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So he never stopped?

 

and he's been tested how many times and never tested positive outside of that one false-positive time?  especially in the past year?  he was apart of the minor league class in 2005/2006 during the strictest testing period in MiLB history prior to HGH blood testing in 2009, and he was tested more times than any year before this past season because of the false-postive test in 2011, as is required in the CBA and MLB-Joint Drug Testing Policy

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What plausibly happened then? If I peed into a cup and put it in my fridge until Monday, it wouldn't test positive for steroids. The only plausible reason for that test is that someone deliberately set him up, adding chemicals to his clean pee. You think that happened? Or they snuck in over the weekend and switched the label on his pee with someone elses? Where's the suspect? Where's the motive?

 

It's possible. It's just 1000 times more plausible that he had dirty pee and got off on a technicality.

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I don't think Braun ever even mentioned as part of his appeal that he was clean. The entire argument was based on a technicality.


I'm sorry but I just can't take a "he's been tested x amount of times" argument very seriously. A rough esitmate in my head has less than 1% of MLB players testing positive for steroids over the course of a season. Do you think that even comes close to accurately representing the amount of dirty players in MLB?

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and we'll never know because the entire arbitration case is sealed from public records.  I wont speculate, its not worth the time.

 

MLB randomly tests players, and they "claim" that theres no way for them to test every single player (though they supposedly did this in spring training last year for the first, and only, time last year, and uesd blood testing for HGH, and went back to random testing throughout the season).  random testing does represent that a vast majority of players do not dope, and any player who tests postive, even if its appealed and we never find out about it (as is how the entire process is supposed to go), still gets scrutinzed the following year and tested more often randomly throughout the season.  the random testing that MLB has is like hunting for a needle in a haystack, and its not a good system at all in my mind. 

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let's say he stopped using PEDs, which i'm sure he did after he got caught. your body doesn't immediately revert back to its pre-PEDs self once you stop using. granted i'm not a chemist so i don't know the specifics but the effects must be sustained for some period of time or else the drugs are useless.

 

i wouldn't be surprised if something like 40% of players are using or have used some sort of foreign chemical substance to enhance their play.

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let's say he stopped using PEDs, which i'm sure he did after he got caught. your body doesn't immediately revert back to its pre-PEDs self once you stop using. granted i'm not a chemist so i don't know the specifics but the effects must be sustained for some period of time or else the drugs are useless.

 

i wouldn't be surprised if something like 40% of players are using or have used some sort of foreign chemical substance to enhance their play.

 

You could probably pretty safely go to Venezuela and use all winter, pack on muscle, and then come back and utilize it. You would lose some of it during the season, but it's still performance at a level higher than your natural potential. 

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Who do you think has a worse record this year, the Astros or the Marlins? I'm thinking Astros.

 

I don't want to think about it. But you're probably right.

 

I'm hoping that all of the change (moving to AL, new owner, new GM, new uniforms, bringing Orbit back) will make some sort of positive difference.  I would honestly be ecstatic if we lost less than 100 games this year.

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I look at it this way -- no way to really judge guys like Marwin Gonzalez and Matt Dominguez. Never seen them play.

 

If you could take the best players off the Astros and add them to your team, who would you want? Altuve for sure, maybe Carlos Pena and JD Martinez on the offensive side, and Bud Norris / Lucas Harrell can pitch but aren't anything spectacular.

 

On the Marlins, you would for sure want Giancarlo Stanton. Justin Ruggiano would be nice. Maybe Logan Morrison if healthy. Cishek, Jacob Turner, Wade Leblanc, Ricky Nolasco are all guys you would probably take.


But in the end, I'd rather have just Mike Stanton than the entire Astros team. He's still probably gonna hit 40 bombs this year, even with no one around him. He's probably the best home run hitter in the National League.

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we'll see, if opposing pitchers/managers aent worried about who is batting behind Stanton, why would they ever pitch to him?  cant hit 40 HR's if 75% of the pitches thrown to you are on the corners/outside the box.

 

I think pitchers try and do this to the elite level players regardless of who is hitting around them, but sometimes they miss and the ball flys. The only guy that people really said "eff this, just throw balls and hope he swings" was Bonds.

 

Stanton hit 37 in 123 games. If he plays a full season, I think the "pitching around him" effect is at a minimum negated by an extra 30 games. Guy has an incredibly powerful bat.

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pitchers rear back for the best pitchers always. doesn't matter if he has protection or not -- there's actually some empirical evidence showing that protection doesn't really have much of an effect as far as pitch quality goes (except for maybe preventing walks, but that would mean your 5-hole hitter is a real shitbag... like delmon young).

 

the astros and marlins are both gutted but i agree with the dude, marlins have better players. the astros didn't get much in return for lowrie and i think he can grow into a 20-homer guy with full playing time. he showed some pop last year. and as far as i know stanton is still revered for his raw power. he'll drop 50 bombs by 2015.

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