stuff, but there is a big difference between that and a sort of public database of knowledge built on years of coordinated studies. There IS knowledge out there, but there is a whole lot of quackery, too, and it's virtually impossible to distinguish between the two. Everybody into this stuff has their "guy" who touts his knowledge and who has a cadre of supporters, but lots of them turn out to be nothing more than snake oil salesmen. Players are probably the least qualified of any of us to really know what's going on with this stuff, and I say this knowing that American public pends tens of millions of dollars a year on things like 'Extenze' and that gets taken in by scams like Bernie Madoff's. We want to think there are secret powers out there that we can access if we have enough money. If I have enough money I can just buy a bigger unit. I can just buy unreasonably high returns on my investment. I can just buy weight loss. I can just buy youth. In the same vein, these guys think they can just buy performance. To a certain degree they can, and there are a whole bunch of people out there looking to cash in huge on that belief. As always, the real messes are the ones that contain a kernel of truth in a sea of misinformation and distortion. Going back to a mention of the "prohibited substance" list I made a day or so ago ties into this. Things are added and removed from the list at times, often because testers will find things that are being taken and assume that there is a sinister reason they are being taken. There may be a reason people are taking something in that people BELIEVE it helps them, regardless of whether it actuall does or not. And if they are taking it to help them, is that sinister if the substance isn't already on the list? If you take something that's on the list, serve a suspension for getting caught taking it, and then the substance is taken off the list in the future because it's not a PED oo even a PED masking agent, what does that mean for your legacy? The suspension is clearly earned because you broke a rule that was on the books, but does that make you a "cheater" since you never really gained any advantage? What if "your guy" is giving you something that you believe isn't on the up-and-up and you improve merely due to a placebo effect? Isn't the intent to cheat just as important as actually cheating, especially when you take an over action that you honestly beleive is a dishonest attempt to gain advantage? For now (subject to change as evidence changes), I generally take Braun at his word, understanding full well that he could be lying about everything and also understanding that he might even be lying now a little bit abut certain things for certain reasons while being honest on the big issue. Some people have trouble with that last part, but in my experience with people in tough situations, that just the way lots of human beings operate. If I didn't take that position on Braun for now, I'd blindly speculate that if Braun was doing something wrong, he was microdosing T and something went wrong with the process. Microdosing is "supposed to" (see above for qualifiers) have value as a sort of maintenance and recovery methodology. Microodosing is not "supposed to" give you the more commonly understood long-term effects (and side effects) of T use. It sure woud be nice to have some actual factual data to be working with from his test result. That said, I don't feel like its owed to the public, but with the cat out of the bag in terms of confidentiality I have a bit of a problem with MLB using the non-disclosure rules as both a shield for themselves and a club against Braun.

I'll see your Occam's Razor and raise you an H.L Mencken: For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. Here's a question that nobody has yet answered. Miami New Times have been among the only real journalists in this thing. They did all the original legwork and original reporting. They weren't living off leaks from MLB insiders. There original reporting named lots an lots of names. In fact, it named all the names we're seeing on the list of 20. All the names EXCEPT Ryan Braun. They specifically didn't name Ryan Braun in a report titled "A Miami Clinic Supplies Drugs to Sports' Biggest Names". They specifically didn't name Ryan Braun in a report in which they took interest in examining links between Biogenesis and players with connections to the University of Miami. Only after the New Times did their work did others jump on board with the investgation. That's odd, considering Biogensis was linked to Manny Ramirez's suspension years ago by none other than ESPN. You don't need to be a believer in conspiracy theories to think that something might be a bit off here. Having been a part of it first hand, I know that overzealousness in prosecution is something that folks really need to guard against, especially when you've already been defeated by a guy you are SURE is guilty and you just can't stand the thought that he's getting away with it. I'll just say that it easy to be both 100% SURE you are right whille being 100% wrong in these cases. It sure doesn't prevent you from pulling out all the stops to win.

I completely agree that Braun may have violated the agreement. We simply don't know. The only real evidence presented so far (evidence tht has not been made public) that he did was deemed insufficient to warrant a conclusion (the reasons for which have not been made public) that he did violate the agreement, and thus he was not suspended. As to the process . . . . This is where I have a big problem with much of this. I have written extensively on this topic here at BF.net. I don't even necessarily disagree that the process will end up at the right result most of the time because by and large the people who end up in the system are "guilty". But I do believe that the process is fundamentally flawed in that for those accused who are actually "innocent" there are virtually no protections. In that regard, the media has completely undersold how extraordinary Braun's victory in the appeal really was. Shyam Das is no dummy or naive dupe. This was not the first time Chain-of-Custody has been an issue in hearing of this nature. Something happened in that hearing that we don't know about yet, and we will likely never know. I have a law degree. I have worked in prosecutorial offices at both the state and federal levels. I know a kangaroo court when I see it and that is exactly what these barely quasi-judicial hearings are in most ways that matter when there is truly a matter in dispute. I know some have said things to the effect that "this isn't a criminal matter, so the same rules need not apply". Fair enough. I'm not saying they should. But what level of protections for the accused should be enough? I vehemently dispute the idea that these are matters best handled by "arbitration". These are intensely adversarial proceedings and deserve to be treated as such. With much of the actual burden of persuasion being on the "defendant" in these cases, there should be MUCH more robust mechanisms for discovery. I won't get into all of the ways that arbitration is a terrible model for adjudicating these matter. I've done enough of that in prior posts. MLBPA has, in my opinion, failed the players in this matter. Constructing the drug protocols in the framework of the WADA-model was an abdication of their responsibility to their membership. I understand that they and MLB largely knuckled under to Congress, which was willing to put MLB under USADA jurisdiction when it came to policing drug use. MLB and the union didn't want ANY exposure to that risk, and rightly so, so they accepted the world-accepted framework but kept the administration in-house. In my opinion MLBPA needed to make a better fight of explaining the serious flaws in the system. They simply didn't want to take that stand because, despite all the good arguments that can be made, the media and public are not especially interested in the legal esoteric here. They want white hats and black hats. It's clean, it's simple and usually it's even pretty close to the truth in these cases. But not always. Braun may be "guilty". He may be "innocent". No matter what, I think that passing off the current system of enforcement as something equivalent to a court of law in an equitable sense is disgraceful, because it just ain't so. One last point on litigation outside the arbitration system: it will be virtually impossible for players to get a day in an honest-to-goodness court of law on the merits of any of this stuff. The arbitration is set up to be the end of these matters. It is extremely difficult to get an arbitration decision reviewed in court in most cases: given the specific nature of this arbitration setup which exists as a result of a CBA it would be extraordinarily so. Any case that does get to court would likely be about labor law, or the Federal Arbitration Act, or federal preemption of some state law that one side or the other might assert as being important to the case. It won't be about whether Player X did or did not take a "prohibited substance". (The whole subject of "prohibited substances" would be another good topic for extended discussion.) To the extent that players would sue on grounds peripheral to the main question of taking or not taking a substance, they'd also likely be out of luck, often with more to lose than to gain even if they win. They almost certainly, as public figures, won't be winning any libel suits against media outlets. There would be little real value to pursuing action against largely judgment-proof defendants on other grounds. The idea that you can just sue to "clear your name" is a notion rooted in a romantic view of "justice" that sadly doesn't really exist in the realm of civil litigation.

The same union that collaborated with MLB to bury a written decision by Shyam Das that would have shed light on what really happened in the Braun case? (Despite all the repeated talk of "technicality" and whatnot, nobody really knows exactly why Braun won, and we'll likely never know. MLBPA has demonstrated that their organizational interests and the interests of individual members do not exactly coincide when it comes to this whole mess. In fact, in many ways their interests are more aligned with MLB than they are with any given member. They, like everyone else it seems, are doing everything they can to not look like the "bad guy" who protects cheats in all of this. MLB is overcompensating for its past neglect of the issue. The merely accused are treated as pariahs. The facts hardly matter anymore. It's all a morality play. It's all black and white. Various shades of grey need not apply.

ESPN has no responsibility with respect to the JDA. MLB does, but they are actively avoiding their duty to act responsibly by letting ESPN do all their talking for them. It's like the US turning guys over to Omanis and the Saudis so our friends there can do our dirty work for us when waterboarding and whatever else we think we can legally do doesn't work.

This is what is known in the business of PED enforcement as a non-analytical positive. It essentially means that the authorities can't prove that anything was done through testing, so they have to rely on the statements of witnesses or other means to support their case. Before a jury and in a world of a presumption of innocence with a high burden of proof on the party bringing the case, this would rarely fly. Before what are essentially rigged arbitration panels where a 2-1 verdict based on the panel members being "comfortable" with their ruling results in a "conviction", this works with regularity.

Not only this but MLB is essentially granting a drug dealer complete immunity in order to punish the users. If that isn't backwards I don't know what it. It's worse than that. If Bosch fought this, he'd end up bankrupted by civil litigation, even if he wins. If Bosch says that he's a drug dealer (or embellishes the degree to which he is, or embellishes his connections), he can spin himself as a hero in the same way some folks view Canseco. He'll be, in a very twisted way, the guy who helped CLEAN UP BASEBALL. He'll go from bankruptcy to actually making money off this. No bias there, right? People should not underestimate the role ESPN is playing in this, either. There is not a shred of actual reporting in this latest article. They are acting as MLB's mouthpiece. They don't even have the courtesy to give credit to the New Times in South Florida the credit they deserve for being the ones who have done virtually all the legwork on this story. Everything else has been internal MLB people leaning on folks to try to evaluate the story from a prosecutorial perspective.

I'm neither for nor against Braun. I am against vindictive abuse of power and kangaroo courts. To 'get' these guys MLB has basically decided to single-handedly bankrupt, through threat of litigation, the guy who will be their prime witness. I doubt there will be any truly independant corroboration of the allegations. If that's what happens and that's what it takes to get guys suspended, MLBPA should just be decertified immediately, because all they're really doing then is stealing money from thel players. The agents can handle the economic issues by themselves. The sad thing is that nobody outside a very select group of people will ever really know what the evidence is or isn't. This will all be handled in a very non-public way, except for the carefully crafted stories that will be supported by cooperative leaks and multiple sources who won't really be independant sources. If these guys are cheating they should be accountable, but the broader systemic issues at this point are so much more important than whehter this guy or that guy cheated.

Yep, this has been a story for many, many years. Even if guys aren't pranking each other in some instances the guys know the stories and the mind plays tricks. I think every league has a "haunted hotel".

I think that thing had so much backspin on it that it came back into the park without hitting anything. It's a magic bullet.

Not only is this the same game the Brewers play night after night, but I saw the A's at Target Field last season and they did this same number to the Twins as well. The Phils record isn't terrible, but it's way out of line with the quality of baseball they've been playing. I don't think the Brewers have much of a chance against most AL teams on most nights. And they need to play similarly bad NL teams to have a chance in league play. I don't like saying that because it speaks to how badly I misjudged this team coming into the season, but I think that's where thery're at right now for reasons both simple and complex. I just want to see some fight at some point.

As excited as many seem to be I'm assuming this guy can really pitch.

After facing the Brewers for over half a week, the Twins have had no chance tonight against a guy like Iwakuma. No runs, 4 hits through 7 innings.

3 outs from firing up Kool & The Gang . . . .

The difference being the Cardinals pitching then comes out and buries you after the crooked number is posted on their side of the ledger.

As if on cue, this is the part I left unsaid in our almost simultaneous posts.

Coming into the night, the Brewers' Pythagorean Expected W-L is 21-31. Philly's is 21-33. Somehow the Phils are only 2 games under .500.

And then the Royals and Cards played until after 3am . . . . http://scores.espn.go.com/mlb/recap?gameId=330530124

There's still time in this one (assuming the 3 runs are a tease and taking into account everything I've seen this season to date which makes it funny to say the preceding), but if we chalk this one up as an L the Brewers need to play .500 ball in the next 6 games or they will be behind the 106-loss 2002 team at the 58-game mark.

I don't like the NBA. I'm now turning on the NBA.