Pic of the Week

Ryan Braun splits his bat in hitting into a double play
against Cincinnati on Wednesday.

I like the moment captured here -- the bat essentially breaking lengthwise and the ball still in the shot -- but this image also provides the opportunity to comment on Ryan Braun, disgraced superstar.

Braun's involvement with performance-enhancers is pretty well known. He flunked a drug test near the end of his MVP season in 2011, wriggled out of the suspension by raising questions about how the specimen was handled, then wound up suspended for the final 65 games of 2013 after being nailed in the Biogenesis probe.

This year, Braun has

• moved to right field;
• played most of the season with a thumb injury;
• gone from hitting third in the Milwaukee lineup to second; 
• and is hitting .298/.349/.529, well below his career norms of .311/.372/.561.

On that last point, however, it's worth noting that offense is down all over. The OPS+ measure on Baseball Reference puts Braun at 140, meaning that he's 40 percent above league average. His career OPS+ is 146. This suggests that he's just as good as he has been over the years.

Ryan Braun's standing ovation

The fans in Milwaukee cheer Ryan Braun in his first
game back after a steroids suspension.

We all know the Ryan Braun saga: Winner of the National League MVP award, flunked a drug test, convinced the arbitrator to toss his suspension on the basis that his sample was mishandled, snagged anyway in the Biogenesis investigation, suspended for the final 65 games of the 2013 season.

Ryan Braun returned to action Monday in Milwaukee to a standing ovation.

My Twitter feed erupted with outrage from the press box types. How dare the fans of Milwaukee greet him like a conquering hero when he's a liar and a cheat?

Me, I expected it:

Standing O in Milwaukee for Braun. Of course. PED use is only bad when it's the other team.
— Edward Thoma (@bboutsider) March 31, 2014

It's not just the fans, either. The players are at best passive aggressive in their opposition to performance enhancing drugs.

It's an interesting clubhouse dance they wind up performing. The union and MLB just completed a reworking of the drug policy that steps up the suspension for first and second violations -- 80 games for a first violation, 162 (full season) for a second -- but allows a softening of punishment for an inadvertent violation.

And it includes what we might call the Peralta rule: Violators are ineligible for postseason play.

That provision follows the return last fall of Detroit's Jhonny Peralta from his 50 game suspension in time for the playoffs; he hit a crucial home run that helped advance the Tigers past Oakland to the ALCS.

The players, as a whole, were unhappy with the fact that Peralta was permitted to play. But I doubt any of his Detroit teammates wanted to give that game back, or didn't want him on their side last October. Peralta has since signed with the Cardinals as a free agent. I'm sure the St. Louis players also supported the Peralta ban now in effect, but I'll wager they have not given him as frosty a reception as, say, the replacement players who partook in spring training during the 1994-95 strike.

The players are conflicted. They want the sport cleaned of the drugs, but they want to win more.

If a cheater can help them win, great. Just as long as he doesn't get caught. That is the greater sin.

Pic of the Week

A Brewers fan displays his opinion
of the suspended Ryan Braun before
a game at Miller Park.

One aspect of the Biogenesis steroids case — which last week resulted in a 65-fame suspension for Milwaukee star Ryan Braun — that I don't think I've seen mentioned anywhere before is this:

Fifteen years ago, when Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire were pumping up in private and pursuing home run records in public, steroids were a quiet gray area. Technically they were a violation of the rules, but nobody — owners, players, media — was interested in enforcing the rule. Baseball's ethos — from spitballs to cutting the bases — has always held that cheating is fine as long as you don't get caught.

In that environment, nobody should be surprised that performance-enhancing drugs became widespread.

Today, however, is a markedly different environment. There is testing. There is a vocal outcry from the bulk of the players to get the PEDs out of the game.

We have gone, in a generation of players, from an implicit expectation that a player seeking to be better would use to an explicit contempt for users.

It is more understandable to me that a Barry Bonds would use steroids than that Braun would, just because of the time and place for each.

The myth of lineup protection

Prince Fielder is examined for signs
of a concussion after being hit
by a thrown ball while running
the bases.

Prince Fielder, as you know, switched teams and leagues this past offseason. He left Milwaukee, where he hit behind Ryan Braun, and signed with Detroit, where he hits behind Miguel Cabrera.

The two situations are similar. Fielder, an outstanding left-handed hitter, hitting behind a suberb right-handed hitter. And broadcasters will frequently talk about how Fielder "protects" the man ahead of him. The idea is that Fielder is so imposing that opposition hurlers have to throw strikes to Braun/Cabrera, and that in Fielder's absence, those strikes aren't coming.

Well ...

Braun this year, with Aramis Ramirez -- another right-handed hitter, a good hitter but no Fielder -- entered Friday's play hitting .309/.385/.585. This is basically what he's done throughout his career (.311/.372/.565), which had been spent entirely as Fielder's teammate until this season.

Milwaukee isn't as good a team without Fielder. But his departure has not made Braun a less productive hitter.

Cabrera this season has a slash line of .322/.383/.583. This, again, is basically a match for his career line (.317/.398/.568).

Braun and Cabrera are great hitters. They are great hitters with or without Fielder.

A Ryan Braun parable

Election Day, 1982: I am working for the newspaper in Detroit Lakes, Minn., spending election night in the Becker County courthouse watching the vote come in.

Ryan Braun: There is a difference
between "innocent" and
"not guilty." Either way, he
won't be suspended.

Becker isn't the biggest county in Minnesota, but it has some size to it, and Detroit Lakes is very near the southern border. Two Inlets Township, in the county's northeast corner, is a long haul to the county seat, made even longer by the fact that all the roads run east-west or north-south -- no diagonal shortcuts. If memory serves, it was close to 50 miles of driving.

We're starting to push midnight, everybody else is in, and we're still waiting for Two Inlets. The county auditor picks up the phone, calls the township clerk, wakes him up, asks where the ballots are.

The clerk says, Right here, I brought 'em home with me and I'll bring them in in the morning.


The auditor tells him that he will bring them in right now, and if they aren't in the courthouse within an hour he'll send a deputy out to get them, and him, and the clerk won't be going home until he gets bail.

That's what I thought of Thursday afternoon when I learned that Ryan Braun's suspension had been overturned, apparently on the basis that the guy who collected the urine sample took it home for the weekend rather than send it to the lab immediately.

You don't take the ballots home with you, and you don't take the urine sample home either. Same principle.

Ryan Braun, it's almost spring training. Do you know where your suspension is?

Baseball's drug testing procedure is supposed to be confidential, and it usually is. Nobody outside the process is supposed to know about a player testing positive (which is a negative) until the ruling comes down, and even then the specifics aren't revealed.

Ryan Braun in a happy moment
last September.

The Ryan Braun case has been anything but confidential. We learned, via leak, back in early December that the 2011 National League MVP had been tested during the postseason and found to have an "insane" testosterone level.

I regarded the leak itself as odd enough to be suspicious, raising the possibility that someone involved in the testing realized the result may be flawed and decided to muddy the waters by making it difficult for the appeals panel to toss out the result.

Braun had his appeal hearing last month. Normally there's a 25-day window for the panel to rule; in this case, it's been more than a month.

Maybe it's an innocent delay. Maybe, since there are no games, and Braun isn't even required to be in camp until Friday, the panel has seen no urgency in issuing its ruling. I would think, however, that if it were a cut-and-dried result, there'd be no cause to drag it out. Issue the suspension and get on with life.

Or maybe Braun has a legitimate case, and the panel is trying to find a way to exonerate an innocent man without damaging the credibility of the testing process. If that is the case, of course, the damage will have been done not by the appeals panel but by the leaker of a faulty result.

Ryan Braun's positive test

Last month, Ryan Braun was hailed as the NL MVP.
Now, he's labeled a steroid user.

Ryan Braun, the 2011 National League MVP, was reported Saturday to have tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs.

The Milwaukee outfielder is said to have tested positive in a sample taken during the playoffs in October. He disputed the findings and the case is wending its way through the appeals process, which is likely to reach a conclusion next month — well before spring training, much less the season. There's no rush here. Or shouldn't be.

So why was the test result prematurely leaked, and by whom?

Likely not by Braun's camp; he gains nothing from the release of this information. His reputation has now been damaged; even if the appeals process rules in his favor, he's now been publicly connected with steroid use.

I'm guessing it came from somebody involved in the testing process who either (a) feared that baseball would cover up the finding or (b) realized that there is a legitimate chance that the finding is invalid and the case overturned and wanted to muddy the waters.

If (a), there was no need to leak the info now; waiting for the conclusion of the process wouldn't affect a single game. If indeed MLB would hide the positive result because it's an important player, expose them after they've done it. Doing it now is silly.

If (b), it speaks ill of the professionalism of the people involved in the testing process. And I think it's (b).

I'm in no position to judge the quality of the lab work or the validity of the conclusions. I do think that when there's a specific, quasi-legal process in place to handle a positive test, that process should be followed. It's already been violated here.