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2011 Blue Jays/MLB Thread

bustaheims said:
BMan said:
I was trying to say it the opposite way actually..Even though I know the Seligs no longer own the team, I was thinking Selig would put his own pressure on the process, after Fielder left, they needed to keep their popularity going, so he made sure Braun got off. Sentimental reasons for Bud.No proof of course, but, it was the first thing I thought of.
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I knew what you were implying, I just don't think it really holds any water. Braun got off this one because there was legitimately some problems with the way his test was handled by the independent body that conducts the league's drug testing.
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The sample was collected on Oct. 1, a Saturday and the day the Brewers opened the NL playoffs. The collector did not send the sample to the laboratory until Monday, thinking it would be more secure at home than at a Federal Express office during the weekend.

Baseball's drug agreement states that "absent unusual circumstances, the specimens should be sent by FedEx to the laboratory on the same day they are collected."

"To have this sort of technicality of all technicalities let a player off ... it's just a sad day for all the clean players and those that abide by the rules within professional baseball," Tygart said.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/23/ryan-braun-suspension-overturned-brewers-star-mlb_n_1297699.html

The old 'the testosterone grew out of the jar and multiplied spontaneously. 
 
Lost a lot of respect for Braun. Don't go around acting vindicated when you get off on a technicality and still can't explain why you tested so high.
 
BMan said:
I was trying to say it the opposite way actually..Even though I know the Seligs no longer own the team, I was thinking Selig would put his own pressure on the process, after Fielder left, they needed to keep their popularity going, so he made sure Braun got off. Sentimental reasons for Bud.No proof of course, but, it was the first thing I thought of.
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If you think that the commissioner can exert any sort of influence on the independent arbitrator that they have then you clearly aren't overly familiar with the process.

Anyways, it's good to see.
 
Darryl said:
Lost a lot of respect for Braun. Don't go around acting vindicated when you get off on a technicality and still can't explain why you tested so high.
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I don't get what you're looking for here. If Braun is saying he didn't take anything illegal how in the world is he supposed to know why the test results were what they were?
 
Saint Nik said:
I don't get what you're looking for here. If Braun is saying he didn't take anything illegal how in the world is he supposed to know why the test results were what they were?
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Well if he and his team can argue that the delay in getting the sample to the lab was a reason to overturn his suspension. They can take the time to explain why such a thing could cause a positive test
 
Darryl said:
Well if he and his team can argue that the delay in getting the sample to the lab was a reason to overturn his suspension. They can take the time to explain why such a thing could cause a positive test
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But their argument had nothing to do with what caused a positive test. It was the pretty simple, and inarguable, position that the agreed upon procedures need to be followed. They don't know why there was a positive test, why waste time trying to figure it out?
 
Saint Nik said:
Darryl said:
Well if he and his team can argue that the delay in getting the sample to the lab was a reason to overturn his suspension. They can take the time to explain why such a thing could cause a positive test
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But their argument had nothing to do with what caused a positive test. It was the pretty simple, and inarguable, position that the agreed upon procedures need to be followed. They don't know why there was a positive test, why waste time trying to figure it out?
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Why waste time? Think there is a few good reasons. Here is the main one.

His appeal got overturned buy 2-1 vote. One person opinion made the difference from him having a black eye on his career. If I was him/players associations and I was innocent, I would want to know how a false positive like this occurred or if the urine sample was tampered with. A career of one the better players was nearly ruined, if he is innocent a huge fuck up occurred and I would want to get to the bottom of it.
 
Trolloc said:
Why waste time? Think there is a few good reasons. Here is the main one.

His appeal got overturned buy 2-1 vote. One person opinion made the difference from him having a black eye on his career. If I was him/players associations and I was innocent, I would want to know how a false positive like this occurred or if the urine sample was tampered with. A career of one the better players was nearly ruined, if he is innocent a huge Frig up occurred and I would want to get to the bottom of it.
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Just because the cause of the positive test wasn't part of Braun and the Brewers' case doesn't mean the cause isn't being investigated. You can be pretty certain that it is to make sure that, if this was a false positive, it doesn't happen again.
 
Trolloc said:
His appeal got overturned buy 2-1 vote. One person opinion made the difference from him having a black eye on his career.
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That's just the way the arbitration process works. It's a three person panel, one representative from the owners, one from the union and an independent. The owners rep and the union reps vote are almost always split and it's the arbitrator's vote that carries the day. A 2-1 result is to be expected.
 
Saint Nik said:
But their argument had nothing to do with what caused a positive test. It was the pretty simple, and inarguable, position that the agreed upon procedures need to be followed. They don't know why there was a positive test, why waste time trying to figure it out?
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Because he doesn't want to cloud of suspicion hanging over him for the rest of his career.
 
Darryl said:
Because he doesn't want to cloud of suspicion hanging over him for the rest of his career.
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Realistically, there's only so much he can do on that front. It's not like the people who are inclined to be suspicious of someone for PED use need any actual proof to have it. Look at the "questions" about Bautista or what's happened with Jeff Bagwell in the HOF votes.

Braun will take more drug tests throughout his career. If he's doing anything that can be caught he'll be caught. If he's clean, he won't be. If there are people who are going to see that cloud hanging over his head despite whatever will happen in subsequent tests then I'm inclined to think nothing Braun could have done would have lifted it anyway.
 
Using Sabermetrics in the quest to solve the DL....

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/7603159/dodgers-injury-guru-stan-conte-wants-end-dl-espn-magazine

In a post-Moneyball world," he says, "injury risk assessment is the final frontier."

On this frontier, Conte is attempting to discover in advance who will get hurt and who won't -- or at least give accurate odds. With enough well-analyzed data from the past to inform roster decisions in the present, he believes, it's not outside the realm of possibility to assemble a team that goes an entire season without losing a day to the disabled list.

...since 1996... Giants...Conte looked to see whether he could help lower the team's injury rates, which led him to surmise how San Francisco's DL stacked up to that of other teams. Trouble was, nobody kept those kinds of records. This was before everything was on the Internet, so I was trying to track down every paper copy of that newspaper I could find."

...one day...Conte...noticed a big red book on his desk from an insurance company in Cincinnati. I look inside and it had everything: time lost, DL dates, dollars lost. It was unbelievable."

After reviewing the data, Conte couldn't believe what he'd found. Though most teams had full strength-and-conditioning programs for the first time, injury rates had increased every season from 1989 to 1999. 

...rising injury rates were likely not a trainer's fault. Injury numbers in baseball peaked in 2001, dipped the following year, then plateaued until 2006. They've been higher ever since.

The Giants, whose clubhouse during Conte's years was no stranger to steroids, were among those whose injury rates fell.

Conte's research deals in percentages...he can tell you that $22 million was lost in 2011 to oblique injuries that took an average healing time of 35 days for pitchers and 26 days for position players. He also knows that players almost always injure the oblique on the side they lead with (left for righthanders and vice versa) and that hitters account for 56 percent of those injuries.
...he can say that a player put on the DL with that malady has a 12.2 percent chance of being DL'd with it again.  Due to a lack of data, Conte has no way of isolating other variables that predict aggravation of the injury.

Major League Baseball is coming around too. In 2010, partly at Conte's behest, the league introduced a centralized database of injuries. Using this system, trainers can't pull up a guy's name and root around, but they can finally see the rate of right labrum tears or triceps strains across the majors.

This wealth of shared data often makes it easier to assess a player's medical records before a trade...now the database has made exchanging histories far more common.

Conte's fundamental task is to identify the lowest-risk players available.
 
 
The Jays J.P. Arencibia?hockey and Maple Leafs fan?


http://www.thestar.com/sports/baseball/mlb/bluejays/article/1136957--griffin-toronto-blue-jays-catcher-j-p-arencibia-stickhandles-questions-about-beloved-maple-leafs
 
MLB expanding to 10 playoff teams starting this season.

No more excuses about playing in the same division and the Yanks and Bosox now.

http://www.tsn.ca/mlb/story/?id=389157
 
I don't know where I stand with the extra wild card spot.  Not the spot itself, because I love the fact they are expanding the playoffs.  It's the 1-game playoff -- I am torn whether that is a good compromise or if it's better served to have a best 2-out-of-3 mini series.
 
Peter D. said:
I don't know where I stand with the extra wild card spot.  Not the spot itself, because I love the fact they are expanding the playoffs.  It's the 1-game playoff -- I am torn whether that is a good compromise or if it's better served to have a best 2-out-of-3 mini series.
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Yea the extra spot is great but I agree, that 1-game playoff sounds a little fishy to me. Will be interesting to see how the season unfolds.
 
I'm fine with the 1 game playoff. I think 1 game playoffs are exciting but also I think it adds emphasis on winning your division.
 
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