Very nice intro.

"Don't do drugs"

This doesn't make any sense to me. Guillermo Mota is still on the team (and being used too much). Was it something about how Cabrera handled the situation? Strange.

[3] Forget Mota. How about Bonds?

[3] Forget Mota. How about Bonds?

Bonds never tested positive. Mota has (twice). To me, that's a much better comparison.

I'd think the payday Melky was (is?) looking for this off-season is probably the biggest factor for the Giants' having little interest in bringing him back. Unless he's willing to sign a really team-friendly contract, it'd be a pretty big risk to commit big money to a guy who might return to pumpkin form once he's off the magic juice.

I'd think the payday Melky was (is?) looking for this off-season is probably the biggest factor for the Giants' having little interest in bringing him back. Unless he's willing to sign a really team-friendly contract, it'd be a pretty big risk to commit big money to a guy who might return to pumpkin form once he's off the magic juice.

But how does that explain not playing him in the postseason?

I find this extremely weird.

Nobody cares about using steroids. They do care if you get yourself suspended and they lose you for a third of the season.

Also, Melky was a recent free agent signing. If he was a homegrown star like Braun it'd be different.

Nobody cares about using steroids. They do care if you get yourself suspended and they lose you for a third of the season.


Not true.

Before signing you to a long-term deal, they sure as hell want to know if you're on steroids. Because if you are, there's a damn good chance you're going to stop once you cash in, and won't be as good as expected.

Before signing you to a long-term deal, they sure as hell want to know if you're on steroids. Because if you are, there's a damn good chance you're going to stop once you cash in, and won't be as good as expected.

I doubt it.

I think there's an argument to be made that Cabrera made two important changes, one perfectly legitimate and one not.

His taking of a banned substance coincided, unsurprisingly, with a re-dedication to his fitness levels that everyone said was lacking his last few years in New York. Since one goes hand in hand with the other, I'm not sure how easy it is to separate the effects of one with the other.

I've said it before, but I'd love to get to a spot where the league can find a happy zone where player safety can be balanced with a drug regimen that exploits the benefits of modern strength and flexibility training for athletes. That such a regimen would improve performance shouldn't justify in itself banning it. It's the potential dangers of the regimen that needs to be an issue. Cut those down to an acceptable level (which considering the current dangers are pretty modest shouldn't be too hard), and I think "PEDs for all who want them" would be a reasonable course of action.

Unfortunately that does not look like the course folks want to take.

Melky did have a reputation of being a bit "soft."

[wild speculation warning laert]

You do wonder if Melky looked into magic juice, then found out that they only work well in coordination with a strenuous training regimen. I wouldn't be shocked if he was more focused on the juice, and did the conditioning as a broccoli-type necessity - he wasn't crazy about it, but he needed it to make his body work best.

And there probably are players who mainly got into conditioning to stay ahead of the field, only to have a teammate say, "Dude, if you're willing to work that hard, I can recommend some stuff that will make you even better!"

I've said it before, but I'd love to get to a spot where the league can find a happy zone where player safety can be balanced with a drug regimen that exploits the benefits of modern strength and flexibility training for athletes. That such a regimen would improve performance shouldn't justify in itself banning it. It's the potential dangers of the regimen that needs to be an issue. Cut those down to an acceptable level (which considering the current dangers are pretty modest shouldn't be too hard), and I think "PEDs for all who want them" would be a reasonable course of action.

I don't see why a player should have to expose himself to any risk from drugs to play in the league. Fan seeing the absolutely highest possible level of performance just isn't important at all. If one player out of 10,000 was to have a negative health consequence it wouldn't be worth it.

How would you feel if your employer wanted you to take amphetamines so you would concentrate more at work and work longer hours?

I don't see why a player should have to expose himself to any risk from drugs to play in the league. Fan seeing the absolutely highest possible level of performance just isn't important at all. If one player out of 10,000 was to have a negative health consequence it wouldn't be worth it.

How would you feel if your employer wanted you to take amphetamines so you would concentrate more at work and work longer hours?

This is the most important argument against ped's. It forces players who don't want to take these substances to choose between taking them in order to compete with the users or not taking them and potentially lowering their ceiling (and earning potential) relative to those who do.

I don't see why a player should have to expose himself to any risk from drugs to play in the league.

That's it -- no more cortisone shots, dammit!

That's it -- no more cortisone shots, dammit!

Players can refuse cortisone shots.

This is the most important argument against ped's.

In my mind it's the only half way intelligent argument. The other arguments against is silly self righteousness bs.

I don't think it's a good argument, but it's the only argument that doesn't make you look like a ####### moron.

I don't see why a player should have to expose himself to any risk from drugs to play in the league. Fan seeing the absolutely highest possible level of performance just isn't important at all. If one player out of 10,000 was to have a negative health consequence it wouldn't be worth it.

They don't have to. Allowing safe drug use doesn't force a player to do the drugs. Just like other players working out (without drugs) doesn't force other players to work out.

Before signing you to a long-term deal, they sure as hell want to know if you're on steroids. Because if you are, there's a damn good chance you're going to stop once you cash in, and won't be as good as expected.


I doubt it.

According to the Mitchell Report, the front offices of the Dodgers and the Red Sox were having "he's off steroids, should we trade him/trade for him" discussions. The Dodgers apparently thought Paul Lo Duca was off steroids and should be traded before his value cratered, but that he'd start using again out of spite once he was traded. A scout for the Sox was saying that Gagné was washed up because he wasn't using steroids and his durability was shot.

I'd be surprised if teams weren't still having these conversations when discussing free agents with sudden spikes in performance. I don't know how heavily that kind of thing would be weighed (the Sox traded for Gagné even after that scout's report), but I'm sure it comes up.

I don't see why a player should have to expose himself to any risk from drugs to play in the league.

_Any_ risk? The same could be said to crowding the plate or playing in at third to cut off bunts, or to dive for balls in the outfield (or crashing into the wall to make a catch), or lifting weights, or gaining body mass or whatever. All of these expose the player to _some_ level of risk, and many players do them because they provide benefits on the field.

Why the hell should PEDs suddenly fall outside this dynamic if the risk level is similar or less (which it already is in the case of crowding the plate or crashing into walls)? Being a professional athlete comes with it risks associated with the profession. We use a wide variety of drugs in every day life to achieve a wide variety of results and very few of those drugs are completely without any risk. I fail to understand the thinking behind a complete abandonment of this concept when it comes to professional sports, particularly when you think of the extreme amount of physical effort goes into playing the sport at such a level.

No players should have to take the drugs, but (as said above) no players have to lift weights or crowd the plate or crash into outfield walls trying to make a catch. But his performance may suffer accordingly. The approach for all of those is to try and minimize the associated risks with doing those things, except when it comes to PEDs.

How would you feel if your employer wanted you to take amphetamines so you would concentrate more at work and work longer hours?

I'd either quit, do it, or not do it and see what happens (assuming there were no legal ramifications).

Nobody has a right to be a professional baseball player as-is. If you either improve your physical conditioning or have to find another line of work, you don't get to ban everyone else from working out just to level the playing field. You don't get to set the dietary guidelines for the rest of the league or whether they get corrective surgery on their eyes, arms or knees. Should a prospect be able to ban other prospects from going to Winter League ball because he doesn't want to assume the risks and responsibilities of doing so himself? Where does it end? And if it ends at PEDs, why exactly?

A problem is that we can't trust athletes to make what we would perceive as rational decisions, there is the Goldman dilemma. Bob Goldman conducted a survey biannually that asked athletes if they would take an early death (in five years, no, not five years shorter life, really just five years left) in exchange for gold. Half of them answered yes. The general population doesn't agree, so it may be hard to accept for muggles like us just what sacrifices these guys are willing to make to get to the top.

PEDs haven't been allowed in more serious sports like the Olympics for decades. The way they handle things there is best for competition, which is all people should care about. Banning them has salutary affects on health as well.

Nobody has a right to be a professional baseball player as-is. If you either improve your physical conditioning or have to find another line of work, you don't get to ban everyone else from working out just to level the playing field. You don't get to set the dietary guidelines for the rest of the league or whether they get corrective surgery on their eyes, arms or knees. Should a prospect be able to ban other prospects from going to Winter League ball because he doesn't want to assume the risks and responsibilities of doing so himself? Where does it end? And if it ends at PEDs, why exactly?

Because they're completely unnecessary, and expose the players to health risks. If corrective eye surgery had a significant risk of blindness, or working out caused a significant number of heart attacks, I'd favor banning them too.

This is a prisoners' dilemma situation. Players as a whole are better off if they are banned, but of course there's a big incentive to cheat. By making them completely illegal, with draconian punishment, you increase the well being of players, with no down side.

What's the upside of PEDs that players should take any incremental risk to allow them?

PEDs haven't been allowed in more serious sports like the Olympics for decades. The way they handle things there is best for competition, which is all people should care about. Banning them has salutary affects on health as well.


And there's literally zero downside to banning them.

I've said it before, but I'd love to get to a spot where the league can find a happy zone where player safety can be balanced with a drug regimen that exploits the benefits of modern strength and flexibility training for athletes. That such a regimen would improve performance shouldn't justify in itself banning it. It's the potential dangers of the regimen that needs to be an issue. Cut those down to an acceptable level (which considering the current dangers are pretty modest shouldn't be too hard), and I think "PEDs for all who want them" would be a reasonable course of action.

I'm not going to present myself as an expert or anything, but I have read a little bit on the subject, and the problem with this, as I see it, is that users need to take massive doses to see a noticeable effect, many times more than typical clinical doses for those substances. This makes studying athletic PED use an a clinical setting particularly problematic, above and beyond the ethical minefield of human testing in general.

And there's literally zero downside to banning them.

Except for that whole invasion of privacy thing.

Would I take a job where I was required to take steroids? No. But nobody's talking about a rule requiring steroid use.

Would I take a job where I was required to piss in a cup and face penalties? No.

If corrective eye surgery had a significant risk of blindness, or working out caused a significant number of heart attacks, I'd favor banning them too.

And this was your stance during the 50+ years of amphetamine use by ballplayers? This is your stance about painkillers? #### steroids, Clemens was on Vioxx so he could take the mound every 5th day.

But how does that explain not playing him in the postseason?

Well, y'know, you can't just shut a guy down then just start him back up. Plus Melky was closing in on his 160 innings limit.

Nobody cares about using steroids. They do care if you get yourself suspended and they lose you for a third of the season.

No, that's the point about Mota (also not a homegrown star). He lost 2/3 of the season to his suspension yet he is now back pitching for the Giants with no gnashing of teeth.

According to the Mitchell Report, the front offices of the Dodgers and the Red Sox were having "he's off steroids, should we trade him/trade for him" discussions. The Dodgers apparently thought Paul Lo Duca was off steroids and should be traded before his value cratered, but that he'd start using again out of spite once he was traded. A scout for the Sox was saying that Gagné was washed up because he wasn't using steroids and his durability was shot.

I'd be surprised if teams weren't still having these conversations when discussing free agents with sudden spikes in performance. I don't know how heavily that kind of thing would be weighed (the Sox traded for Gagné even after that scout's report), but I'm sure it comes up

My favorite comment heard when suggesting a possible free agent was "I don't like his personal chemistry"

Players can refuse cortisone shots.

Just as they can refuse to take amphetamines or steroids. Besides, when was the last time you heard that a player did refuse a cortisone shot? More often, it's the player demanding that they shoot him up so he can play, and the team doctors saying, "no, sorry, you can't have six cortisone shots in three weeks." The point is that even drugs which are legal (both in sport and in general) have risks associated with them. The risks with legal drugs are much better understood, but not necessarily less significant. And the prisoners dilemma is every bit as real for the legal drugs as for the illegal ones.

serious sports like the Olympics

What now?

I have read a little bit on the subject, and the problem with this, as I see it, is that users need to take massive doses to see a noticeable effect, many times more than typical clinical doses for those substances.

Everything I've read contradicts what you've read.

Would I take a job where I was required to piss in a cup and face penalties? No.


You've never had to take a drug test for a job?

I don't use illegal drugs, why would I care if my employer wants to test me?

Ahhh, let's just follow the BTF Strasburg model and let everyone but the Giants decide. We can ask Dibble and Canseco just to kick off the discussion. This should be fun.

BTW I don't care one way or the other if Melky plays in the postseason. Once he's served his "time", AFAIC it's totally up to the Giants to decide whether to use him, and for whatever reasons good or bad they may have. It's not my team.

I don't use illegal drugs, why would I care if my employer wants to test me?

What do you know about the reliability of the tests, and the professionalism of the provider? Maybe they bought them from W. Reich Orgone Detection Labs Inc.

What do you know of the contents of pharmaceuticals you're using? What does that cough medicine really contain?

It's easier and far less humiliating to draw a line where the state of my mind and body is none of their business. It's not wrong to put a high price on my dignity even though I have little to hide, at least as long as they can't read my thoughts.

Drugs aside, it seems to me like the real issues are, in decreasing order of importance:

1) Melky hasn't been playing and can't, legally, workout with the team until pretty much the start of the playoffs. It'll essentially be spring training for him. Given his history, how good a shape should we assume he'll be in?

2) The Giants have been doing pretty well without him.

3) Playing him will be a PR disaster at a time when they should be looking good.

If I'm the Giants I bring him in and kick the tires but wouldn't use him unless he shows up in great shape, ripping the ball and I have need of him on the roster.

Let's say the Giants win the LDS in less than five games. Doesn't that mean Melky wouldn't even be eligible until the WS? You can't change your roster during a series unless there's an injury. I suppose they could play a man short for the first game or two of the LCS, but that doesn't sound like a particularly great idea.

Thie is probably a dynamic situation. It's easy to say they don't want him now but if they hit a skid and their bats go cold before the playoffs start, he's going to start looking a little better to them.

You're dealing with a guy who has had major consistency issues in his career and who's been on ice for nearly two months. He could play like absolute garbage because of rust alone. I'm sure if he was eligible with a week or two left in the regular season and the Giants could check him out in some non-crucial games, they'd enthusiastically do so. But I don't think it's something you want to try with the season on the line. Hell, I'm pretty nervous about Pettitte only getting one or two starts before prime time; I sure as hell wouldn't want to just throw him up there in the LCS.

Would I take a job where I was required to piss in a cup and face penalties? No.

I hope you realize how lucky you are to be able to make that decision for yourself. Most people have pretty much no choice.

I don't use illegal drugs, why would I care if my employer wants to test me?

False positives, belief in human rights, etc.

I hope you realize how lucky you are to be able to make that decision for yourself. Most people have pretty much no choice.

Of course they have a choice, turn down the job. (There are a handful of occupations where drug tests are legally required.)

But that's not the point.

The points are (a) Snapper's lame argument that players who didn't want to use steroids would be forced to use steroids. They would certainly be less forced to take steroids (i.e. they could continue to play ML baseball if they're good enough) but they have no choice but to have their privacy violated if they want to play professional baseball; (b) Snapper's lamer argument that there's no harm in a ban. OK, the harm is not in the ban itself, it's in the enforcement. It is an invasion of privacy, there's no way to argue around that. An invasion of privacy is a harm, there's no way to argue around that.*

*You can argue that the benefit outweighs the harm but you can't argue that there is no harm.

You have to invade privacy to maintain the integrity of competition.

How would you feel if your employer wanted you to take amphetamines so you would concentrate more at work and work longer hours?

For $10M a year? Administered in a clinical setting with union oversight of the program? Hell yes. You can inject the #### into my urethra with a turkey baster if you want. Pay me.

If one player out of 10,000 was to have a negative health consequence it wouldn't be worth it.

In the early days of Tommy John surgery, about 20% of patients suffered complications in the form of ulnar nerve problems, and at least some percentage of these ended up with permanent numbness or hand weakness. (My understanding is that the stats have improved over time, but that the risk of lasting complications is still > zero). Yet pitchers who blow out their UCL face tremendous pressure to undergo the surgery since without it they can't pitch. So should we ban it as well?

I do think the athlete health argument against PEDs is valid up to a point. But I suspect many anti-PED zealots (not you, snapper) invoke it even though their real justification is a not-very-well-thought-through moral outrage against "unnatural" performance enhancements that is hard to square with the simultaneous acceptance of medical treatments.

For $10M a year? Administered in a clinical setting with union oversight of the program? Hell yes. You can inject the #### into my urethra with a turkey baster if you want. Pay me.

How about for $15K a year in the minors?

What do you know about the reliability of the tests, and the professionalism of the provider? Maybe they bought them from W. Reich Orgone Detection Labs Inc.

What do you know of the contents of pharmaceuticals you're using? What does that cough medicine really contain?

It's easier and far less humiliating to draw a line where the state of my mind and body is none of their business. It's not wrong to put a high price on my dignity even though I have little to hide, at least as long as they can't read my thoughts.

You realize they do ask you to write down all the medications you are taking when you take the test. Hell they even ask about poppy seeds. They know about theses issues. I have heard of literally zero cases where a person was unjustly tagged by a pre-employment drug test. If it were happening, you'd think it would get some press.

I also don't see where it's humiliating to pee in a cup in a private bathroom. Hell, you have to do that every time you go to the Dr.

Quite frankly, I think you guys are making up rights to "privacy" that don't exist. Your right to privacy does not include the right to use illegal drugs.

How would you feel if your employer wanted you to take amphetamines so you would concentrate more at work and work longer hours?

As long as I don't have to pay for the amphetamines out of pocket, I'd be OK with that.

Quite frankly, I think you guys are making up rights to "privacy" that don't exist. Your right to privacy does not include the right to use illegal drugs.

No, but it does include the right to keep your bodily fluids to yourself. Do you give a glass full of blood/urine to everybody who asks you for one, as a matter of routine?

Edit: And if so, can you please mail me a pint of each? Thanks!

I have heard of literally zero cases where a person was unjustly tagged by a pre-employment drug test. If it were happening, you'd think it would get some press.

Oh, look! Here it is, getting some press.

5-10% false positive, 10-15% false negative.

No, but it does include the right to keep your bodily fluids to yourself. Do you give a glass full of blood/urine to everybody who asks you for one, as a matter of routine?

Of course not. But, I've never though twice about a pre-employment drug test.

Quite frankly, it's among the least worrying invasions of privacy I can think of. I'm far more annoyed by Google earth posting pictures of my house, or speed traps.