Ryan Braun

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Rainiers
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Ryan Braun

Post by Rainiers » Tue Apr 08, 2014 5:35 pm

Ryan Braun, you just can't win with me.

When you are doing poorly, I can't help but think..."see what happens when you get off the juice?" When you hit three home runs in one game with a hurt thumb its..."jeez, are you back on the juice already?"

Sorry kid, but its hard to regain my trust. And you are making it very hard for me to try and figure you out...
- Robert

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Deadheadz
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Re: Ryan Braun

Post by Deadheadz » Tue Apr 08, 2014 5:40 pm

I heard he had a bad thumb so I sat him. :oops:
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Re: Ryan Braun

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Tue Apr 08, 2014 5:46 pm

Rainiers wrote:Ryan Braun, you just can't win with me.

When you are doing poorly, I can't help but think..."see what happens when you get off the juice?" When you hit three home runs in one game with a hurt thumb its..."jeez, are you back on the juice already?"

Sorry kid, but its hard to regain my trust. And you are making it very hard for me to try and figure you out...
I think it would take balls of steel for Braun to be juicing this year after getting caught and suspended for 65 games. That's not to say he wouldn't do it, but wow, it would take some BIG cajones, right? :lol:

Enjoy any positive results you get from him now. With that thumb, you never know how long it will last. Or how long the Brewers will actually keep playing this well.
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Re: Ryan Braun

Post by Rainiers » Tue Apr 08, 2014 6:07 pm

Does anyone know what the penalty for Braun would be if he got caught again? Is it a 100 games? a full season and a playoff ban? or as he in a position to be banned for life with his next positive test?
- Robert

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Re: Ryan Braun

Post by JohnP » Tue Apr 08, 2014 6:36 pm

Rainiers wrote:Does anyone know what the penalty for Braun would be if he got caught again? Is it a 100 games? a full season and a playoff ban? or as he in a position to be banned for life with his next positive test?
Of course I know that answer. I would like to phrase the question a bit differently however. How would a Braun suspension affect ME?

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Re: Ryan Braun

Post by Deadheadz » Tue Apr 08, 2014 6:44 pm

JohnP wrote:
Rainiers wrote:Does anyone know what the penalty for Braun would be if he got caught again? Is it a 100 games? a full season and a playoff ban? or as he in a position to be banned for life with his next positive test?
Of course I know that answer. I would like to phrase the question a bit differently however. How would a Braun suspension affect ME?

Deadheadz

.....making vast posts from a vast ego.......
Don't sign my name to your posts, regardless of your intent.

Braun can rot in PED Hell for all I care. I don't own him and never will.
I'm sorry if my post above went over your head. Not my fault if you don't "get it."
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Re: Ryan Braun

Post by Rainiers » Wed Apr 09, 2014 6:56 am

Greg Ambrosius wrote:
Rainiers wrote:Ryan Braun, you just can't win with me.

When you are doing poorly, I can't help but think..."see what happens when you get off the juice?" When you hit three home runs in one game with a hurt thumb its..."jeez, are you back on the juice already?"

Sorry kid, but its hard to regain my trust. And you are making it very hard for me to try and figure you out...
I think it would take balls of steel for Braun to be juicing this year after getting caught and suspended for 65 games. That's not to say he wouldn't do it, but wow, it would take some BIG cajones, right? :lol:

Enjoy any positive results you get from him now. With that thumb, you never know how long it will last. Or how long the Brewers will actually keep playing this well.
Oh, on Ryan Braun and his cajones.  

I understand that there may have been many seasons prior to 2012, the year he was was caught, that Ryan did not have the aid of his testosterone/HGH cocktails.  

If he didn't use PEDs prior to 2012, your cajones argument holds a lot of water.

But we should at least consider the possibility that he was aided throughout his professional career prior to 2012 as well.  He has links to people who used or supplied the PEDs all the way back to his U of Miami days.  

If he was a heavy user from 2007- 2011, he would know that the likelihood of being tested positive was and is, even with the new protocol, pretty slim.  

Under this scenario, he could have relatively poor performances in this and future baseball seasons without the aid of PEDs.

Also, under this scenario, it would take huge cajones to be a Mensch, and NOT take PEDS.  It would take gigantic cajones to show the world through continuous poor play going forward, that his ENTIRE career was a fraud, not just 2012.  

Or he could just take yet another risk, and try and perpetuate the fraud, with a pretty good chance that he could continue to fool the world and himself that he is a great ball player by using drugs.  

Drugs that he has come to believe he has little chance of getting busted with.  This would then be, actually,  the "small balls" pathway.

In any case, I think the cajones argument can cut both ways.  

It just depends on how long you believe Braun may have been cheating and how much it may of helped him along the way.
- Robert

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Re: Ryan Braun

Post by Tom Kessenich » Wed Apr 09, 2014 7:30 am

Good game yesterday.
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Re: Ryan Braun

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Wed Apr 09, 2014 7:36 am

Rainiers wrote:Does anyone know what the penalty for Braun would be if he got caught again? Is it a 100 games? a full season and a playoff ban? or as he in a position to be banned for life with his next positive test?
A second suspension is 100 games, correct? I would think that is the same for Braun, even though his first suspension was for 65 games instead of 50. But I would think it's still 100 games.
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Re: Ryan Braun

Post by DOUGHBOYS » Wed Apr 09, 2014 7:44 am

Tom Kessenich wrote:Good game yesterday.
Hey Tom and Greg, for the most part, has Wisconsin forgiven Braun?
When a hated player performs well for a local team, that area finds it easier to accept him.
Like San Francisco with Bonds, it is almost like they say, "We know he is a dick, but he's our dick."
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Re: Ryan Braun

Post by Tom Kessenich » Wed Apr 09, 2014 7:47 am

DOUGHBOYS wrote:
Tom Kessenich wrote:Good game yesterday.
Hey Tom and Greg, for the most part, has Wisconsin forgiven Braun?
When a hated player performs well for a local team, that area finds it easier to accept him.
Like San Francisco with Bonds, it is almost like they say, "We know he is a dick, but he's our dick."
Braun was given huge ovations on Opening Day so based on that it seems clear the fans in attendance still love him. I think it's very much like how Giants' fans embraced Bonds for the exact reason you mentioned. I'm ambivalent about him at this point. As a Brewers fan, if he helps the team win that's good. If they traded him tomorrow for minor leaguers I wouldn't shed a tear. No matter what happens going forward he'll always be a liar and a cheater in my book. Too bad because if he does prove he can put up big numbers without artificial help he'll just have mucked up a Hall of Fame career the way guys like Bonds and Clemens did. When you're that good, the edge you're looking for is you. But egos, unfortunately, get in the way of a good thing and screw it all to hell.
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Re: Ryan Braun

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Wed Apr 09, 2014 7:50 am

DOUGHBOYS wrote:
Tom Kessenich wrote:Good game yesterday.
Hey Tom and Greg, for the most part, has Wisconsin forgiven Braun?
When a hated player performs well for a local team, that area finds it easier to accept him.
Like San Francisco with Bonds, it is almost like they say, "We know he is a dick, but he's our dick."
Dan, yes HE IS OUR DICK!! :lol:

They gave him a standing ovation on Opening Day, so that should tell you that folks have forgiven him. Listen, we have winter 8 months out of the year here, the Bucks have the worst record in the NBA and golf won't start here for another month or more. We have so few things to enjoy, so we forgive a cheat and hope the Brewers play well enough to get us to the Packers' pre-season. Then we prepare for winter again in October and hope for a run at another Super Bowl title. That's what we really live for around here.

Again, HE IS OUR DICK!! GO BRAUNIE!! :lol:
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Re: Ryan Braun

Post by Tom Kessenich » Wed Apr 09, 2014 7:52 am

By the way, if you're a Phillies fan who went out of his or her way to boo Braun yesterday while cheering Carlos Ruiz I want you to look up the following word in the dictionary:

Credibility

Good luck with that.
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Re: Ryan Braun

Post by Hells Satans » Wed Apr 09, 2014 8:14 am

Tom Kessenich wrote:By the way, if you're a Phillies fan who went out of his or her way to boo Braun yesterday while cheering Carlos Ruiz I want you to look up the following word in the dictionary:

Credibility

Good luck with that.
I missed the part where Chooch publicly blamed the urine sample collector for tampering with his piss so that it ended up showing he was taking Adderral (which is fine and legal with a prescription, which he now has). I would have thought that would have been a bigger story.

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Re: Ryan Braun

Post by Tom Kessenich » Wed Apr 09, 2014 8:19 am

Hells Satans wrote:
Tom Kessenich wrote:By the way, if you're a Phillies fan who went out of his or her way to boo Braun yesterday while cheering Carlos Ruiz I want you to look up the following word in the dictionary:

Credibility

Good luck with that.
I missed the part where Chooch publicly blamed the urine sample collector for tampering with his piss so that it ended up showing he was taking Adderral (which is fine and legal with a prescription, which he now has). I would have thought that would have been a bigger story.
Sorry but going out of your way to boo one guy who got suspended for breaking the rules while cheering another who broke the rules lacks credibility with me. I have no problem with Phillies fans cheering for Ruiz - he's your guy like Braun is Milwaukee's guy. But don't go into the excessive booing for another formerly suspended player at the same time. Lacks credibility.

There's no reason to rehash the Braun story again. We had that huge thread where everyone got their two cents in and then some. I have my thoughts about the whole urine sample collector thing which so many people get so worked up about but what's done is done. Braun lied, cheated, got caught and was suspended. If you want to go out of your way to boo him I have no problem with that. He deserves it.
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Re: Ryan Braun

Post by Hells Satans » Wed Apr 09, 2014 8:37 am

I don't care either way, but Braun/Ruiz is a false equivalence (even putting aside the nature of the Adderall issue).

People don't boo Braun because he cheated. They boo him because of his response to getting caught.

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Re: Ryan Braun

Post by Tom Kessenich » Wed Apr 09, 2014 8:42 am

Hells Satans wrote:I don't care either way, but Braun/Ruiz is a false equivalence (even putting aside the nature of the Adderall issue).

People don't boo Braun because he cheated. They boo him because of his response to getting caught.
Again, I have no problem with booing Braun. He deserves it. I just think you lack credibility if you go out of your way to boo him while cheering someone else who broke the rules and got caught. If you want to argue there's a difference between those suspensions, fine. I can say there's a difference between what Braun did and what guys like Bonds, McGwire and Sosa did which one could contend were far worse in nature and had far serious ramifications on the game itself. We can split the hairs on that stuff all day long.
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Re: Ryan Braun

Post by TParsons » Wed Apr 09, 2014 8:43 am

Rainiers wrote:Ryan Braun, you just can't win with me.

When you are doing poorly, I can't help but think..."see what happens when you get off the juice?" When you hit three home runs in one game with a hurt thumb its..."jeez, are you back on the juice already?"

Sorry kid, but its hard to regain my trust. And you are making it very hard for me to try and figure you out...
You're vastly overestimating the effects of "PEDs". It's not magic. You don't just take a dose and have the results of Popeye with spinach. Just yesterday pre-game I was hearing people recommending selling on Braun because of the thumb and now he's magically back on the juice because of one great game. It doesn't work that way.
Rainiers wrote:
Under this scenario, he could have relatively poor performances in this and future baseball seasons without the aid of PEDs.

Also, under this scenario, it would take huge cajones to be a Mensch, and NOT take PEDS.  It would take gigantic cajones to show the world through continuous poor play going forward, that his ENTIRE career was a fraud, not just 2012.  

Or he could just take yet another risk, and try and perpetuate the fraud, with a pretty good chance that he could continue to fool the world and himself that he is a great ball player by using drugs. 
Again, you're completely overestimating the effects. There is nothing out there that aids a player in hand/eye coordination, pitch recognition, or the ability to square up a round ball with a round bat. If that were the case, world strong men athletes and WWE wrestlers would be in the bigs. Braun is an elite baseball talent with or without PEDs. In almost all cases these are used to aid in recovery, not to provide you with comic book super powers.

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Re: Ryan Braun

Post by Rainiers » Wed Apr 09, 2014 12:03 pm

"You're vastly overestimating the effects of "PEDs". It's not magic. You don't just take a dose and have the results of Popeye with spinach. Just yesterday pre-game I was hearing people recommending selling on Braun because of the thumb and now he's magically back on the juice because of one great game. It doesn't work that way."

The PEDs Braun has used in the past actually can return positive results quickly. Unlike steroids, HGH and testosterone cocktails reportedly can have measurable positive influences within days of ingestion. The don't build muscle mass, but they increase quick twitch muscle response which will show up in a baseball players ability mostly in the form of speed...both in running the bases, but also in bat speed. As far as fantasy baseball is concerned, the results will be more noticeable in SBs than in home runs, but home runs should also increase.

I'm open to the idea that Braun has used HGH and testosterone his whole career. Or that he just used them in 2012. My current working hypothesis, however, is that he used them in 2011 and 2012 when you saw a huge spike upward of SBs at an age when you would not expect them to spike up. I also suspect he did not use PEDs in 2013 when his SB rate dropped precipitately and he was only able to steal 4 bases in 9 attempts.

I am open to the idea that he is back on HGH/testosterone in 2014. I did not expect this after it looked to me he quit in 2013, so I did not draft him anywhere. I am watching him now more for next year's drafts. While the three home runs in one day are a red flag for me, I'm actually watching his SB totals and caught stealing percentage as more of an indicator of whether or not he is using again. If he steals close to 30 bases at an 75% rate in 2014 I will strongly suspect that he is.

When I evaluate Braun, it does make a huge difference to me if it think he is using or not. If I don't think he will use in the coming year, I project his numbers to be similar to his 2010 numbers, something around third round value. If I think he is going to use, he definately is a first rounder. To me, that is a can of spinach difference.
- Robert

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