Victor Conte had some interesting thing to say about his test, including that only the "dumb" get caught and that 50% of big leaguers are on testosterone. He claims the fast acting creams, rubs, shots etc are in and out within 24 hours.

Well it was testosterone. And Melky actually needed to get smaller, not bigger. So I guess they could have worked, but I'm not exactly seeing how. More energy for the stairmaster?

I'm guessing there was a lot of work there, but he also started juicing -- all for the same reason, to cash in as a free agent.

Is this the first time a guy that got popped admitted it without excuses ? Sure he appealed...but at least there is no B.S. story about getting over injury, my aunt put something in my cheerios...etc etc.

Is this the first time a guy that got popped admitted it without excuses ? Sure he appealed...but at least there is no B.S. story about getting over injury, my aunt put something in my cheerios...etc etc.

Matt Lawton

Is this the first time a guy that got popped admitted it without excuses ? Sure he appealed...but at least there is no B.S. story about getting over injury, my aunt put something in my cheerios...etc etc.

Why are all excuses deemed BS? Have we reached the stage of testing where false positives don't happen?

He didn't say all excuses are BS. But, undoubtedly, many or most of them are.

Some Giants fans may get upset about Cabrera taking drugs, but really there's no use crying over pilled Melk.

Well shucks, Soriano is still not willing to head out west.


Melky's suspension probably explains why the Giants were trying to trade for Alfonso before the deadline.

He didn't say all excuses are BS. But, undoubtedly, many or most of them are.

Give me one example where a player had an explanation and it wasn't shruggeddededed off as BS.

Average annual WAR for Melky Cabrera prior to 2011 (when he became "fit and useful Melky.") - 0.7
Total career WAR for Melky Cabrera prior to 2011: 4.0

Wait, what? How can your average be negative and your total be positive?

Points for Melk for owning it even if he was very non-specific. He had a good ride while it lasted.

On the flip side, Melky was probably due for some regression to the mean over the next couple of weeks - maybe this is good for the Giants after all.

Average annual WAR for Melky Cabrera prior to 2011 (when he became "fit and useful Melky.") - 0.7
Total career WAR for Melky Cabrera prior to 2011: 4.0


Wait, what? How can your average be negative and your total be positive?

That's not a negative sign.

Either use a dash in each line or a colon in each line. Don't mix and match.

Give me one example where a player had an explanation and it wasn't shruggeddededed off as BS.

But again, that's not what shoe was saying. He simply asked if this was the first time anyone had gotten nailed and didn't offer an explanation/excuse. He didn't say each and every explanation/excuse was BS.

Is shruggededededdeddded a joke I don't get or did Shock stutter?

But again, that's not what shoe was saying. He simply asked if this was the first time anyone had gotten nailed and didn't offer an explanation/excuse. He didn't say each and every explanation/excuse was BS.

You're right. I misread it.

Is shruggededededdeddded a joke I don't get or did Shock stutter?

Mini-stroke.

Is shruggededededdeddded a joke I don't get or did Shock stutter?

Yesterday I was at a bar and a guy was talking to a crowd of people and he emitted dolphin sounds while trying to talk.

Give me one example where a player had an explanation and it wasn't shruggeddededed off as BS.

They're shrugged off because the vast majority are BS, unless if you believe that multi-millionaire baseball players whose multi-millions depend on their ability to continue playing baseball and who are drug tested up the whazoo and know they are going to be pilloried personally up the same whazoo if they test positive do indeed just randomly take pills and supplements their friend or doctor or the guy in the gym gives them without bothering to check what's inside, which seems to be the most popular excuse by leaps and bounds. Or to take the lesser-used excuse of false positives that baseball specifically has a far greater incidence of false positives than other sports where false positives seem to be extremely rare, even though all the sports are pretty much taking the same tests for the same things (cycling a special case because of blood boosters, though it seems we have had exactly zero false positives in that sport, everyone who's tested positive has admitted it eventually, so that doesn't really help the argument). False positives in most systems are extremely rare, and significantly more so than the much more common false negative, for the simple truth that it's easier to miss something that is there rather than find something that isn't.

Either way any of those beliefs are entirely different unfounded beliefs than the unfounded belief of assuming that the great majority of these excuses are BS. But they're unfounded belief nonetheless, and in the end very likely far less accurate for all the obvious reasons.

Maybe steroids should be legal in baseball after all. But it seems to me the pro-steroids (not a perfect term) side often goes too far - not only should steroids be legal, but they don't actually help at all, and when somebody is caught we don't believe they did them anyway. The lady doth protest too much.

I think most of the guys at the top do in fact cheat and cheat often thus false positives may happen a good deal of the time but since they are still cheating you can't tell the difference.

Well, this sucks.

Would the Cubs take Hunter Pence for Alfonso Soriano?

Giants should just sign Barry Bonds for the remainder of the season just as an FU to Bud Selig.

And while he's 48 and hasn't played MLB since the Bush administration, all he has to do is be better than Aubrey Huff. Even money that Willie Mays could outplay Huff.

Even money that Mel Ott could outplay Huff.

I'm with 72. Give Barry the bat.

He's owning up to it:

“My positive test was the result of my use of a substance I should not have used,” Cabrera said in a statement (via the San Francisco Chronicle’s Hank Schulman). “I accept my suspension under the Joint Drug Program and will try to move on with my life. I am deeply sorry for my mistake and I apologize to my teammates, to the San Francisco Giants organization and to the fans for letting them down.”

Well, this admission should open to the door to the Hall of Fame for him.

Kind of surprised that no one has made the link between Cabrera and his off-season workouts with ARod:

Rodriguez’s role in Cabrera’s turnaround was central. The two formed a bond during their years together with the Yankees from 2005 to 2009, and they remained close after the Yankees traded Cabrera to the Atlanta Braves — with Mike Dunn and Arodys Vizcaino for pitchers Boone Logan and Javier Vazquez — after the 2009 championship season.

....


Knowing Cabrera was at a crossroads, his mother, his agent and Rodriguez all urged him to focus on his conditioning and his craft to save his once-promising career from dissipating into obscurity.
Rodriguez was particularly convincing, persuading Cabrera to leave his home in the Dominican Republic and move to Miami to work out with him.
“You don’t realize how hard that is to do for a kid like him from the Dominican,” Rodriguez said. “He has been with his mother his entire life. Leaving was not easy. But he was dedicated. Christmas Day, he went home to the Dominican, and on the 26th, he was back in Miami working out.”
Cabrera bought a home in Kendall, Fla., near Rodriguez’s childhood home. He found a trainer and spent hours at Rodriguez’s house in his batting cage, perfecting his swing from both sides of the plate.

Well, making that link sort of undermines the link people would rather make between slapping on a testosterone patch and immediately getting really good. Not to mention undermining the idea that passing drug tests for several years means anything. That article focuses on the 2010-11 off-season, but Cabrera's workouts with Rodriguez were previously credited for his bouncing back from that dismal 2008.

I wish the sportscasters would stop saying that he "tested positive for testosterone". They're making it sound like testosterone is a foreign substance in the the human body.

Medically, there is little doubt that testosterone can give a man more energy, help increase muscle mass with exercise, and reduce body fat. As for whether that helps you play better baseball, I guess David Wells would tell you it doesn't (probably a bad data point as it is, since David was probably very strong and looked for all the world to be brimming with testosterone), but it stands to reason that it would. No, it won't help you with your batting eye.

I wish the sportscasters would stop saying that he "tested positive for testosterone". They're making it sound like testosterone is a foreign substance in the the human body.

Hard to nail down exactly what it is though - it could be synthetic testosterone, or it could be increased levels of his own testosterone brought about by injecting another substance (e.g., HCG).

He's owning up to it.

He is owning up to it, but the stuff these guys like to say about "making a mistake" is of course bullshite rationalization.

Missing your exit ramp on the highway is a mistake. Leaving the house with two different colored socks on is a mistake. Taking steroids and other illegal substances is something these guys are knowingly and intentionally doing in order to try to game the system and get an unfair advantage. They're not "making a mistake", they're proactively cheating, they know exactly what they're doing, and they know full well they shouldn't be doing it.

WTF is so hard to understand someone saying that the decision was a mistake?

It doesn't even matter if he means because he got caught or because he feels he did something wrong in retrospect - the decision was STILL a mistake.

Hard to nail down exactly what it is though - it could be synthetic testosterone, or it could be increased levels of his own testosterone brought about by injecting another substance (e.g., HCG).

Yes, but say he tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone.

WTF is so hard to understand someone saying that the decision was a mistake?

I understand exactly why people say this. "I made a mistake" is the classic standard New Age way that people rationalize getting caught doing something they knew they shouldn't have been doing. It sounds good, and it's a hell of a lot easier to publicly say than things like "I don't give a f*ck about the rules, I'm a liar, I'm a cheater, I'll do anything I want in order to get ahead in life", that sort of thing.

Leaving the house with two different colored socks on is a mistake

I go by thickness.

Yes, but say he tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone.

Fair enough.

I go by thickness.

That's what she said.

WTF is so hard to understand someone saying that the decision was a mistake?

It doesn't even matter if he means because he got caught or because he feels he did something wrong in retrospect - the decision was STILL a mistake.

I can kind of see Joey's point (God help me), but I think the definition of "mistake" technically covers a decision that in hindsight one believes was wrong. So, Lassus wins.

It reminds me of this scene from The Last Boy Scout, with Bruce Willis playing the role of Joe and Bruce McGill as Mike:

[Joe has just found out that Mike was sleeping with his wife]

Mike Mathews: It just happened, Joe. It...

Joe Hallenbeck: Sure, sure, I know... it just happened. Coulda happened to anybody. It was an accident, right? You tripped, slipped on the floor and accidentally stuck your dick in my wife. "Whoops! I'm so sorry, Mrs. H., I guess this just isn't my week!"

No, it won't help you with your batting eye.

Well, there are some indications that anabolic steroids can improve vision a bit. Also, increased bat speed can allow a batter to wait a little longer before swinging, which can help him avoid being fooled on breaking pitches out of the strike zone.

"Well, there are some indications that anabolic steroids can improve vision a bit. Also, increased bat speed can allow a batter to wait a little longer before swinging, which can help him avoid being fooled on breaking pitches out of the strike zone."

The increased bat speed won't just automagically come as a result of increased testosterone. Increased bat speed is very much a specific (type of) strength, and needs to be specifically trained for. The ability to develope the highest maximal force in the most beneficial condition and the ability to develope maximal force in a specific condition are different abilities. The lighter the external resistance (ie swinging a baseball bat) and the less the time you have, the greater the difference between the ability to develope the highest maximal force in the most beneficial condition and the ability to develope maximal force in that specific condition.

That Sanchez-for-Cabrera trade doesn't look quite as bad for KC as it did 2 days ago.

Will there be a PED night at ATT now?

That Sanchez-for-Cabrera trade doesn't look quite as bad for KC as it did 2 days ago.

Why? Sanchez was suspended over a months ago for shittiness.

That Sanchez-for-Cabrera trade doesn't look quite as bad for KC as it did 2 days ago.

Huh? Why not? Sanchez = -1.2 WAR for the Royals, Cabrera = 4.7 WAR for the Giants. Obv WAR is not the end all but that is a huge gap. It's not like the Giants lose the wins Cabrera helped them with.

edit: half liter of cola to RoyalsRetro

But Cabrera also won't be racking up any more WAR this season and increasing the gap.

Hey, the Royals were able to get Jeremy Guthrie for Sanchez, and Guthrie has been fine.

But Cabrera also won't be racking up any more WAR this season and increasing the gap.

The gap is already quite large enough to call that a complete win for the Giants.

all the giants fans who heckled braun including a serenade of profanities should have quite the time in coping with melky's issue

all the giants fans who heckled braun including a serenade of profanities should have quite the time in coping with melky's issue

Yes, because drunk bleacher fans who heckle tend to be the introspective type.

643

interestingly braun stated the worst razzing was san fran

for what it is worth