PED Suspensions Coming

[Aristotelian]

Isn't he playing in the game tonight?

Let me guess, supplements recommended by a doctor recommended by his buddy in the Domincan.

[allquixotic]

Why would a guy like that -- who isn't really good, and isn't playing meaningful baseball for a team that matters -- bother with PEDs? I mean, I could see it for a contender. Maybe I could even see it for Wellington last year with the O's, since we had our chances to sniff the playoffs until late in the season.

Just seems odd to me that someone that irrelevant in the MLB would use, while, you know, Mookie Betts is still out there playing and hasn't yet been caught. Is it just that the rest are really good at avoiding detection, or do only bad players waste their time with PEDs?

Sigh.

[tntoriole]

This is what you get with ambivalent limits...They should make it a year without compensation 1st offense and a lifetime ban the second offense..then see many of these knuckleheads decide it is worth trying. 

[OFFNY]

24 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

 

Isn't he playing in the game tonight ???

Let me guess, supplements recommended by a doctor recommended by his buddy in the Dominican Republic.

 

o

 

Yeah, they are going get some bounders from the local tavern, and drag him off of the field in the middle of an inning.

Rules are rules ........

 

o

[bpilktree67]

Someone needs to sneak some ped’s into Davis drink.   That way we are not paying him to watch ball go right across the plate.

[NashLumber]

I hadn't heard of an announcement quite like this involving a player in an ongoing game since the Raffy suspension. That was slightly different as that game had not officialy begun yet. I was sitting in CF bleachers at Camden Yards when it was announced on WBAL pre-game. And ironically it was vs. The White Sox on the weekend the '05 meltdown began.

[Ohfan67]

Thank goodness he wasn’t using PEDs when he was an Oriole. 

 

 

[ORIOLE33]

32 minutes ago, allquixotic said:

Why would a guy like that -- who isn't really good, and isn't playing meaningful baseball for a team that matters -- bother with PEDs? I mean, I could see it for a contender. Maybe I could even see it for Wellington last year with the O's, since we had our chances to sniff the playoffs until late in the season.

Just seems odd to me that someone that irrelevant in the MLB would use, while, you know, Mookie Betts is still out there playing and hasn't yet been caught. Is it just that the rest are really good at avoiding detection, or do only bad players waste their time with PEDs?

Sigh.

Why do you assume Betts is on PEDs? 

[LocoChris]

58 minutes ago, allquixotic said:

Why would a guy like that -- who isn't really good, and isn't playing meaningful baseball for a team that matters -- bother with PEDs? I mean, I could see it for a contender. Maybe I could even see it for Wellington last year with the O's, since we had our chances to sniff the playoffs until late in the season.

Just seems odd to me that someone that irrelevant in the MLB would use, while, you know, Mookie Betts is still out there playing and hasn't yet been caught. Is it just that the rest are really good at avoiding detection, or do only bad players waste their time with PEDs?

Sigh.

Players that aren't that good are the ones  you'd expect would take it to try and make themselves better. Maybe he's hoping he'll get traded to a contender. It's the ones like Cano that baffle me, the ones who don't need it.

[sportsfan8703]

100% chance he was doing it last year. Contract year. 100% he was. 

[allquixotic]

2 hours ago, ORIOLE33 said:

Why do you assume Betts is on PEDs? 

I don't. I was saying, intuitively, one would expect that the more successful players would be the ones taking PEDs. If the PEDs work at all as advertised and Enhance the Performance of the athlete, then the athletes producing the most on the field would be my first guess as to who -- if anyone -- would be doing PEDs.

I don't have a good theory for why that doesn't appear to be the case. There isn't a clear relationship between how well a player actually performs, and their use of PEDs. Sometimes bad players use PEDs and are still bad. Sometimes bad players become better once they use PEDs. Sometimes there are clean players, who never use PEDs, and are still extremely good. Some probably use PEDs and the drugs don't make them any better.

I wondered if, maybe, the PED problem is still as prevalent as it was a decade or two ago, except that now, players have become really good at playing the system to avoid getting caught. If that were true, then it stands to reason that many bad and good players are using them, but the most productive players are combining talent, PEDs, and hard work into one package. The others might only be doing PEDs, and hoping that will compensate for their lack of talent or hard work. Etc. You get the idea.

Of course, I have no proof, but baseball players, executives and even the media seem to now be in a state of constantly lying to the general public with almost every word they say. Tony's article; Jim's statement; Rafael Palmeiro in front of the United States Congress; I mean it's just unreal how deep lying is ingrained in the culture of the MLB.

If that's still the case -- and it seems to be, since we keep catching them in their lies -- then we might as well assume that the worst thing that we could imagine to be happening, is actually happening. Maybe a lot of the players are doing PEDs. Maybe they genuinely don't care about their job, and once they get that guaranteed contract, are just slumming it out there because it's not worth the effort to actually try to win?

There are exceptions of course. I'm sure there are clean players, who play the game right, try hard, and have success. But I think the opposite of that is more common than we realize, and they're pretty good at pulling the wool over our eyes, or we're happy to remain willfully ignorant of the problems with these players that are hidden just beneath the surface of their lies and whitewashed statements to the media.

And, you know, if that's going to be how it is, I really don't see any reason to continue to patronize baseball. Little league and independent teams? Sure, absolutely. But not Major League Baseball. The organization seems to exude this slimy, money-grubbing, lying, cheating culture that reminds me of the mob or something. It's not "America's Favorite Pastime" anymore. It's more akin to the Church of Scientology -- which, if you aren't familiar, is an organization that pretends to be a religious institution but is actually, quite literally, a scam to remove people from their money, and worse. I'm not even going to go into all that the CoS does -- it's off topic here, but I wanted to broach a comparison that at least points to the level that I feel the MLB has sunken to.

The O's losing doesn't help, but viewing the entire League in this light is putting me on the edge of just forgetting about baseball altogether, and finding a new hobby or a different sport to patronize.

[InsideCoroner]

6 hours ago, LocoChris said:

Players that aren't that good are the ones  you'd expect would take it to try and make themselves better. Maybe he's hoping he'll get traded to a contender. It's the ones like Cano that baffle me, the ones who don't need it.

Right. I mean, Taylor Teagarden used PEDs just to be at the weak-hitting backup catcher level of Taylor Teagarden. But as for the good players, it is worrying. It makes me wonder if it’s still a lot more widespread than any of us will ever know. 

[sportsfan8703]

I always wondered why we had zero interest in bringing him back. It wasn’t just his game calling. 

I always thought he brought an energy that was missing to the lineup. That energy was PEDs. Haha

[Can_of_corn]

1 hour ago, sportsfan8703 said:

I always wondered why we had zero interest in bringing him back. It wasn’t just his game calling. 

I always thought he brought an energy that was missing to the lineup. That energy was PEDs. Haha

You are saying that the Orioles were aware he was using PEDs while playing for them?

 

[Rene88]

59 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

You are saying that the Orioles were aware he was using PEDs while playing for them?

 

His catcher ERA was one of the worst in the majors, that’s why he wasn’t brought back.