Per ESPN: Braun Tests Positive, May Face 50 Game Suspension… (Part 3, Appeal underway)

[Patrick425]

So, I was thinking about the Manny Ramirez case when he was suspended. My thought was that he appealed the decision but I was also thinking that he appealed after the news was released. I didn't remember it being a "leaked" story like Brauns was, so I was wondering how he could have appealed it after the decision was announced. I found this article from when the news of his suspension was first released and it was a bit confusing. In the 6th paragraph is states he would fight the decision (don't know if he ever did or if he even could) and then in the 13th paragraph it states that he had a scheduled appeal that he withdrew from and then just accepted the suspension. So, the story somewhat contradicts itself. My understanding is once the decision is made after the appeal, the player has no recourse.....correct?

 

Also found this article which is a good indication of how hard it is for a player to overturn a suspension. If the part about MLPA telling players that all over the counter products would be safe and it turns out they were not, then it almost seems unfair.

[brwrsfan]

I think with Ramirez, is that he had made up some sort of story to defend himself and then they found all kinds of masking agents or synthetic products in his urine and he knew he had no shot, so he simply dropped the appeal.

[JohnBriggs12]

To the blogger's credit, he leads off by saying he's basically just daydreaming. But then he also says 2012 will be a lost season for the Brewerighrs, so there's that.

 

 

Right, because having 2 hitters who can hit 20+ home runs and having a very good rotation makes for a lost season.

Every team has 2 hitters who can hit 20+ home runs. Most have 3 or 4 and so do the Brewers who have had many mediocre teams with that many. I'm still a wait and see on the "very good rotation" too. Again, a lot of teams have very good rotations on paper, but every season is different. Rotations can come apart quickly.

 

If you want to hang your hat on anything the Brewers have that other teams can't match it's 8th and 9th inning relief.

[reillymcshane]

A lot people outside of Miwaukee seem to think without Fielder - and Braun - we'll be lost. But I disagree. I think the offense can be nearly as good.

 

C - Lucroy/Kottars - 20 HR

1B - Gamel - 15-20 HR

2B - Week - 25 HR

SS - Gonzalez - 15 HR

3B - A-Ram - 25 HR

LF - Braun - 30-35 HR (if not suspended)

CF - Morgan/Gomez - 10 HR

RF - Hart - 25-30 HR

 

That's 165 - 180 HR - and without anything from all the back ups. We lead the league last year in HRs with 185. Maybe we won't hit quite that many this year, but we can be close. Plus we add in a little better defense. And a first rate pitching staff. This team will do just fine. Even if Braun is gone for 50 games, we lose 10-12 HR from him, but we are going to be in the mix.

 

The pitching staff is good and can get better. Greinke, Gallardo, Narvy and Marcum are all in their prime years. Hart, Braun, Weeks, Morgan, Gomez are all in their prime. Lucroy can get better. Gonzalez and A-Ram are older - but we're not talking late 30s here. Some regression is certainly possible, but they should be fine. We should have a better bench. Gamel is a wild card, but it's not like he's required to carry the team. We can be patient and he'll pan out.

 

It will all come down to injuries.

[Patrick425]

I think with Ramirez, is that he had made up some sort of story to defend himself and then they found all kinds of masking agents or synthetic products in his urine and he knew he had no shot, so he simply dropped the appeal.

Yeah but what I don't get is this statement in the article - A Major League Baseball source said Ramirez's representatives indicated they would fight a suspension for using artificial testosterone.

 

I don't remember if he ever did "fight the suspension", but my question is if that was even an option? Once a decision is made on the appeal (or the player drops his appeal, like Ramirez apparently did) isn't it over and the player is then out of options for "fighting the suspension"?

 

[RockCoCougars]

The Brewers hit 185 homers last season. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see them under 150 this season. Prince hit 38. Gone. I'd be thrilled if Gamel came within 20 of that mark. The much maligned and departed duo of McGehee and Yuni even combined for 26. I don't think that it's a slam dunk by any means that Ramirez and Gonzalez will exceed that. As for Braun, he hit 33. I think that you can reduce that by at least a third based on the suspension. I expect little to no power from Aoki, frankly I'd be happy with a .270 average and defense out of him. I wouldn't count on Weeks and Hart to repeat their homer totals last season, but will be disappointed if they don't. The bench has no power whatsoever at this point either.

[adamds22]

Who cares about HR's, we lost Prince and possibly playing without Braun for 50 games, there is no way we get close to the HR output we did last year. That being said not having to rely on the HR to score runs might actually help us become more consistent. Last year we had our dry spells where we weren't scoring a lot of runs because Prince or Braun weren't hitting HR's or the people ahead of them weren't getting on base or whatever. This year I think it is up to RR to utilize our team speed more than we have in the past. We have Braun, Morgan, Gomez, Hart, Weeks and Akoi who can all steal bases and we may have to rely on more of a station to station approach than get on and let one of our big guys hit you in. I feel like we could actually have a better offense not having to rely on hitting HR's to score our runs. I think this season we'll really see how well RR manages this team because the offensive philosophy is going to be quite a bit different, especially if we lose Braun for 50 games.

 

Not to mention our Defense should be quite a bit better with Aram replacing McGahee and Gonzalez replacing Yuni.

[Ennder]

The Brewers hit 185 homers last season. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see them under 150 this season. Prince hit 38. Gone. I'd be thrilled if Gamel came within 20 of that mark. The much maligned and departed duo of McGehee and Yuni even combined for 26. I don't think that it's a slam dunk by any means that Ramirez and Gonzalez will exceed that. As for Braun, he hit 33

 

Gonzalez and Ramirez combined average HR over the past 2 seasons is 38. I'd be pretty shocked if they didn't manage 26, that is most likely a significant upgrade in HR. Fielder to Gamel/Green could be a 20 HR drop though and if Braun is suspended we probably lose 10 HR so something like 160-165 HR isn't an unreasonable expectation. The defense should be better and the bullpen is probably better with a full season of k-rod so the team should give up fewer runs most likely.

[Oldcity]

To the blogger's credit, he leads off by saying he's basically just daydreaming. But then he also says 2012 will be a lost season for the Brewers, so there's that.

Ha, wow. I worked with him. He texted me about a week ago asking what I'd think if Braun was traded to the Yankees, and I pretty much said it would never happen, especially with the Yankees trading nobody from their 25-man. Funny that this made its way here.

 

I actually think he used me as "the Brewers" when he says, "The Brewers would probably say that they still have Rickie Weeks and

Yovanni Gallardo adding to the foundation (maybe they’d even throw Corey

Hart’s name into the mix) and that they don’t need to rebuild," because that's what I told him.

 

You can tell parts of it are just not quite knowing the Brewers' situation inside out the way a someone here would (Wolf also being a free agent, making it 60% of the rotation to be a free agent, Peralta close to helping, etc), but then again I don't know any other team half as well as the Brewers. As said, at least he made it clear he saw this as a pipe dream.

[Oldcity]

The defense should be better and the bullpen is probably better with a full season of k-rod so the team should give up fewer runs most likely.

Probably not the place to discuss this in depth, but I expect the bullpen to be worse than last year. I think they'll really miss Saito, and to a lesser extent, Hawkins.

[Ennder]

Probably not the place to discuss this in depth, but I expect the bullpen to be worse than last year. I think they'll really miss Saito, and to a lesser extent, Hawkins.

I think the peak of the bullpen is weaker but remember Saito missed a bunch of time, we didn't have K-Rod to start the year and Hawkins was more of a mirage than a good RP. Loe was much better once they had K-Rod so he could be used properly. I expect this bullpen to be a little worse than our peak from last year but much better than what we had the first half of the season when it struggled so much. I also expect at least one of the younger arms to come up and add depth to it. The big key is whether the rotation can stay as healthy as it did last year.

[JJHardy7]

Probably not the place to discuss this in depth, but I expect the bullpen to be worse than last year. I think they'll really miss Saito, and to a lesser extent, Hawkins.

 

I think they may miss the combination of them as 'one player' since they both missed time, etc, but hopefully we can find someone he can produce and be healthy all year. I worry about the bullpen's health since I don't think we have a lot of depth in regard to guys who have done it before. Wouldn't surprise me to see us trade for someone as the season progresses.

[Oldcity]

I'd say Hawkins was a good (not great) pitcher for sure last year. The K rate was low, but 10 walks in 48.1 innings is great. Loe was very good once they had 3/4 better relievers than him, but they won't have that now.

 

I agree on the younger arms. Looking for a sizable contributing from someone like Fiers or Kintzler. Even if the rotation doesn't stay quite as healthy as last year, which is probably unlikely, the Brewers can pretty comfortably go 7 deep now (Estrada, Peralta) rather than 6 deep like last year.

[monty57]

the Brewers can pretty comfortably go 7 deep now (Estrada, Peralta) rather than 6 deep like last year.

 

Going into last season we were really four deep with Greinke injured. Luckily, Estrada exceeded everyone's expectations and pitched pretty well as a starter. I hope we stay healthy at SP, but I am much more comfortable this year with Peralta waiting in the wings than I was last year with all of our good minor leaguers still a year or two away.

 

Loe was very good once they had 3/4 better relievers than him

 

They probably had that all year, but Roenicke insisted he was the "8th inning guy" until K-Rod was brought on board. Hopefully Roenicke sees the error of his ways and only uses Loe vs RHB and he will be fine.

 

Who cares about HR's, we lost Prince and possibly playing without Braun for 50 games, there is no way we get close to the HR output we did last year. That being said not having to rely on the HR to score runs might actually help us become more consistent.

 

I agree. The offense will be different, but I think could be more consistant. I think Aoki should be a decent OBP guy, so to start the season, we could have two guys (Aoki & Morgan) who can get on base in front of Weeks, Ramirez & Hart, who are all good hitters. Once Braun's back, our middle of the order will be pretty good. Gamel will be a downgrade from Fielder (as would most any hitter in baseball), but he should hit better than McGehee/Yuni did in the 5/6 spots in the order for us last year.

[dhoffman19]

From Jon Heyman on Twitter:

"braun arbitrator wont be inhibited by usual 25-day limit. so decision not necessarily expected by sunday."

No further explanation.....

[nate82]

With that tweet from Heyman it sounds like this is a more complicated case than any of the other ones that have been brought forth. I would still expect some kind of announcement before spring training starts at least before the spring training games start.

[dhoffman19]

With that tweet from Heyman it sounds like this is a more complicated case than any of the other ones that have been brought forth. I would still expect some kind of announcement before spring training starts at least before the spring training games start.

Hope you're right on both counts. I don't mind waiting if the result is no suspension.

 

 

[brwrsfan]

I still think the longer it takes the better. I mean, if the arbitrator has that much to think about that he can't decide in 25 days, there must be a lot to consider. And if he's not sure, do you suspend a guy and tarnish his entire career over something you're really not certain is even legit?

[RockCoCougars]

Maybe the arbitrator gets paid by the hour, and is just milking the clock?

[dhoffman19]

It would be funny if it turns out the delay is just because the arbitrator was on vacation for a few weeks.

[RockCoCougars]

It would be funny if it turns out the delay is just because the arbitrator was on vacation for a few weeks.

The guy is an attorney, so that actually wouldn't surprise me. I'm sure that his office gets a bloated fee scale from MLB at any rate. Why rush?

[Oldcity]

I honestly want to know what the hell is taking so long. What explanation could there be? I'm sure we'll never get one, either.

[Patrick425]

So now all the reporters are finally realizing that the 25 day thing is just a guidline. Thanks to Brewerfan and this thread, I knew that a long time ago. http://www.ezboard.com/intl/aenglish/images/emoticons/smile.gif

[brwrsfan]

Well come on Patrick...did you expect that reporters, people that are paid to gather information and relay it to the public would actually do some research or know what they're talking about before spewing out their information to everyone? Talk about some unrealistic expectations....

 

[JohnBriggs12]

Rosenthal just chimed in with an asinine article. Rosenthal is basically saying if Braun's reputation has to be sacrificed for the sake of baseball, so be it. He implied that letting Braun off, no matter what the circumstances, would hint at special treatment for a superstar. Never mind of course that all this would not have been leaked if he were a fringe player and no matter what the result, in the eyes of many he was guilty.