Ryan Braun tests positive for PED

[Buck]

http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/...enhancing-drug

He's facing a 50 game suspension.

[BigCatDaddy]

Originally Posted by mnchiefsguy

According to this ESPN article:

http://espn.go.com/espn/commentary/s...b-drug-testing

The sample was in a tupperware container and sat on the collector's desk for the entire weekend. Turns out there were 12 FedEx locations open at the time, so it sounds like the collector royally screwed the pooch on this one.

I think he was taking something. I also think that the sloppy chain of possession opened the door to reasonable doubt (to use a court term).

Apparently the collective bargaining agreement is very anal about how these samples are to be collected and tested, so it is up to the collection agency to meet those standards. If they fail to do so, the MLB should not be surprised when the system lets a player off the hook.

I read that as well. I guess it was like triple sealed to obviously wasn't tampered with. He got very lucky.

[alnorth]

Originally Posted by mnchiefsguy

According to this ESPN article:

http://espn.go.com/espn/commentary/s...b-drug-testing

The sample was in a tupperware container and sat on the collector's desk for the entire weekend. Turns out there were 12 FedEx locations open at the time, so it sounds like the collector royally screwed the pooch on this one.

I think he was taking something. I also think that the sloppy chain of possession opened the door to reasonable doubt (to use a court term).

Apparently the collective bargaining agreement is very anal about how these samples are to be collected and tested, so it is up to the collection agency to meet those standards. If they fail to do so, the MLB should not be surprised when the system lets a player off the hook.

The collector and MLB may have screwed up, but its understandable. I wouldn't go as far as to say they were bumbling fools, because apparently only MLB's policy is this strict. In every olympic sport and in most other professional sports around the world, no one would have cared if the collector didn't rush over to Fedex on a saturday evening. In MLB its apparently a deal-breaker.

[veist]

Originally Posted by mnchiefsguy

According to this ESPN article:

http://espn.go.com/espn/commentary/s...b-drug-testing

The sample was in a tupperware container and sat on the collector's desk for the entire weekend. Turns out there were 12 FedEx locations open at the time, so it sounds like the collector royally screwed the pooch on this one.

I think he was taking something. I also think that the sloppy chain of possession opened the door to reasonable doubt (to use a court term).

Apparently the collective bargaining agreement is very anal about how these samples are to be collected and tested, so it is up to the collection agency to meet those standards. If they fail to do so, the MLB should not be surprised when the system lets a player off the hook.

To call it a tupperware container is both utterly false and deliberately misleading. They're numbered kits made specifically for this purpose with multiple safeguards against tampering. Not once was any evidence presented that the sample was tampered with or degraded. He got off on the fact that the MLB's specific policy gave him an out with how it was handled in spite of the handling being proper in any other doping program.

[alnorth]

Just read about Braun's press conference, and there's nothing new. Basically harping on the collector having his sample in the fridge for 48 hours, and a lot of innuendo. Stuff like "hey, we don't know who has access to it, or if it was tampered with, we don't know if someone's got an agenda", etc.

Braun is either dirty or he's one of the unluckiest SOB's in the world. (by unlucky, I mean either some maniac genius biochemist with a grudge is out there, or he got a false positive on every test and re-rest)

[Frazod]

This is ridiculous. Are we really supposed to believe that somebody so had it out for Ryan Braun that they broke into this guy's house, raided his fridge and somehow injected roids into a bottle of piss? Really?

That's about as believable as Mark Fuhrman planting evidence in the OJ trial.

[mnchiefsguy]

Originally Posted by alnorth

The collector and MLB may have screwed up, but its understandable. I wouldn't go as far as to say they were bumbling fools, because apparently only MLB's policy is this strict. In every olympic sport and in most other professional sports around the world, no one would have cared if the collector didn't rush over to Fedex on a saturday evening. In MLB its apparently a deal-breaker.

I don't know...that ESPN article sure makes them look like bumbling fools to me. The collector was part-time MLB employee...is MLB so cheap they can't afford to have a full time professional do this? Considering the reputations and dollars that are at stake...having some guy do this as a side gig may not have been the best option.

[BigCatDaddy]

Interesting read

http://deadspin.com/5869473/victor-c...bolic-steroids

[alnorth]

Originally Posted by mnchiefsguy

I don't know...that ESPN article sure makes them look like bumbling fools to me. The collector was part-time MLB employee...is MLB so cheap they can't afford to have a full time professional do this? Considering the reputations and dollars that are at stake...having some guy do this as a side gig may not have been the best option.

The folks in Montreal are astonished. For the olympics and in other sports, they seem to be saying its fairly common to wait until Monday when collected on a Saturday.

[alnorth]

Chief says Braun wouldn’t have been cleared under WADA code

MONTREAL — The head of the World Anti-Doping Agency says the protocol breach that helped NL MVP Ryan Braun win his doping case would not have yielded the same result in a case that adhered to WADA rules.

Braun’s positive drug test was overturned by an arbitrator who ruled that a two-day delay in delivering his urine sample was a violation of baseball’s drug agreement.

David Howman, the director general of WADA, said in a statement Friday that in a case following WADA code, “the athlete would have to show that the departure from the rule caused the adverse finding. That is not the situation in this case.”

He said the “very experienced” director of the anti-doping lab in Montreal gave evidence that Braun’s sample had not been compromised or tampered with.

[mnchiefsguy]

Originally Posted by alnorth

The folks in Montreal are astonished. For the olympics and in other sports, they seem to be saying its fairly common to wait until Monday when collected on a Saturday.

Seems to me that the waiting till Monday is not the primary problem. It is the leaving the sample in the tupperware dish and putting in on the desk all weekend that is the problem.

Do I think Braun took some stuff he shouldn't have? Yeah. Do I think MLB was a bunch of idiots in how they conduct their testing...after reading about it, I would have to say yes. No reason not to have the most professional procedure in place to do this sort of thing. Having a part-time guy do it and keep the sample unsupervised at his house for a weekend raises an issue.

MLB agreed to the strict terms of the testing. It should have done everything in its power to insure those terms were met. It failed to do so, and lost the appeal.

Hopefully MLB will learn from this and do further tests in a more professional manner, and in keeping with their agreement with the players union.

[alnorth]

Originally Posted by mnchiefsguy

Seems to me that the waiting till Monday is not the primary problem. It is the leaving the sample in the tupperware dish and putting in on the desk all weekend that is the problem.

You will need to explain why this is a "problem". The sample was not poured out into a tupperware dish, it was kept triple-sealed in its container, and refrigerated, which is what MLB and the player's union would have expected him to do if he collected on a Sunday.

Braun got off on a meaningless technicality.

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by alnorth

The stories that are out today are saying that Braun's side is arguing that a 20/1 TE ratio was impossibly high.

To say that the result was "impossibly high" is not true, and all those stories about how he tested higher than anyone else in the history of that test is wrong, if the result really was 20/1. (unless they were only talking about MLB players, it could have been the highest MLB result in history).

Not really a surprise that the Braun camp tried to influence the media by stretching the truth or saying something that wasn't true. That's the way this works and it happens with every high-profile athlete that has ever tested positive for anything.

I now think Braun was probably dirty.

It is possible that he was clean, in that every test has a positive failure rate, and if he was one of those 1 in a million people or 10 million people or whatever the odds are for that test to get false positives on both samples, then it sucks for him and he's the unluckiest man in all of sports (cancelled out by luck yesterday), but we have to accept a test with a very, very low false positive rate, especially with 2 samples. Someone somewhere someday probably in some olympic sport no one cares about will probably get screwed, but I really doubt that theoretical lottery-winner was Braun.

Yeah, that's what I've been trying to explain. The most reasonable explanation for his positive test is that he took something to trigger it. I never understood why some were giving him the benefit of the doubt that they didn't give to so many others.

[vailpass]

Cleared of all charges and ready for 2012 spring camp. Objects in the rear view mirror are getting farther and farther away.

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by BigCatDaddy

It will interesting to see his 2012 numbers.

Why? If he's using PEDs, he likely wouldn't have just started last season and would likely continue using them in 2012 anyway. That isn't even mentioning that nobody still knows exactly what (if any) impact PEDs have on baseball performance.

Braun is going to be the same fantastic hitter he's always been. There's little reason to think differently.

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by vailpass

I see what you are saying. A decline from an MVP year isn't necessarily proof someone was doping.

My point was that his numbers didn't dramatically spike upwards in 2011, something usually associated with the onset of PED use. Guy has been putting up steadily nice numbers his whole career.
That, and his hat size didn't enter the Bonds Zone.

PED users are just as likely to be the guys putting up steadily nice numbers throughout their careers as they are to be guys with dramatic spikes in performance.