A-Rod suspended for rest of season & all of 2014, appeals

Re: Lifetime ban for A-Rod coming?

I mentioned this on another thread, but for all their free-spending ways, the Dodgers have an organizational policy not to have players under contract past age 36. I like that.

I'm a firm believer that you should never give a free-agent reliever a multi-year deal, never give a free-agent pitcher more than a three-year deal and never give ANYONE more than a five-year deal.

 

Re: Lifetime ban for A-Rod coming?

Those are nice guiding principles, but you couldn't run a franchise that way. Your best players would always be hitting free agency in the prime of their careers, often multiple times. If the Cardinals had taken that route with Pujols, they probably would have been negotiating a new contract as he was coming off back-to-back MVP awards. As it was, his "big money" contracts worked out to about $105 million over eight years. That's a damn good price that would have been impossible if he had gone on the open market.

And that's to say nothing of the guys who actually hit the market and have competing offers. Detroit wasn't getting Prince Fielder at five years. Detroit has already been to one World Series and looks like a contender for a few more thanks to having Fielder.

But I do think the years are going to top out, maybe at seven or eight instead of 10, and the practice of breaking the bank for a player over 30 is going to vanish with the stricter controls on those miracle fountain-of-youth potions.

 

Re: Lifetime ban for A-Rod coming?

A-Rod would technically be a first-time offender, but from what I've read and seen on TV tonight, they are saying that he worked to foil the BioGenesis investigation by buying documents from Bosch. It's why MLB is trying to do the suspension under the auspices of something other than the drug program.

 

Re: Lifetime ban for A-Rod coming?

No fan of the Yankees and their finances whatsoever. But I'm wondering how they don't have a legitimate case of fraud against A-Rod, since his use of PEDs -- a violation of baseball rules -- played some part in making him the performer he purported to be.

Now, if the team knew he was cheating and signed him with that knowledge, then it shouldn't get off the hook for the deal. But if he signed it under false pretenses, couldn't it be voided in its entirety -- possibly even clawing back salary already paid to him -- in a court of law?

Same would apply to Braun and any others who cheated to score big deals and then, oh, sure, agreed to suspensions that whack only a portion of those deals.

 

Re: Lifetime ban for A-Rod coming?

Didn't the Indians basically take the approach Steak was referencing when John Hart was the GM and he proactively extended Lofton, Ramirez, Belle and maybe Sandy Alomar Jr. (not sure who else) as part of the talented young core of the franchise in the early to mid 90s?

You sign your guys before they hit free agency and for big enough cash to entice them to stay, but not for more than 4-5-6 years. I guess the theory on that approach is you give yourself the best chance of having players under contract in their prime years, then you dump them on some big-market team just as they're hitting 30 and getting ready to hit the decline.

Obviously you have to have a keen eye for talent within your organization to identify which young players are worth the more significant investment. You're going to need to keep finding those young about-to-blossom guys every 5 or 6 years and that's not an easy cycle to be in.

But I still don't know how anybody in baseball can say with a straight face that the A-Fraud. Pujols, Fielder and Hamilton deals are gonna look like anything but abject disasters (most already are) in retrospect. Especially when, as LTL noted, baseball finally seems committed to really cracking down on the stuff that was helping guys magically defy the aging process and keep improving well into their 30s.

The first real test case will be Cano. We've all heard his agent wants 10 years and at least $200 million. As much as I love the guy, if I'm the Yankees, I stick to my guns at 6 years and let him take 10 if he can get it somewhere else.

That kind of deal for a 30-year-old second baseman will be an albatross around some franchise's neck in a non-fountain of youth MLB.

 

Re: Lifetime ban for A-Rod coming?

It's more or less the approach Oakland and Tampa Bay take now, though Tampa did lock up Longoria to a huge long-term deal last year. But there's a significant difference in giving a guy 10 years when he's 27 like Longoria was than when he's 31 or 32 like A-Rod, Hamilton and Pujols when they signed their big contracts.

Fielder was also younger (28) when he signed his contract with the Tigers, but his body type suggests he won't age well. (And by the way, he's slugging .439 this year, a lower number than teammates Torii Hunter, Omar Infante and Jhonny Peralta, who combined make $22 million, to Fielder's $23 million).

And with Cano, if he was going to get his sweetheart deal from the Yankees, they'd have already signed him. Not sure where he goes. The Dodgers, as I mentioned, don't sign anyone past 36. I'm betting someone like the Mets backs up the truck for him and regrets it in three years.

I've mentioned it before, but the list of second basemen in the last 40 years who were still elite hitters at 35 is basically one name long: Jeff Kent. Everyone else — from Joe Morgan to Rod Carew to Ryne Sandberg to Roberto Alomar to Craig Biggio to Chase Utley — had begun a serious decline, changed positions or was getting hurt all the time by the time they hit around age 34.

 

Re: Lifetime ban for A-Rod coming?

I would imagine the suspensions are announced today.

Perfect day for it.

It will be all the talk for the next couple of days, then the 4 Stooges (Saunders, Albom, Loopy, Ryan) can have all kinds of fun with it Sunday morning.

My bet: ARoid gets the rest of this year and all of next year off.

 

Re: Lifetime ban for A-Rod coming?

Is there any logic behind suspending Braun before A-Rod? I traded messages with a friend who covers MLB yesterday and he thinks they're going to make the annoucement late afternoon on Friday with the hopes that the story is overshadowed by the NFL festivities this weekend.

I can't decide if I think MLB is trying to bury the story or if they want to use A-Rod's suspension and trumpet it to everyone so they know that this is what happens if you cheat and try to cover it up and get in the way of an investigation.

 

Re: Lifetime ban for A-Rod coming?

Braun gave in first, probably. He was playing every day, so there was more urgency to suspend him.

 

Re: Lifetime ban for A-Rod coming?

We don’t know the full story of A-Rod’s involvement with Biogenesis. Some people seem to be implying that MLB is out to get him. Why would they want to punish him more than other players who doped unless he did something worse? Just because he’s not particularly popular around the league, and has a reputation for being a phony, is no reason to think MLB officials want to give him a greater penalty. I really have trouble believing that.

Also, with regard to that first, non-sanctionable positive. We know that the list was supposed to be confidential, and we know that sanctions did not result from being on that list. We do not know—at least I don’t, and I doubt anyone here does—that MLB specifically told players before that experimental program began that if they tested positive on that, and then committed another doping infraction later, when it counted, that the first, non-sanctionable infraction would NOT count later, that it would not make the later infraction a second one. If they did not specifically tell players this, then they might have a case for counting the Biogenesis association as a second infraction. And anything else he did involving Biogenesis as a third.

Having said all that, I doubt A-Rod will get a lifetime ban. I think if he were given one and appealed, he would win the appeal as far as that judgment goes, though he would still get some kind of suspension, and likely more than fifty games.

No matter what happens, a very sad story. He showed such rare promise as a young player, and fulfilled it for the most part. Thirteen consecutive seasons with 30 or more HRs, and 100 or more RBI. Eight years of 40+ HRs in a ten year stretch. Forgetting the doping--which he clearly has been doing for most if not all of his professional career--he has had a monster career. Even if Biogenesis hadn't happened, though, it would have been sad to see him decline. If he didn't have that huge contract extending for several more years, he could have retired now or soon with an exceptional record, or if he insisted on playing on, done so in a reduced role and commensurate pay. As it is, everything that is going to happen to him for the next several years hurts him and his team, and just damages his legacy. Pujols, without any doping evidence (so far) is headed in the same direction. Another reason to hate these long-term contracts given to players, contracts everyone knows will end when the player is far past his prime.

 

Re: Lifetime ban for A-Rod coming?

I think there is more too it with a lot of behind the scenes discussion between MLB
and Players Union. Having a big name like Braun agree to fall first makes sense in many
ways.

 

Re: Lifetime ban for A-Rod coming?

The latter, I think. I think there is nothing that baseball wanted more, since this all began, was a scandal that brought down superstars. It's a short-term hit, but, in the long term, it scares the shit out of current players, and it buys MLB tons of credibility with the public.