Now that we know the Biogenesis scandal has real legs, a few ideas come to mind. First, kudos to the Miami New Times for breaking the story. The fact that this alternative newspaper got the scoop instead of either MLB or a major news organization leads to this question, “Was anyone trying to trace where players obtained their drugs?” Ryan Braun, Melky Cabrera, Bartolo Colon and Yasmani Grandal all tested positive in the last two years, and all were connected to this supplier. Did anyone find the connection before the New Times article?
Second, these anti-aging clinics can’t be that rare. Where else are players finding drugs. Is MLB investigating other places that might be doing the same thing? I find it tough to believe that Biogenesis was the only supplier out there.
Third, whatever protocol the players used to get around positive tests didn’t work all that well. While a number of players who were on the list have not been caught, a few did fail tests. Are there new formulations of drugs that don’t appear on a test? If so, I hope new tests are being developed. (This is how Ben Johnson was caught. He thought he had a drug unknown to the IOC. Instead, it had been recently discovered, and the Olympics had a new test.) It is important to figure out how these athletes were passing testing negative so protocols or chemistry can get better.
Finally, is it time for MLB to get out of the policing business? As Melky Cabrera and Bartolo Colon showed last year, teams are not hurt by drug use. The Giants and Athletics were helped by those two improving their performances by using drugs. There is no incentive for front offices or field managers to turn in their own players. Fans aren’t hurt that much, except for those who hold records dear. The people most hurt are other players, who lose the level playing field as they compete for salary. Maybe it’s time to throw all of this on the MLBPA. Their membership know what incentive and disincentives might work to prevent further use. No matter how much the MLBPA cooperates with MLB, there is still going to be an adversarial relationship between the two entities, with the MLBPA often taking the side of a player they really should be prosecuting. For example, a union penalty might be, “We will no longer recognized the guaranteed status of your contract.”
Imagine if that was the penalty for Ryan Braun. He would be losing $100 million instead of three or four million. Not that it’s tough for this penalty to come from MLB, because there would be the suspicion of tampering to get rid of a bad contract. Under union testing, however, there would be a higher level of trust that the player really was using.
I welcome your thoughts in the comments.
Most interesting: This is turning into a wedge issue that threatens to break the union, and I can imagine that MLB loves it. The union’s job is supposed to be to stand up for its members – no matter what. Now, there appears to be a faction of its membership who feel that it’s the union’s responsibility to maintain professional ethics in the trade. That’s reasonable enough, but anyone who’s ever listened to a Pete Seeger song knows that unions only work if their membership is united (that’s why they call it that). If they get behind cancelling contracts of drug-using players, it could be the beginning of the end.
I’ve banged on this horse enough already, but making PEDs against the rules is totally backwards, anti-science, and anti-progress. The innovation is going towards masking when it should be going towards safety and performance. We’re setting ourselves back.
WeWanttheFunk » An excellent point. I guess what we want is something that allows a ballplayer to perform at his natural level as often as possible, allowing him to come back quickly from injuries, or even avoid them without making him a superman.
David: The problem with that is who gets to place the arbitrary line between man and superman. These guys are already fitter and more coordinated than average. The idea is to get better without sacrificing health and safety, right? Currently, that arbitrary line exists between legal and illegal substances. A player can pop anything at GNC all day long, but stuff from BioGenessis is out.
WeWanttheFunk » Indeed. The ideal is tough to achieve. Which is why I’d rather see the players police this. Instead of some harrumphing body passing judgement, let the group decide what’s right.
I agree. I guess the ideal (but far-fetched) solution would be to have the MLBPA handle testing AND punishment. With the fines and lost salaries going into a research fund. I can’t imagine The League allowing themselves to be cut out of it, though.
I think it was PFT who brought up a while back that they players being targeted here all seem to have big albatross contracts. I would be surprised to learn that anyone’s pestering Giancarlo Stanton to pee in a cup.
Wait, no, the problem with PEDs isn’t that they make players too good. The problem with PEDs is that they tend to be very harmful later in your life.
The rules against using them are really supposed to be rules to protect players! The owners love PEDs. Some fans say they don’t like them, but the reality is that fans love the effects. It’s just the players who need protection — they have a collective action problem.
So, I believe an enlightened union would work to try to eliminate PEDs from the game.
I wonder if Braun would have agreed to the ban if the Brewers were in the race and not out of it like they are.
James: The health effects are something that might be overcome through proper testing and refining of the product. Think about birth control pills. The first birth control pills were just enormous doses of hormones meant to trick women’s bodies into thinking they were pregnant. They produced all types of harmful side-effects. Today, there are multitudes of safe and effective birth control pills. It got that way through beta testing and refining.
Presently, yes, steroid-based PEDs are known to be harmful. Not much is known about HGH (including its effectiveness) because it hasn’t been properly studied. The research goes into making it undetectable, rather than making it safe, or measuring its effects. Meanwhile, athletes are buying shady hormones from trunks of cars in gym parking lots and self-administering them.
Mark:
My understanding is that, by agreeing to take the suspension now, not only does Braun miss games when his team is already out of it, but he misses salary now rather than next year, when his salary goes up.
Regarding the Union as enforcer:
One problem with that is that most Unions, and this one I believe, have a duty to protect the individual member’s interests as well as the members in general. So while the Union may not have to take the side of a PED users once that is properly established, it does need to make sure that that member has his rights in terms of process and procedure while the evidence is being weighed, and in deciding the penalty. It is hard — not impossible — to be both the defense attorney and the judge.
I think my attitude on this is pretty close to WeWanttheFunk’s. Are taking PED’s more dangerous then getting, say, Lasik eye surgery? And does it does not appear to make .220 hitters into .320 hitters. It appears to me that it allows players to maintain a certain level of physical ability for the duration of the season. Do my ticket prices go down at the end of the season because players are wore out after the long season?
I still have it in my head that those that would benefit most from PED’s would be pitchers, as a method of helping tired arms recover quicker. Owners invest a lot of money in those arms, and despite pitch counts pitchers still seem to get hurt just as much as they always did.
The comment was also made about PED’s being dangerous. Well, there’s use and then there’s abuse. Anything can be dangerous if abused.
My policy: honesty. I don’t care what you take, but you’ve got to come clean about it. Wouldn’t you rather have a legitimate doctor providing the “medicine” and monitoring the results then some “trainer” in a club somewhere?
I know this idea’s really way out of the box & will never happen but… it might be an interesting idea to re-align the 2 leagues into 1 “clean” league & 1 “PED-allowed” league. This would allow any players to switch leagues if they want to try PED’s for a year or two, and even go back to the clean league if they choose.
Now to a more plausible thought….. I like the idea of allowing legal PED’s so that it will be under safety & health oversight (for lack of a better phrase). David, I think in the past you’ve mentioned that it would be interesting if they allowed players to declare they’d be using PED’s for the upcoming season, and then have certain restrictions or monitary penalities on them for that period while allowing them to play. I like that idea too.
I don’t think PED’s make enough of a difference to penalize players who use ’em. Until there’s a study that proves it gives players a significant advantage, then I think it’s just a media creation. After all, Tom John surgery & hip replacement’s do about the same thing as PED’s for a player, but they’re completely allowed.
Actually, there is an incentive for teams to turn in some of their players, and for MLB to suspend them. That’s when teams are out of a race (Brewers, Braun), or have large non-performing contracts (Yankees, Arod).
Teams profit when such players do well and the team is drawing fans, so PED’s now work both ways for them, revenue generation and expense reduction.
It may well be that MLB was aware of Biogenesis. Mannys first suspension was from HCG, a prescription issued by the father of Biogenesis founder. It could be players MLB knew were using Biogenesis were tracked more closely and tested more often which resulted in the positive test results.
Also, does anyone believe these billion dollar organizations don’t keep track of their players and investigate players before signing them. I would be shocked if MLB was not aware of Biognesis before the Times report.
I believe there is a huge pipeline of steroids from the DR that is not easily investigated, and perhaps some players are smart enough to simply do a couple of cycles in the DR during the offseason. Presumably MLB testers don’t go to the DR in the offseason to conduct testing.
Perhaps teams should police their own players as a matter of contract. Teams would randomly administer drugs tests and submit them to independent labs with MLB oversight. Players would be penalized for use of illegal substances according to the current rules, and teams would be penalized after a certain amount of violations accrued. This would put peer pressure on any given player not to cheat, as his teamates would suffer a penalty in the standings as well as the loss of his play if he were caught doing so.