Ender wrote: I can buy him being more injury prone if he was using steroids to get back from his injuries faster
Huh?
steroids help you recover from injury. if braun was using them to heal faster, he would no longer get that help and would as such be more injury prone.
Steroids are, however, performance enhancing. I believe that he juiced and that now that he is off the juice he will disappoint in comparison to what you expect from a top-5 pick and/or he will get injured. Image
And I believe that this is absurd. He has taken 25+ steroid tests in his career. If he juiced it was for a very short term and had almost nothing to do with his performance over the majority of his career which has been top 5 quality pick the entire way. I don't personally believe he even took steroids because the test came during the only period in time that players KNOW they are going to be tested. If he was juicing it was the one time of the year he would have stopped just to avoid the positive. It is much more likely that the sample was tainted than anything else given the full story we have gotten. But if he did use steroids it was almost certainly to get back from his injury this year and there is no reason to think it was some prolonged thing that will make a large impact on his statistics from here on out. He might take longer to get back from injuries but that is about it.
colt4523 wrote:I have seen several sites rank him number 1 overall. That really surprises me.
rankings depend on league settings and projections using Braun's new Sportsline projections, with Yahoo public league settings, he is #4. using Braun's new ESPN projections, with Yahoo public league settings, he is #1.
the awesome sig by soty
"You should be mindful of the future, but not at the expense of the moment." - Qui-Gon Jinn (keeper league expert?)
Steroids are, however, performance enhancing. I believe that he juiced and that now that he is off the juice he will disappoint in comparison to what you expect from a top-5 pick and/or he will get injured. Image
And I believe that this is absurd. He has taken 25+ steroid tests in his career. If he juiced it was for a very short term and had almost nothing to do with his performance over the majority of his career which has been top 5 quality pick the entire way. I don't personally believe he even took steroids because the test came during the only period in time that players KNOW they are going to be tested. If he was juicing it was the one time of the year he would have stopped just to avoid the positive. It is much more likely that the sample was tainted than anything else given the full story we have gotten. But if he did use steroids it was almost certainly to get back from his injury this year and there is no reason to think it was some prolonged thing that will make a large impact on his statistics from here on out. He might take longer to get back from injuries but that is about it.
hmm. We have different opinions. I'm of the opinion that the masking technology is well ahead of the detection methods. I believe that most juicers avoid detection and if you get caught it's because you screwed up and it demonstrates that you're probably a user. Braun got off on a technicality. The evidence from the lab was that the sample was sealed and was not tampered with and it definitely showed elevated levels of testosterone. This would have been good enough for the Olympics but here he was able to get off on a technicality.
I don't know how you can say that at most he only juiced for a very short term. I've got just as little backing up my feeling that he was a regular juicer. You seem to have a man crush on him. I'm more jaded and of the opinion that he's a cheater. Maybe he'll buy better masking agents and take better advice on when to go off it and so his numbers won't be affected. But maybe MLB wants to catch him now because he's trying to embarrass them so the increased scrutiny will get him off the juice for the short term and his numbers will suffer.
I'm rambling now .. but there was a time when Raffy pounded the table and said read my lips, I didn't do steroids. Sure Raffy. History has shown that when you come clean baseball is quick to forgive but when you mistakenly profess your innocence you fall hard. I have a bad feeling about how this will end for Braun.
Palmeiro didn't get tested on a regular basis either. If the masking agents are as good as you suggest he'll just keep using and be fine but it is pretty unlikely that they are. I still don't see how you can think this will really change anything. Either he can sneak by the system on a regular basis and then he'll still keep doing it and his stats will stay the same or he can't and he most likely used for a short period of time at most. Either way you shouldn't assume his production is going to fall off from this.
colt4523 wrote:I have seen several sites rank him number 1 overall. That really surprises me.
rankings depend on league settings and projections using Braun's new Sportsline projections, with Yahoo public league settings, he is #4. using Braun's new ESPN projections, with Yahoo public league settings, he is #1.
colt4523 wrote:I have seen several sites rank him number 1 overall. That really surprises me.
rankings depend on league settings and projections using Braun's new Sportsline projections, with Yahoo public league settings, he is #4. using Braun's new ESPN projections, with Yahoo public league settings, he is #1.
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