Posted by tecwrg on 8/1/2013 3:15:00 PM (view original):
Buster Olney was on "Mike and Mike" this morning, and also summed up his view of how Selig should handle ARod in this blog entry.
I saw this earlier. I think things like this would be great:
"We want to go after the cheaters with more ammunition. We want to be more aggressive. We think Alex Rodriguez cheated all of you; we think he lied to all of you; we think he tried to make a mockery of our drug-testing system. He thumbed his nose at it and exploited the loopholes.
Let’s close those loopholes. Let’s make this better. Let’s talk about lifetime bans for egregious second or even first offenders, rather than three-strikes-and-you’re-out. Let’s eliminate the incentive to cheat: Let’s talk about voiding contracts under certain circumstances."
But that writer is delusional if he thinks Bud can just waltz in and, on momentum alone, rewrite the drug rule stuff. Ain't gonna happen.
I do think we'll start seeing contracts stipulating that failed drug tests/suspension void the contract. I could see it eventually becoming the norm, and believe it will do much more to discourage PED use than the current suspensions do.
Hell, whether to juice or not seems like a calculated risk for some types of players.
Take an average, or benchwarmer, player. Should he juice? Worst case scenario is that he juices, plays no better, gets busted, serves his suspension, and resumes playing with a similar contract later. There doesn't seem to be any hesitation for teams to sign past users, so this is plausible.
Better scenario for him is juice, get better, get busted, serve suspension, sign inflated contract (inflated based on ped-time stats). Think Melky Cabrera.