For those of you that think Ryan Braun got away with something...

[chadomac]

Do you think...

 

a) He is still on steroids.

b) Steroids don't help performance much.

c) He's been lucky and he'll have a sharp decline in production soon, resulting in average/poor numbers for the entire season.

 

Just curious, because he's making me feel better for believing in him right now.

[RobDeer 45]

I would say he definetly is making a serious case and I too always wanted to believe him. I hope this does make the cloud over him go away. Until we know exactly what happened though, I will always have a little doubt in the back of my mind. I wish I wouldn't, but if I got in an arguement with a non brewer fan about this, I would really have a tough time believing my side 100%.

[Fear The Chorizo]

#1 - If he was on steroids, the odds of him still being on them are probably zero even if he was lucky to beat the rap the first time. He's got a lot of millions on that contract to earn that would be telling him to stop using after this last offseason.

 

#2 - When you look at the obvious statistical jumps for great players who were known steroid users, it's clear that steroids do help performance that much. Braun's stats don't correlate, which also lends to him being clean.

 

#3 - Looking at Braun's career arc, unless he's been on something over his entire career i have no reason to believe a sharp decline in production will be happening any time soon. These are the prime years of a typical player, and Braun's been consistently great since his rookie season. Injury is the one thing that could hamper production for any player, including Braun considering his history of oblique/leg issues.

 

The longer Braun continues being Braun, which is an MVP-caliber player, the more difficult it is to view him as a cheat if future drug tests continue to come back clean.

[jjfanec]

I have said all along if Braun used steroids it likely something that happened infrequently and was used to overcome injury. There is little reason to believe he used for a long time

[3and2Fastball]

I always felt like he was innocent.

 

Really only Braun knows for certain. Either he's been on Roids his whole career (including college) and his masking agents failed once, or the test was flawed.... I tend to believe that the test was flawed

 

Braun doesn't really exhibit many of the sterotypical characteristics of a long time steroid user either, nor does he have the physical side effects (thinning hair, acne etc)

 

I think he's clean. And a potential Hall of Fame player.

[FVBrewerFan]

I don't know, and will never know. Nothing that is happening this year proves his case either way to me. I'm assuming he's not on anything now, since there's random testing all year. Whether he took something in the past either on accident or on purpse, I have no idea.

[jerichoholicninja]

 

#2 - When you look at the obvious statistical jumps for great players who were known steroid users, it's clear that steroids do help performance that much.

 

 

Alex Sanchez begs to differ.

[JohnBriggs12]

He's lagging a bit in the AS voting no doubt from the backlash. I've always felt that he was given something he thought was clean and it was either mislabeled or he failed to do his normal due diligence (in the midst of playoff hoopla) in checking it out before hand. That or he's completely innocent, and the victim of storage issues causing a false positive.

 

Now despite escaping the suspension, he's got one big strike against him. I don't think he's foolish enough to rely on masking anything at this point. Another bad test and it will betray those that stuck by him.

[RobDeer 45]

I have said all along if Braun used steroids it likely something that happened infrequently and was used to overcome injury. There is little reason to believe he used for a long time

 

That really describes how I have felt about this, if he really did take something. That it was maybe a gambling game he was playing and maybe took it a few times to get through a period of time where he was either weak or injured. I'm guessing there is some designer stuff out there that could give you a quick boost and maybe be out of your system. Anyway, looking at his numbers, unless he was taking them since day one, you really can't see any spikes. I don't think he could have taken them all along and not gotten caught.

 

There just seems to be more to the story and that makes me feel a tad uneasy, that's all. He's probably better off not talking about it anymore and just saying, as you can see, my stats are the exact same and I'm obviously under the microscope, so you can see I was not taking anything. I will continue to be on his side and belive him but I have just a little something holding me back from being 100% sure when doing that.

[Fear The Chorizo]

Alex Sanchez begs to differ.

 

I didn't know Sanchez fit into the group of great players I was thinking of - big difference between guys like Sanchez who probably used just to stay in the major leagues and guys like Bonds, Palmeiro, Clemens who were great players but saw noticeable spikes in performance once they started using.

[rluzinski]

I feel the same way I always have. The facts suggest that he MAY have used some unknown banned substance. I don't think his 2012 production is strong evidence that he wasn't guilty, nor would I have thought bad performance would have suggested the opposite.

[3and2Fastball]

Alex Sanchez begs to differ.

 

I didn't know Sanchez fit into the group of great players I was thinking of - big difference between guys like Sanchez who probably used just to stay in the major leagues and guys like Bonds, Palmeiro, Clemens who were great players but saw noticeable spikes in performance once they started using.

 

Clemens was found "Not Guilty" by a jury. I'm not going to throw Clemens under the "juicer bus" at this point

[TooLiveBrew]

Wasn't Clemens found "not guilty" regarding perjury charges, and his case about steroid use was a mistrial due to an error by the prosecution? I'm not sure if the NG verdict in the perjury case = NG regarding potential steroid use. Not saying I know for sure, but posing the question.

[gregmag]

I have said all along if Braun used steroids it likely something that happened infrequently and was used to overcome injury. There is little reason to believe he used for a long time

 

I agree that this is the likeliest scenario. Having said that, I also think it's unfair to Braun to take seriously the idea that he's more likely than any other player to have used a banned substance.

 

There is no evidence against him. The appeal process is part of the evidence-gathering process. The arbitrator, in a system that's notoriously designed to be very tough on players, found that what initially came back as a positive result could not support the accusation against Braun. I know the "technicality" meme has caught on with a lot of people, but I think it's out of bounds. This isn't the U.S. criminal justice system, where the government has to show proof beyond a reasonable doubt and the accused gets various constitutional protections. There is no due process protection in baseball. If the arbitrator threw out the test, that means he viewed the test as unreliable -- exactly how and why, we may never know.

 

The anti-doping crowd -- whose motives and methods I'm afraid this affair has taught me to view with a lot of skepticism -- likes to go on about the integrity of baseball. In my humble opinion, holding an unsupported allegation of steroid abuse against Ryan Braun harms the integrity of baseball.

 

By the way -- unrelated point: if a player did use a banned substance, and that substance (a) wasn't illegal under federal drug law, and (b) couldn't be shown to have enhanced the player's performance, then I have serious questions about whether the substance, used in that way, should be banned. Not answers, yet, but serious questions.

[JimH5]

I agree with others who suggest he might have been using something so that he could play through an injury, or more quickly rebound from an injury.

 

I also think it is entirely reasonable to think he's completely innocent. And like rluzinski, I don't think his 2012 season has anything to do with what happened last year.

 

What still bothers me is his statement from earlier that the whole truth is yet to be told. And yet it remains untold. He knows something about the case that I don't, and I don't like being an outsider to the truth.

[Fear The Chorizo]

Alex Sanchez begs to differ.

 

I didn't know Sanchez fit into the group of great players I was thinking of - big difference between guys like Sanchez who probably used just to stay in the major leagues and guys like Bonds, Palmeiro, Clemens who were great players but saw noticeable spikes in performance once they started using.

 

Clemens was found "Not Guilty" by a jury. I'm not going to throw Clemens under the "juicer bus" at this point

 

I will continue to throw Clemens under the juicer bus - OJ Simpson was found not guilty by a jury, too (please don't think I equate steroid use with murder, just making a point about the fallability of jury verdicts. Clemens' trial was about whether he lied to congress or not, and perjury is extremely difficult to prove guilt.

 

Looking at Clemens' career arc, he took steroids. he got practically another dominant decade after Boston parted ways with him when he was on the downside of his non-PED career.

[Baldkin]

http://steroids-and-baseball.com/

 

Do some reading.

Learn the topic --- unlike the media. Then comment.

 

If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would say, he took something last year to help him recover and stay healthy from his nagging hamstring injury. Now he has a tendon problem. Steroids are known to cause those types of problems.

[LouisEly]

My understanding is and has always been that what Braun tested positive for was abnormally high testosterone levels and not steroids. The high levels were likely caused by bacterial degradation of the sample left unrefrigerated for a significant period of time. This same thing happened to a female Olympic athlete about a decade ago (sample left out unrefrigerated for several days in Spain) and her test showed testosterone levels off the charts, and ultimately was found innocent (after being suspended for six months).

 

If you think Braun tested positive for steroids, then I would like you to present proof. And not just a link to what some writer said, because many of them jumped to conclusions when they heard that Braun "failed" a test and assumed it was steroids/foreign substance. Someone please prove to me that it was steroids/foreign substance. Thank you.

[dlk9s]

I think he got away with something...

 

 

 

 

 

 

...being fabulous.

[theavrock]

My understanding is and has always been that what Braun tested positive for was abnormally high testosterone levels and not steroids. The high levels were likely caused by bacterial degradation of the sample left unrefrigerated for a significant period of time. This same thing happened to a female Olympic athlete about a decade ago (sample left out unrefrigerated for several days in Spain) and her test showed testosterone levels off the charts, and ultimately was found innocent (after being suspended for six months).

 

If you think Braun tested positive for steroids, then I would like you to present proof. And not just a link to what some writer said, because many of them jumped to conclusions when they heard that Braun "failed" a test and assumed it was steroids/foreign substance. Someone please prove to me that it was steroids/foreign substance. Thank you.

 

Braun initial test showed extremely high levels of testosterone which triggered the gas analysis type test. From there he tested positive for synthetic testosterone, in subsequent tests. I believe the synthetic T was the foreign substance. Whether that can be caused by degradation of the sample left in an uncontrolled environment is beyond my understanding.

 

I don't know and I don't care what Braun did. Because chain of custody procedures were not followed we don't have enough evidence to say he's guilty, but we also can't say he's innocent. Anyone who says anything one way or another is looking at things with a slanted viewpoint. At the end of the day MLB didn't follow their procedures and the burden shouldn't be on the player in that situation. I would love to hear the "whole story" but at this point I don't think its going to happen.

 

What female Olympian are you referring to LouisEly? I hadn't heard the story before.

[Baldkin]

Her name is Diane Modahl:

 

Modahl engaged lawyers to show that the laboratory in Lisbon had stored her urine sample on a table in a room heated at 35 degrees for three days, which caused bacterial degradation. She has always professed her innocence and was later cleared. She said: "I have declared my innocence, I have never taken any banned substance"

[Brew City Baseball Fan]

He took them to recover faster and help heal injuries. IMO they were not the roids like McGwire and Bonds took. Love the guy to death but I dont buy that the test was a false positive

[Invader3K]

It bothers me that many can state so "matter of factly" that Braun took steroids to recover from nagging injuries. Do you folks have some inside info you're not sharing?

[pebadger]

The only official public announcement regarding this case was the one that announced Braun would not be suspended.

 

Other than that we have a leak by someone who we can only assume had an agenda in leaking the allegation to ESPN.

Despite the widely circulated story about a "technicality" related to the transport/storage/chain-of-custody protocols, we don't know the reasons for why Braun was not suspended. We don't know which substance Braun is alleged to have taken. We don't know the positivity criteria for the test he was alleged to have failed. We haven't read a single word of testimony from the arbitration hearing. We don't know anything about the particular facts of the case in terms of official announcement, other than the fact that Braun is not serving a suspension. EVERYTHING else, other than Braun's own post-award statement, has been spin and speculation regarding continued leaks (from both sides).

 

While we don't know anything about the facts, we do know a lot about the process. We do know how slanted it is in favor of MLB/the testers. We do know that they have made awful mistakes in the past (see Modahl, Taurasi, for starters). We do know that even when everybody involved in a case fully acknowleges that a violation was not only completely unintentional, and by later standards would not even be a violation, that WADA still feels the need to continue to punish people after the fact even when the violation did not result in any unfairness in competition (see Zach Lund). We do know that MLB and the union are burying everything with regard to this case, even to the extent of preventing an written decision from ever being drafted. We do know that a highly respected arbitrator got fired by MLB after ruling against MLB. We do know that despite not being the party who produced or controlled the only relevant evidence in the case, Braun was the party who carried the burden of proving a negative in a case with about as low a standard of proof for the "prosecution" as can exist in teh world of law and logic.

 

Given all the above, if someone can't give the guy at least the public benefit of the doubt, I'd like to know exactly what it would take to convince that someone to at least CONSIDER that there might be more to this story than just another cheater being caught and unable to admit it.

[JohnBriggs12]

To amplify pedbadger's point about the misinformation out there, not 15 minutes ago, the knucklehead hosting the White Sox pregame show in talking about Braun, mentions him having failed an HGH test. Oh really? Testing for HGH requires taking blood. What a moron.