MLB denies that it’s specifically targeting Braun, but the denial rings hollow

Yesterday Bob Nightengale reported that Major League Baseball was targeting Ryan Braun in the Biogenesis investigation, to the point where it was willing to grant other players immunity — and sacrifice most of its drug enforcement principles — in order to take Braun down.

Later in the day, however, MLB’s Rob Manfred denied that. From Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journel-Sentinel:

Major League Baseball executive vice president Rob Manfred denied that MLB has targeted Milwaukee Brewers leftfielder Ryan Braun specifically in its investigation of the Biogenesis clinic in Miami, as suggested by a USA Today article.

“Everyone whose name has surfaced surrounding the Miami New Times story and Biogenesis is being investigated with equal vigor,” Manfred said in a statement to the Journal Sentinel.

Which would be great if now other reporters, also well-connected ones like Nightengale, weren’t continuing to hear otherwise. Here’s Yahoo!’s Jeff Passan from last night:

Major League Baseball is honing in on Alex Rodriguez and Ryan Braun as two main targets for potential discipline as it prepares to interview players about the Biogenesis clinic … Multiple sources said the league has discussed offers of immunity to major league players, though none has been officially offered … The league has interviewed players not on 40-man rosters, and one such player told Yahoo! Sports he was offered immunity in exchange for information about Biogenesis. [emphasis added]

Passan’s report backs Nightengale’s account way more than it backs a situation in which MLB’s claim that everyone is being investigated with “equal vigor.”

As I said yesterday, baseball can do whatever it wants. But if it is granting immunity to some players it is abandoning its zero tolerance policies and turning the drug enforcement program into a totally different animal than they have long claimed it to be.