A few short thoughts about Biogenesis and MLB

Anthony Bosch got the Selig angry face in the form of an inescapable lawsuit

Full disclosure:  I am not a Brewers fan, but have had Ryan Braun on my keeper fantasy team for five years.  I’ll try to not be biased.

News recently broke that MLB has struck a deal with former owner of Biogenesis, some sort of anti-aging, possible drug pen.  Anthony Bosch has agreed to give his full cooperation to MLB in tracking down players to whom he allegedly gave PEDs.  There is a laundry list of players potentially implicated:  Ryan Braun, Alex Rodriguez, Nelson Cruz, Everth Cabrera, Jhonny Peralta, etc.  This is a serious list of players with a few very high profile guys.  Apparently MLB is going to try and hand down a few 100 game suspensions for two violations.  My thoughts:

• Baseball players should not use PEDs, HGH, speed, Flintstone vitamins or whatever the MLB and player’s union agreed to in CBA.  They can lie as much as their conscience allows.
• Baseball players should be punished if they do – I think the current punishments are just about right.
• Baseball players should be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt – meaning a drug test or something else concrete…say a video of Player A slathering beef roid cream all over his inner thigh.
• Anthony Bosch is a likely less than reputable guy who was sued by an organization with endless resources to pursue an extremely expensive case against him.
• He (wisely for his own sake) decided that he couldn’t reasonably defend himself even though the lawsuit was not likely to be won by the MLB.  The price of this was doing what the MLB asked of him.  When you push someone into a corner, they might come out swinging or they might capitulate to any demand.  I suspect the latter here.
• The MLB players union is the most powerful union in major sports and has much more clout over the league than any other sport does.  Yes, they agreed for all these drug policies and it is good for the game.  But they will fight like hell for almost every single individual case.  High paid lawyers will be brought in and will defend these players well.
• The MLB is not going to have concrete evidence in the end.  They have some balance sheets scribbled on paper with code names and the word of a desperate man they leveraged with their lawsuit.  I’ve seen more evidence on Crossing Jordan.
• The MLB is going way too far to try and prove these guys have done something.  Drug test players.  That’s it.  Piss test.  Blood test.  Hair test.  Take a swab of ass sweat if you think it will help.  If they test positive suspend them.  If they don’t, don’t go digging.  If you think your drug test courier fucked up, keep testing anyway.

I don’t want cheating in baseball.  It hurts the game.  I also don’t want witch hunts either.  Test, pass, good.  Test, fail, bad.  What if Braun did buy drugs?  Did he take them?  MLB won’t ever know without a drug test.  Braun may well have taken PEDs but you can’t start suspending players because of leveraged testimony and some scribbled notes.  It’s not good business, it’s a proud guy trying to prove it wasn’t his fault that many of baseball’s hallowed records were broken while players injected gallons of horse testosterone into their asses on his watch.