Comments on: Another call for teams to vacate wins when a player gets a PED suspension

By: rooney24

rooney24 — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 19:47:59 +0000

The way to fix this is not to penalize the team, which may have had no knowledge of what a player was doing. The way to fix this is to drug test every player, every week. If a result comes back positive for anything, they are suspended immediately, and then you can run through the appeals process. Right now, by the time someone is suspended, it is a month or more from the actual positive test. Why wait? With random testing, players are willing to take the chance that they won’t be the one tested. If they knew they were going to be tested EVERY week, I bet that would cut it down significantly. Don’t assume that 4 positive tests mean that only 4 players were using.

By: temporarilyexiled

temporarilyexiled — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 17:26:48 +0000

How about we just accept the fact that we don’t know what it is. I certainly don’t lose sleep about it. But I hope it’s properly dealt with. As long as the almighty dollar runs the show, it’s hard to be confident in the belief that a bunch of billionaires and millionaires are aggressively seeking the truth. When everyone stops pronouncing what the actual statistics are, when no one has somehow administered truth serum to everyone who’s remotely involved, and published this amazing research, I’ll shut up.

By: Chris Fiorentino

Chris Fiorentino — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 17:19:38 +0000

now it would be 39 players…not games.

By: Chris Fiorentino

Chris Fiorentino — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 17:19:16 +0000

This is a prettty awesome idea, but I doubt they would ever implement it. The author’s idea about using WAR to remove wins is ludicrous, but this idea is a great one. This is really the only way to actually hurt the team with the cheater. Sure, the Giants will miss Melky’s bat. But he cheated and that may have helped that bat. By taking away a roster spot for the 50 games, you are really hurting the team. Of course, now it would be 39 games and not as painful. But try making a playoff roster with only 24 guys and the Giants would feel the squeeze if they make the playoffs.

By: airedale1950

airedale1950 — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 17:18:20 +0000

The NCAA only screws a whole team of young men who gambled their future on a school with a winning program. These same young men are now in a program that has nothing to offer them, little chance for notoriety in the game they excelled at, little chance to move to another University and succeed in that program…and let’s face it…little chance to parley an arts and crafts diploma into a meaningful income. They went to Penn State to screw and play football at a top level. What they ended up receiving was the same thing the Sandusky did to little boys…only from the NCAA.
Yeah, let’s follow their lead…they have been sooo fair in the past.

By: thefalcon123

thefalcon123 — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 17:14:20 +0000

How about we all take a deep breath and accept the fact that steroid usage probably isn’t as ramapant in today’s game as everyone fears. Sure, players do it. And sure, there are probably plenty of them who manager to avoid detection.

But I kind of doubt it’s 50%, 20% of even 10% that many people claim.

By: temporarilyexiled

temporarilyexiled — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 17:06:09 +0000

Someday, I hope we really find out the truth. It really could be anywhere from 4 out of 1,700, to our most paranoid fantasy. And the only thing we do know is that we hear all kinds of proclamations as to which one is correct, but really, we haven’t a clue. I’m okay with stating the generalization that more are cheating than caught, just as long as we never make specific accusations that can’t be immediately and factually backed up.

By: thefalcon123

thefalcon123 — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 16:58:45 +0000

Yep…all *4* of them have taken the risk this year. 4 out of…what, 1700 players?

That comes out to 0.235%.

So that’s clearly an epidemic.

By: paperlions

paperlions — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 16:57:02 +0000

The NCAA does NOT vacate wins for players testing positive for banned substances. All athletes are tested, and those that test positive are punished by the university (or not), including suspensions or dismissal from the team, but the test results are considered private student information (as they should be) and are not released. No NCAA team has ever vacated a single win for player PED use….ever.

By: notsofast10

notsofast10 — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 16:42:41 +0000

Yeah and so do the cheaters, that is why they will take the risk.

By: Detroit Michael

Detroit Michael — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 16:39:40 +0000

You buried the lead:
“Mainstream media member uses WAR to measure batters’ productivity.”

OK, maybe this isn’t quite the right occasion to celebrate how far the mainstream media is progressing. Baby steps.

By: thomas2727

thomas2727 — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 15:14:56 +0000

So if Mota has a negative WAR does that mean the Giants get wins added to their total?

By: thefalcon123

thefalcon123 — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 14:54:42 +0000

You know what I think is a great punishment for PED users?

A 50 game suspension.

By: churchoftheperpetuallyoutraged

churchoftheperpetuallyoutraged — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 14:44:36 +0000

How the hell is the NCAA the example he uses for punishment? The same NCAA that didn’t punish cam Newton when his father pimped him out for $200k to the highest bidder? The same NCAA that sat on information about OSU players, like Pryor, who broke rules and let them play in a bowl game because they’d take their punishments the following year? Only to have them declare pro and avoid any punishment?

Yeah, great example to use…

By: temporarilyexiled

temporarilyexiled — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 14:37:17 +0000

If we’re actually attempting to rationally discuss some sort of WAR-PED-based sanctions, why not simply fine the Southern California teams the full amount of their monetary advantages?

Or, we could simply dispense with this nonsense, and subsitute other nonsense.

Let’s put all Southern California teams in quarantine.

By: pauleee

pauleee — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 14:31:35 +0000

I’d like to say something like “The OC Register is still around?”, but I know it is because I see a copy at work every day. But when you’ve got a paper whose words per page is dwarfed by the likes of USA Today, well, it’s only a matter of time before you can pick it up right next to the OC Weekly.

By: Tick

Tick — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 14:30:58 +0000

The Angels offseason free agent signings make about the same amount of money as the entire Oakland team and this hack has the nerve to claim the A’s had an unfair advantage? This guys isn’t big on reporting from the world of reality, is he?

By: scotttheskeptic

scotttheskeptic — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 14:30:13 +0000

Perhaps an appropriate team punishment would be the loss of the roster spot for the duration of the suspension. Try winning with only 24 guys.

By: fatfirstbaseman

fatfirstbaseman — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 14:19:46 +0000

Yeah, because taking policy cues from the NCAA is a great idea.

By: kiwicricket

kiwicricket — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 14:17:50 +0000

“…..usually reserved for the truly offensive, like Lindsay Lohan.”
This man writes a great deal of sense, it’s just a shame about his baseball analysis.