Braun Suspended For Rest Of 2013 Season

[Oaktown]

Wow, nice calls Outlaw. braun done for 2013 and accepted it, no appeal.

[swampass]

kudos outlaw.. thanks for keeping us in the loop.

braun is such a loser... "I realize now that I have made some mistakes," said Braun. "I am willing to accept the consequences of those actions." the nerve of this guy.. lifetime ban would more appropriate if this is how he is dealing with it.

[Hells Satans]

Outlaw FTW

[Tom Kessenich]

I was wrong about Braun and I'll admit it. As a fantasy player, this is obviously a devastating development for this season. As a Brewers fan, Ryan Braun is dead to me as a fan. I can't root for a liar and a cheat. My interest in the Brewers as a team will likely be eliminated entirely as long as he remains on the roster.

[Chthroop]

Tragic for Braun owners and for bb in general. 2 of 3 of my teams had him ironically because I figured he would try to be Lilly white....

[swampass]

never thought it was wrong to believe in your team and believe in your player, but today it has to hurt 10 times worse. i feel bad for MIL fans and fans across MLB. yet again we have been repeatedly lied to all in the effort of more money. I stopped caring about specific teams a few seasons ago as this is a new era of sports celebrities and I dont care for how they treat the fans nor how they squeeze every last dollar out of everyone every chance they get.

to heck with them.. its fantasy or its nothing.

[DOUGHBOYS]

kudos outlaw.. thanks for keeping us in the loop.

braun is such a loser... "I realize now that I HAVE BEEN CAUGHT, I have made some mistakes," said Braun. "I am willing to accept the consequences of those actions." the nerve of this guy.. lifetime ban would more appropriate if this is how he is dealing with it.

Quote fixed.

[Billyhaze]

seems there are more than a few having crow for dinner tonight especially all the crap Outlaw took being called delusional mis guided ,misinformed , etc

[KJ Duke]

Not a surprise, but still a bit shocking to see it in print.

He IS Lance Armstrong, Junior. I hope all involved accept the same fate and we can start 2014 with a clean slate.

Well done Mr. McCoy, excellent research all season.

[Tom Kessenich]

Some follow-up thoughts. I'll also Tweet more stuff about this in all probability as the night goes on:

1. Braun fessing up now doesn't mean much to me. He's owning up because he's been caught and there's no way out.

2. The Brewers need to get rid of him. He's the face of their franchise and their franchise will be tainted as long as he remains on the roster. I realize his value will be low but the Brewers need to shop him this winter and trade him. I don't want to see the Brewers become the Giants who clung to Barry Bonds despite all the scandal he carried with him. The Brewers are a bad team with Braun. It's time to remove the stench and build a new team without him.

3. If anyone wants some authentic Braun jerseys for cheap let me know. Mine are headed to the trash and the garbage man comes on Friday.

[DOUGHBOYS]

Two things come to mind with this....

The first is of a fantasy nature.
I'm guessing Braun has had his best years juiced. Where does he now go in drafts next year?
Second round for the Melky Cabrera drafters this year that believe PED's don't have THAT much of an impact or third round or later?

The second is of a baseball nature.
To protect myself as a baseball owner, I would seek language protecting myself in long term contracts with players like Braun.
Sure, the Brewers don't have to pay him for the rest of this year, but they were duped into thinking they were getting something they were not.
A clean player.
The MLB- Player agreement does not help these teams. They simply have a structure for the offenders. Then, once suspension is served, life goes on as normal.
But it isn't normal.
The only thing that hasn't changed is Braun's contract.
Braun is branded.
And he may have been taking these things at the time of the signing of his contract.
The Brewers are screwed into now paying Braun for not being on PED's.
They have no idea how he'll now perform and certainly know that in all probability, he will not play up to the cash paid in the contract.
As far as we know, we may not have witnessed a game when he wasn't on PED's. And if that is the case, the Brewers were paying for the effects of a drug on a player, not the talent of a player.

[Tom Kessenich]

I changed the headline to reflect today's development.

[DOUGHBOYS]

The Brewers need to get rid of him. He's the face of their franchise and their franchise will be tainted as long as he remains on the roster. I realize his value will be low but the Brewers need to shop him this winter and trade him. I don't want to see the Brewers become the Giants who clung to Barry Bonds despite all the scandal he carried with him. The Brewers are a bad team with Braun. It's time to remove the stench and build a new team without him.

Good luck and it's a good sentiment, but it'll be tough to find a team that wants to be tethered to Braun for the next eight years.
The only way the Brewers do not see him in uniform next year, is if they dfa him or he is caught again.
Both would be a stunning development considering the money on the table.

[Billyhaze]

Gonna be an interesting Stats Fantasy Advantage show, Tom's vocal inflection should be at an all time high

[Tom Kessenich]

Gonna be an interesting Stats Fantasy Advantage show, Tom's vocal inflection should be at an all time high

Nah. It'll be out of my system by then. It is what it is. He's been proven to be a lying cheat. His reputation is tarnished. His hopes for the Hall of Fame gone. He's done this to himself. I said all along that if Braun was found guilty he deserved all the punishment and everything that went along with it that he gets. It's just unfortunate for the Brewers because I'm not sure how they come back from this as long as he's on the roster. It'll be an ugly stench that follows them around everywhere. That's why he needs to go. Get what you can get for him and move on and start over.

[Outlaw]

I knew last week Braun was going down today as I wrote. MLB has him using PEDs back to 2007 time frame. Will write more later, been busy all day. I'm hearing every player involved will be accepting a deal. May be a few more days before any other suspensions come down. As I said many times before, MLB has overwhelming evidence on everyone involved and there are other clinics they are on to. The PEDs involved were the latest generation which leave the body in less than 2 days or so. MLB established Baselines for every player late last year, that help catch anyone using these latest gen of peds. If your numbers are off, that player gets tested a lot.

[knuckleheads]

So after all this, MLB got an extra 15 games added to a Braun suspension...an extra $787,037 out $150M contract. Why wouldn't Braun accept that deal if they had the goods on him. Now it seems unlikely MLB will get more than 65 games on any other first-time user. I'll say it is 15 games more than I thought they could get, but essentially a loss for MLB after all the big talk.

No 100 games, no 150 games, no lifetime bans. A lot of bad press for baseball...an absolute mess.

Want to clean up the game? Allow teams to cancel guaranteed contracts if a player gets caught using...

[Billyhaze]

Gonna be an interesting Stats Fantasy Advantage show, Tom's vocal inflection should be at an all time high

Nah. It'll be out of my system by then. It is what it is. He's been proven to be a lying cheat. His reputation is tarnished. His hopes for the Hall of Fame gone. He's done this to himself. I said all along that if Braun was found guilty he deserved all the punishment and everything that went along with it that he gets. It's just unfortunate for the Brewers because I'm not sure how they come back from this as long as he's on the roster. It'll be an ugly stench that follows them around everywhere. That's why he needs to go. Get what you can get for him and move on and start over.

The stench you speak of doesn't seem to have the same impact on the Yankees, so I am hoping the Brewer organization will hold itself to a higher standard

[knuckleheads]

Braun didn't even have to say he used PEDs. Just had to admit he was not perfect, which I think everybody already assumed.

[knuckleheads]

Outlaw, good info on the topic all along. I hope the wrist slap is not too disappointing for you. Thanks for all the updates.

[mbendar16]

For me, the reason this has been so hard to believe is Braun's consistency, and as a result of that, he's either been cheating since he's 16 years old or he was innocent. I can only imagine the wealth of overwhelming evidence for Braun to not continue his 2 year lie and accept without an appeal.

I was a fan and wanted to believe him, but it is unfortunate that this just adds to the skepticism of whether anyone's numbers in the modern era are real or not. Whenever someone has a big year, it's in people's mind and that's a shame for baseball.

[DOUGHBOYS]

Braun didn't even have to say he used PEDs. Just had to admit he was not perfect, which I think everybody already assumed.

Does it matter?
Really?
Braun is shamed. His statement tells me that he hasn't fully come to grips with what has happened. The questions directed at him now turn from 'Did you? to 'You did'.
You're trying to make this a lose for MLB. IT'S NOT.
Braun took a plea which means he was nailed. He can't deny anything in the future. Everything he said in the past or says now comes under 10 times the scrutiny. Whether he says he may not be perfect or 'I did it' means little.
His plea says everything.
I think the ruling was perfect. Why carry it into next year and be a huge topic of discussion for 2014?
Maybe it'll be different for ARod, I don't know.
For Braun, the penalty is not just in the 65 day suspension. He is now branded. The drug guy.
It'll never be the same for him.
Public sentiment will change against him just as it changed for fans wanting ARod to erase Bonds records to most fans having a hard time even stomaching ARod.
I know you'll disagree. It's in your nature.
But for MLB, and for the subject of PED's, it's as much as a win as they can get.

[cugjp1]

We haven't seen anything yet....this thing is going to break wide open and when it does it is going to throw the fantasy world into a wirlwind....someone will fold and start talking....I see a record year for suspensions....

Not surprised at all......won't be long and we will start to see some new names.

[cugjp1]

"As players, we're held to a standard of 100 percent perfection regarding the program, and everybody else associated with that program should be held to the same standard,"

[cugjp1]

Last post for the night.....

Phoenix - "I did not do this."

Ryan Braun could not have been more vehement in proclaiming his innocence as a victim of a flawed process as he gave an impassioned and stunningly detailed account Friday of what had transpired since being informed of a positive drug test in October.

One day after being told that he had won his appeal and avoided a 50-game suspension at the start of the regular season, Braun reported to the Milwaukee Brewers' spring training camp. After addressing teammates in a closed-door clubhouse meeting, Braun participated in a 30-minute news conference on the playing field at Maryvale Baseball Park.

Behind a large contingent of Milwaukee and national media seated on the field, many teammates, as well as members of the front office, sat in the stands to listen to an obviously angry Braun.

Much to the surprise of many who thought Braun would be sparse with details, he came out swinging with both fists, fighting to save his reputation and integrity. He criticized what he called a "fatally flawed" process in regard to his test and openly questioned what the collector might have been doing with his urine sample while failing to ship it for two days.

It was that chain-of-custody issue that ultimately led to Braun winning his appeal from a three-man arbitration panel. Independent arbitrator Shyam Das ruled in his favor because of questions that arose when collector Dino Laurenzi - who was not named during Braun's news conference - stored the drug sample at home for 44 hours before shipping it via FedEx to the major-league testing lab in Montreal.

"With what's at stake - this is my livelihood, this is my integrity, this is my character, this is everything that I've worked for in my entire life being called into question - we need to make sure we get it right," said an emotional Braun. "Today's about making sure this never happens again to anybody else who plays this game.

"The system in the way it was applied to me in this case was fatally flawed."

Beyond the chain-of-custody dispute, Braun stated several times that he was innocent in any event of taking any banned substance. He wanted to make it clear that aside from collection and shipment abnormalities, he was not a cheater.

"If I had done this intentionally or unintentionally, I'd be the first one to step up and say, 'I did it,' " said Braun, wearing a casual jacket as he stood at a podium under a bright Arizona sun.

"By no means am I perfect, but if I've ever made any mistakes in my life I've taken responsibility for my actions. I truly believe in my heart and I would bet my life that this substance never entered my body at any point.

"I've always had tremendous respect for the game of baseball, and part of the reason I've kept quiet throughout the course of this ordeal, and part of the reason why I won't be able to get into all of the details today, is to put the best interests of the game ahead of the best interests of myself. And that hasn't been easy.

"There were a lot of times when I wanted to come out and tell the entire story, to attack everybody as I've been attacked, as my name has been dragged through the mud as everything I've worked for my entire life was called into question.

"There were a lot of times I wanted to come out and tell the entire story, but at the end of the day I realized what's actually best for the game of baseball, and I put that ahead of what was actually best for myself.

"I've always stood up for what is right. Today is about everybody who's been wrongly accused, and everybody who has had to stand up for what is actually right. Today isn't about me; it isn't about one player. It's about all players. It's about all current players, all future players and everybody who plays the game of baseball."

Braun provided remarkable detail of the day the drug test was conducted. He said it was on Saturday, Oct. 1, the day the Brewers opened the National League Division Series against Arizona at Miller Park. The game was played at 1 p.m., and Braun said he provided a urine sample afterward at 4:30 p.m. He noted that Laurenzi's son was also there as a "chaperon."

Because Laurenzi thought it was too late to ship via FedEx that day, he took the sample and two others home and kept them refrigerated. He shipped the samples on Monday afternoon, and that time lapse left the opening that led to Braun's successful appeal defense.

"There were at least five FedEx locations within 5 miles of the stadium that were open until 9 p.m. and an additional FedEx location that was open for 24 hours," said Braun. "There were upwards of 18 or 19 FedEx locations that were open between the ballpark and his house that he could have dropped the samples off at. . . .

"Why he didn't bring it in, I don't know. On the day that he did finally bring it in, FedEx opened at 7:30 a.m. Why didn't he bring it in until 1:30 p.m.? I can't answer that question. Why was there zero documentation? What could have possibly happened to it during that 44-hour period?

"There were a lot of things that we learned about the collector, about the collection process, about the way that the entire thing worked that made us very concerned and very suspicious about what could have actually happened.

"We spoke to biochemists and scientists, and asked them how difficult would it be to tamper with somebody's sample. Their response was that if they were motivated, it would be extremely easy. Again, that's why it's so important to get it out of the hands of the only person in the world who knows whose sample it is."

During a question-and-answer period after his opening comments, Braun was asked specifically if he was accusing the collector of deliberately tampering with the player's urine sample.

"I honestly don't know what happened to it for that 44-hour period," replied Braun. "There are a lot of different things that could have possibly happened. There are a lot of things that we've heard about the collection process, the collector and some other people involved in the process that have certainly been concerning to us.

"But beyond that, as I've dealt with the situation, I know what it's like to be wrongly accused of something. For me to wrongly accuse somebody else of something wouldn't help anybody."

The office of Commissioner Bud Selig quickly responded to Braun's suggestion that Laurenzi might have done something inappropriate.

"The extremely experienced collector in Mr. Braun's case acted in a professional and appropriate manner," said Rob Manfred, executive vice president for labor relations. "He handled Mr. Braun's sample consistent with instructions issued by our jointly retained collection agency.

"The arbitrator found that those instructions were not consistent with certain language in our program, even though the instructions were identical to those used by many other drug programs - including the other professional sports and the World Anti-Doping Agency."

Manfred also took exception to the terminology "fatally flawed" by Braun but said changes would be forthcoming in how collectors deliver samples.

"Our program is not 'fatally flawed,' " said Manfred. "Changes will be made promptly to clarify the instructions provided to collectors regarding when samples should be delivered to FedEx based on the arbitrator's decision. Neither Mr. Braun nor the MLBPA contended in the grievance that his sample had been tampered with or produced any evidence of tampering."

Braun said his drug test result detected a testosterone level three times higher than had been recorded in any previous player. He said he tried to appeal to the panel that result made no sense whatsoever, and that its validity should be questioned.

Asked what might have triggered such a high testosterone level, which a source confirmed was synthetic, Braun said, "The most honest answer I can give you is that I'm 100% certain it's never entered my system. I can only speak for what happened until the time that the sample went missing. I have no idea what happened to it for that 44-hour period. Beyond that, your guess is as good as mine.

"I've lived this nightmare every day for the last four months. There's been a million possibilities that ran through my head. Ultimately, the scariest thing is that it was missing for a prolonged period of time and we have no idea what happened to it, what could have happened to it. It's a scary thought, without a doubt."

Braun revealed some of the reasoning for his innocence that he presented to the arbitration panel, what he called a "humanistic approach."

"I explained to them I'm 27 years old, I'm just entering my prime, I have a contract guaranteed for nine more years, I've been tested at least 25 times over the course of my career, at least three times this season prior to this test and an additional time when I signed my contract, including an extensive physical, blood test, everything you could imagine," said Braun.

"I've never had any issue; there's no evidence to suggest otherwise. And they said, 'That's great, we believe you, in fact, the other side believes you, none of this makes any sense to anybody.'

"I told them that I promise you on anything that's ever meant anything in my life - the morals, the values, the virtues by which I've lived in my 28 years on this planet - I did not do this. I told them that I would be an open book. I opened up my life to them. I told them I would be more than happy and willing to take any and every test to prove I didn't do this."

Braun said he had to withhold some details of his case because "it's supposed to be confidential and because of potential ongoing litigations and the fact I am considering all my legal options."

Braun even addressed rampant Internet rumors and reports that he tested positive for a very high level of testosterone because he was being treated for a sexually transmitted disease.

"There's never been a personal medical issue; I've never had an STD," said Braun. "Many of the stories that were erroneously reported by the initial network (ESPN) continue to live on, and it's sad and disappointing that this has become a PR battle and that people continue to leak information that's inaccurate."

Braun was asked about the initial MLB response to Das' verdict. A statement was released saying MLB officials "vehemently disagreed" with the finding, in essence saying Braun was cleared on a technicality.

"I respect their opinion," he said. "I have tried to respect the confidentiality of the process. I certainly respect the process and their position.

"What's sad and disappointing to me is that the players have agreed to this system. Major League Baseball has agreed to this system. Everybody else that is a part of this process has agreed to this system. Ultimately, the system decided that I was innocent and I've been exonerated. Beyond that, I certainly respect where they're coming from but respectfully disagree."

Braun said his side had some idea how news of his positive test leaked to the media, but "we don't know with any type of certainty." He said the real tragedy of the case going public was that he was unable to revel in the Brewers' playoff run as well as his National League most valuable player award.

"One of my biggest regrets having gone through this situation is that I can't ever get that time of my life back," he said. "It should have been an amazing time in my life. My team had an incredible season last year, finished two wins short of the World Series. I had a great year individually. I should have been able to enjoy the off-season and I didn't.

"It's been an extremely difficult, challenging time in my life. But at the end of the day, I know the truth. My friends, family, teammates, the Milwaukee Brewers organization and everybody who knows me, knows the truth.

"Ultimately, as I sit here today, the system worked because I am innocent and I was able to prove my innocence. After today, I look forward to returning my focus to the game of baseball, being able to get back with my teammates, allowing my life to return to some sense of normalcy and focusing on helping our team get back to the postseason."