PEDs, Financial Incentives, and the Problems They Create
Yesterday, MLB announced that Marlon Byrd has been suspended 162 games for failing a second PED test, which will effectively end his big league career. As a guy who turns 39 in a few months, he was already nearing the end of his days as a productive player anyway, and with a chunk of the suspension carrying over to next season, it’s unlikely any team will offer him a contract this winter. So this is probably it for Marlon Byrd.
But having his career end like this isn’t much solace for the pitchers that Byrd faced, or the teams that lost games in which the Indians gained an advantage from having him on the field. For instance, here’s Dan Haren’s comments in the wake of the news coming out yesterday.
@Ken_Rosenthal can I get back all the home runs he hit off me please? Thanks
— dan haren (@ithrow88) June 1, 2016
Also last year magically returned from a broken wrist in 16 days, at age 38. Proceeded to homer off me that day. https://t.co/7ubQOpskCk
— dan haren (@ithrow88) June 1, 2016
This is one of the issues the current system can’t really address. Sure, Byrd’s career is likely over, but maybe it would have been over four years ago had he not started looking for chemical assistance, and so what did he really lose by taking the banned substances? For players in his position, on the bubble of the major leagues, the incentive to use will always be larger than the costs of getting caught as long as one doesn’t care too terribly much about their reputation.
So every time a player fails a test and gets suspended, there’s a push for a different set of punishments, ones that would try to reduce the financial incentive to take PEDs, or at least increase the cost of getting caught. The most common suggestion is to allow teams to void the contracts of players who fail drug tests, so that players can’t use the money to secure a large financial commitment, then benefit from that commitment even after the suspension ends. Unfortunately, this suggestion is highly problematic.
Right now, the go-to statement for players who get busted using a banned substance is that they were taking legal supplements and they have no idea how that illicit compound got mixed in there. It’s easy enough to just wave those comments off now, because there’s no real way to prove whether they’re telling the truth, and it doesn’t really matter either way; players are held responsible for what goes into their body, with ignorance not being an acceptable excuse. But if you allow teams to void the contracts of players who fail their tests, you’re creating a system where teams have a significant financial incentive to get underperforming expensive players to fail their tests.
For instance, if a team could void a long-term deal after a failed test, and then a guy like Prince Fielder or Albert Pujols magically ended up with a positive test result, then it suddenly matters a lot whether or not they took something intentionally, because we’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars at stake. You’d hope that teams wouldn’t be lacing their cortisone shots with some drug that would show up in the PED test, but with that kind of money at stake, the distrust created between players and teams would be enormous as soon as one big long contract was voided after a failed test, where the player claimed he must have been given a tainted shot by the team doctor.
And, in that scenario, teams would have an incentive to actively encourage their older, expensive players to use PEDs. Didn’t get caught? Maybe you’ll perform better and we’ll win more games. Got caught? We save a bunch of money on a contract we probably didn’t want to have to endure to the end anyway. By instituting a voided contract option, you’d create a host of bad faith incentives, and create a worse situation than we have now.
So that’s not a passable solution, but we can also agree that the current system probably isn’t a strong enough deterrent to use. But that doesn’t mean there couldn’t be some adjustments made to raise the cost of getting caught for the players without rewarding the teams that benefited from the performance of the players before they got caught. Ideally, we’d want a system that served as a stronger disincentive for players to use and also deterred teams from signing players who they suspected of using, or gave them a financial incentive to do more work to try and determine who is using and who is not.
To that end, here’s one thought I had yesterday, though I’ll fully admit I’m not a labor lawyer and I don’t know the legal ramifications of trying to implement something like this. Consider it more of a thinking-out-loud idea than any kind of fully-fleshed-out suggestion.
Upon a player’s first failed PED test, his future salaries — not just for this contract, but for the remainder of his big league career — above the league minimum will be held in escrow throughout each season, and paid out only upon the completion of the season in which the player passes all his drug tests. In the event that the player does indeed pass all his tests, he receives the full payment of his salary for that year.
If a player fails a test while his paychecks are sitting in escrow, however, his right to that money is forfeited, and it is instead transferred to a fund controlled by the MLBPA. At the end of the season, the players association pays the money deposited into that fund to the players who did not fail any PED tests that season. The “you didn’t take steroids!” bonus checks would be small enough for each player that no individual would have a significant incentive to cause someone else to fail a test for their own financial gain, but it would redistribute money from those who failed PED tests to those who did not, rather than rewarding the team with a rebate on the contract they signed.
Of course, this would only come into effect upon a second failed test, so we wouldn’t be talking about a large amount of money being held in escrow or distributed around the league. But even the threat of having most of your paycheck get held in escrow could act as a deterrent to failing even one test. If you’re accustomed to a certain lifestyle, and have expenses commensurate with the paycheck you’re receiving, it could become a bit of a financial frustration to have to live off league-minimum paychecks during the season, even if you could expect to receive the remainder of your withheld salary at the end of the year. For a player accustomed to having a regular income stream during the season, the loss of access to their money until October or November of each year would raise the cost of getting caught the first time.
I’m sure there are logistical nightmares associated with putting a player’s salary in escrow, and legal ramifications regarding how pay has to be handled between employer and employee that I’m not aware of, but an escrow-type situation could potentially reduce the financial rewards for using while also avoiding the massive problem of giving teams a get-out-of-jail-free card that the voided-contract proposals create.
Of course, nothing will ever serve as a perfect disincentive. There will always be players who believe their only chance to stay in the big leagues is to use, and take the risks associated with getting caught. But if the system could create a bit more of a cost for those who get caught using without giving teams a reason to try and get their own players to fail tests, perhaps it’s an opportunity worth exploring.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
Something needs to be done. Think of how many players didn’t get a crack at their dream job as a result of someone else using illegal drugs? I’d assume it’s even more prevalent in the Caribbean too. They need to be strict.
like if only they had rules and punishments for said crimes… wait a second…
Who/what is the nefarious source “tainting” all of these “tainted” supplements?
A lot of guys who get caught are from Caribbean countries where there’s no FDA going around actually testing what’s in stuff you buy at the drug store. Pretty easy to take (for example) a decongestant that has pseudoephedrine in it unknowingly if stuff isn’t labelled properly.
(I’m not saying many or most guys who say they took drugs unknowingly aren’t lying, just saying it’s not outlandish)
FDA has no jurisdiction in US with supplements….thanks to the supplement lobby. so, they can make fantastical claims, without listing proper ingredients…and only pay the price if they get caught.
Good point.
Supplements aren’t regulated in the US well either, but a player earning millions of dollars shouldn’t be buying supplements of the rack in a third world hell hole. Perhaps, MLB should put together a list of approved supplements and manufacturers. This way, if there is a problem, they would be able to investigate and determine if a supplement is tainted. If one is tainted, chances are they will find others that are tainted.
Yeah, this actually happened with tainted meat in Mexico. And the players suspensions were overturned. The “I didn’t know” denials are for PR 99% of the time. The players know it won’t actually get them off.
You know what would be even better, if players were given full access to approved supplements that everyone knew weren’t tainted . . .
C. Nutritional Supplements
Each Club shall be required to provide NSF Certified for Sport
nutritional supplements to its 25-man roster Players during the
championship season, and to all 40-man roster Players during the offseason and Spring Training. This requirement shall include making
supplements available while on the road during the championship
season.
1. The SCAC will develop Club-specific plans, and/or leaguewide
minimum requirements, to make available to Players the NSF
Certified for Sport supplements they desire during the championship
season (home and road), off-season and Spring Training. In preparing
a plan for each Club, and/or the minimum league-wide requirements,
the SCAC will rely upon consultations with 40-man roster Players, will
take into account the views of a Club’s medical staff (including any
Club registered dietician) regarding the efficacy of various products
and will consult with experts in the fields of toxicology, the immune
system and dietary science. The plan for each Club and/or the leaguewide
minimum requirements, also will include the method by which
the Club will provide NSF Certified for Sport supplements to Players
while on the road and during the off-season
2. The plan for each Club, and/or league-wide minimum
requirements, shall ensure that NSF Certified for Sport supplements are
available in home and visitor clubhouses during the championship
season and during Spring Training, and available for distribution to
Players’ residences during the off-season. The plan for each Club
and/or league-wide minimum requirements shall provide a mechanism
for Players to obtain through the Club NSF Certified for Sport
supplements that are not otherwise provided by the Club. Each Club
shall be required to fund the costs associated with fulfilling its
obligations under its plan and/or the league-wide minimum
requirements. The funds earmarked for a Club’s plan and/or to meet the
league-wide minimum requirements may not be reallocated from other
programs or personnel that support Player health and safety (e.g.,
medical, athletic training, or strength and conditioning staff/
equipment/facilities).
3. The SCAC will present to the Parties the plan developed for
each Club, and/or the league-wide minimum requirements. Clubs will
be expected to implement their plan and/or the league-wide minimum
requirements by the commencement of 2015 Spring Training, and the
Parties will establish a protocol to address reports about a Club’s failure
to comply with its plan. The SCAC will investigate such complaints
and report to the Parties regarding Clubs’ compliance.
Full Source: http://mlb.mlb.com/pa/pdf/jda.pdf
I was under the impression MLB has a list. Apparently so do teams. The problem is you don’t live in a bubble. After Colabello got dinged one of the beat reporters talked about Colabello and another player taking 15-20 minutes to order a smoothie or something when on the road.
Third World hell hole…Agartha?
The childish imagination of the players. “Gee, I have no idea how that could have gotten in there” is an excuse that only small children are allowed to use.
It’s sickening to see so many grown men lie and refuse to own up to what they did.
A lot of these guy don’t know. I don’t know why it’s a matter of maturity that would have you think otherwise.
Anyone who thinks Dave’s scenario of rigged tests is paranoid or fantastical needs to look at how the NFL has abused it’s “personal conduct” policy to suspend players with unfavorable contracts, but go easy on stars (Peyton Manning, Greg Hardy) and target union leadership (Scott Fujita). Because MLB contracts are guaranteed, the incentives are if anything far stronger to put a finger on the scale.
You could argue we’ve already seen this happen in baseball with A-Rod’s conveniently 162 game suspension coincidentally falling in the year the Yankees were trying to reset their luxury tax penalty (they ended up not being able to get under the threshold anyway).
Once you create the ability for a system to be abused, it will be. Transferring the forfeited salary to MLBPA (or better: a charity or anti-PED education but the union would never agree) removes that ability and makes the system able to operate fairly.
Random question but why is everyone so obsessed with paying minor leaguers more than they currently make. Yeah it sucks that it is barely a living wage but the way I look at it, you are being paid what you are worth to the club or to the public. I want to be clear that I am not a troll and looking for legitimate discussion on this.
There is no billion dollar tv contract for minor league games and gate receipts do not entail that they make more. I’m not saying this because I’m a snob but my first job after college was a commission based sales job. The top sellers at my company were making a couple million a year (not quite MLB superstar money but still) and I was basically a miserable failure. I didn’t think it was unfair that they were making more than me. They produced and I didn’t so I found a different job.
I agree that there is a problem with the AAA players that don’t make it to MLB because of PED users but that isn’t what the discussion centers around.
I don’t have an issue with minor league pay. I guess a lot of guys stick with it on the off chance lightning will strike and they’ll play in the Show. If they don’t like the pay, they can take off their pajamas and join the rest of schlubs in the workforce who wish they could have played even minor league ball. Their pay is commensurate with the amount of money their play brings in.
The main issue is that they are athletes who are trying to maximize their ability (and thus their value to their employer). How does an athlete do that when he is sleeping on a friend’s couch and eating raman noodles because that is all he can afford?
Then there is also the issue raised in a recent fangraphs article about it being a disincentive to potential lower income athletes entering the system.
Sorry, but I do think its a bit paranoid. In practice, it would need to be a pretty far reaching conspiracy and would carry a huge amount of risk for the team to attempt to carry out. If the team did get caught you could pretty much guarantee a work stoppage across the league.
That said, I get that cancelling contracts probably isn’t a fitting punishment.
I’d take gasoline if it meant a guaranteed MLB contract of almost any amount.
Seriously. And that’s as someone living a comfortable middle class life. If I’m some kid in the Dominican who realistically sees steroids as the difference between a life of dirt floor poverty and unimagined riches, why would I not take them?
How about just not making them banned? That’s the easiest way to handle it. But, that’s not realistic, I guess. I do agree, no way you can void contracts. Way too many bad incentives.
If Dave’s idea was implemented, I’d rather the money go to minor leaguers, since they are underpaid anyway…
I agree that there are probably better places for that money to go, but I don’t think the MLBPA would agree to letting that money go to players outside of their representation.
I don’t agree with this, but if we’re going to whine about the system when guys are caught and suspended, maybe it makes sense. What is actually wrong with the current system? There will always be incentives in someone’s eyes to cheat. We don’t even know if Byrd benefited from cheating. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. In the long run, he will always be remembered as a cheater. That’s not nothing. Moving to the idea that we must just increase the penalty; we don’t do that in real life. People steal cars even though that is illegal (and perhaps in some ways they do so rationally). Why not increase the penalty for that to life in prison? A few people are going to break the rules no matter what. Punish them accordingly and move on. Sorry this is a rambling stream of consciousness rant, but I just don’t think every occurrence requires an overhaul of how society (or baseball) treats something.
I was going to suggest essentially the same thing. I can’t find the quote but I thought Dave noted that the incentive for both players and ownership is for players to enhance their performance. As fans, I think we’d like players to come back from injuries as quickly as possible. If there were a drug to reduce Tommy John recovery from 12-18 months to 6 months, who exactly benefits by banning this drug?
Personally I’d rather we just allow everything and let law enforcement police illegal possession of controlled substances but know that wouldn’t go over. I do think we’d do better to have a short list of substances we think truly give an unfair advantage that a long list of PEDs may of which give 0-1% edge.
Side rant: we appear to have no problem with a player enhancing performance through laser surgery on a his eyes or transplanting a tendon from his ankle to his elbow, but marijuana and cough syrup get you suspended.
There’s no way that will ever happen, for a lot of reasons. Whether it’s scientifically valid or not, baseball currently has a culture where steroid use is perceived as granting a massive performance advantage and it’s unlikely that fans as a whole will look favourably upon what they’ll see as an endorsment of rampant cheating.
MLB also has their image to consider as it relates to kids who might be influenced to take something harmful because they see their big-league heroes doing it. I’m not saying I necessarily think all kids are helpless sponges who will just do whatever they see on t.v., but there’s no denying that there are millions of parents out there who wouldn’t hesitate to steer their kids away from baseball if they deemed it unsafe. (Just look at what’s been happening in the NFL and concussions.) So for a sport that is already worried about their appeal to the younger demographic I doubt they’ll want to risk the potential consequences.
Fianlly, and I’m just speculating here, but I have to wonder if there might be some kind of legal ramification for letting players take whatever they want. I know steroids in MLB is not anywhere near the same thing as concussions in the NFL, but I have to think baseball wouldn’t even want to risk the possibility of some former star suing them twenty years down the road because baseball “created an environment where players had to wreck their bodies in order to succeed” or something.
So as much as it might be easier to make PEDs legal, I don’t see it happening.
How dare you introduce common sense!
Honestly I agree, I don’t know why they need to be banned in the first place. If it’s for health reasons, well, every player knows the risks they bring. If they choose to still use steroids and deal with those potential risks, that’s on the individual player and a choice he made.
Not to mention, if the guys at my gym are any example, a large percentage of the population already takes some kind of supplement that would probably fail a test, and I’m also not convinced that today’s designer steroids or growth hormones/prohormones are actually as bad for you as everything thinks.
The problem is if they are legal every single player will do it. It might become impossible to make the majors without doing it. If that becomes the case then the MLB isn’t just allowing players to destroy their bodies with drugs but encouraging it. If that were to happen then the MLB could very easily face their own NFL concussion scandal as Fernando suggested.
For a situation like Byrd does this change anything? If the drugs helped him preform they made him money that he wouldn’t have made being out of baseball.
That’s the problem. It’s not unrealistic to believe his late career resurgence was fueled by steroids. In other words, steroids got him a little over 200 games of suspension, but they also got him 3 more years of playing and a big contract. It was in his best interest to take them. It sucks to be the guys whose roster spot he took. Guys who followed the rules. I don’t know what the answer is, Dave’s idea might help, but when the benefits of cheating are so great, the probability of getting caught needs to be high and the penalties for getting caught need to be severe.
heh. Greinke…i just signed my 200 mil contract due 34 million in 2016……..december!
think the mlbpa would even entertain that idea?…. hellz no.
I believe Dave was suggesting salaries be held til the end of the year for players who have already tested positive. So players like Greinke who have never had a positive test wouldn’t be affected.
I still think that because the team is in the best position to know of and prevent these things, the team should also be punished when a player in their organization is caught using. Maybe a lost draft pick, I don’t know. I certainly agree that allowing teams to void the contracts of players who test positive is a terrible idea that creates perverse incentives all over the place.
Maybe- a team is usually already hurt when a player isn’t on the field, but it might help to make the penalty even worse on the team.
I can see something like, if a player is serving a PED suspension, he cannot be placed on the inactive/reserve list, and the team just forfeits that roster spot. Though, I can see increased injury risk to active pitchers as a reason that’s potentially a no-go.
I agree with this, I think punishing teams would go a long way. If teams are investing large sums of money in these players, it’s strange to me that they’re not more diligent in protecting those investments. If a team were to be fined an amount based on the offending player’s salary, they’d give smaller salaries to players that might be a risk of offending, which both disintencivizes the player from using in the first place and the team from rewarding a “cheater.” This would also incentivize teams to be more diligent with making sure players who are already under contract stay on the up and up with any legal supplements or medicines they might be taking.
I think teams would do a lot more to police the steroid issue if they weren’t handcuffed by the fact that they have to agree with the union. It’s not like a GM can just waltz into the locker room whenever he wants and demand a player pee in a cup, nor could one demand a player take a PED test as part of completing a contract. The steroid issue is one that’s been collectively bargained and both sides have to agree to any potential solutions.
Being party to a collectively bargained agreement is never being handcuffed. They don’t have to “agree” with anything. Nobody I know has ever agreed with every aspect of an agreement. However they have to behave exactly as expected per the agreement they were part of creating. Just like the players do.
Right, I wasn’t knocking collectively bargained rights. I was just making the point that the CBA effectively functions as a shackle because it limits what the teams can do, since they have to get the other side to agree first.
I don’t like this idea because for one I don’t think it’s fair to punish a team for what single employee might do all on his own. Beyond that, though, I don’t think the players union go for it because it gives teams an even bigger incentive to steer away from older, more at-risk PED users. So to me this looks like a solution where nobody would get what they want.
Really? Businesses are held responsible for the actions of their employees all the time. Agency and all that.
As to your second point, teams can still only spend on players who are free agents, which is going to be older players. It’s possible that money might get allocated away from players who are perceived by teams to be PED risks to players who don’t have that perception, but in my mind that’s a desirable outcome. The money would just get redistributed, it wouldn’t reduce spending. I don’t think the Players’ Union would care.
I think you’re painting with too broad a brush. While some businesses can be punished, it’s hardly “all the time”. Plus, most companies have some way of protecting themselves from rogue employees, such as firing the offender. What are baseball teams supposed to do, though? Dee Gordon gets busted for 80 games and the Marlins…just get screwed? What did they do warrant punishment? Employ a guy stupid enough to cheat *after* he signed a big contract?
Secondly, I think you’re way off base on most of your points. The union is never gonna go for something that sees money taken out of the pockets of senior members just because they *might* be guilty of something. Besides, older players in general are at-risk, so you’re proposal incentivizes a move away from all older players, not just a select few. Given that, the money won’t magically be redistributed. If Free agents (who as you say will be mostly older players) start carrying more risk their value goes down, and teams won’t just decide to give that money to non-free agents – such as young, controllable guys – out of the goodness of their hearts. They’ll largely pocket it. So, again, everybody loses.
Not applicable to Byrd since he was getting old and probably trying to simply stay in the league, but a large number of PED suspensions are given to minor leaguers or fringe major-league guys. I would imagine one of the big reasons is the huge disparity between minor- and major-league salaries.
If you’re a 27 year old pitcher in your third year at AAA, making $15K a season, watching your velocity start creeping down and your hopes of ever making it to the majors fade away, the incentive to cheat is massive. These players would make more more if they get called up for one month than they would toiling away another ~4 years in the minors.
If the MLBPA were to reduce this gap by increasing salaries in the minors (especially AAA), the incentive to cheat to get in and stay in the league would be reduced. It would cost less than $1 Million per team to raise the AAA minimum from ~$15K to $50K for a 25-man roster.
good point.
You would have to raise AAA salaries a lot more than that before you start to seriously affect the incentive for a guy get promoted to the bigs and start making $500K a year. I would think you’d have to get into the $250-300K a year range before guys start saying “Yeah, I’m good playing in AAA”. And at that point, you’ve just created a big incentive for guys in AA to cheat their way up to AAA.
EDIT: Hey Fangraphs, thanks for adding this Edit function!
I was just throwing out $50K as a number. That’s for 6 months of work, and while it’s still a far cry from a major league salary, it’s plenty of money to live on.
The number of people who cheat is going to be a function of both the risk and reward for doing so. Players with a near zero chance of ever making the majors will have a high incentive to cheat, unless the salaries are much closer and the penalties are harsh. But even for players who have just a 10-20% chance of making it to the majors clean, a small salary increase might be enough to reduce this incentive.
Plus if you go up to $250K, you’re looking at an extra $3-4M spending per team per year on AAA alone, which is a bit tougher to swallow, and you know teams are going to want that $ to come out of the major leaguer’s cut (which MLBPA won’t be happy with).
I’m not so sure it needs to be much more than 50K. That’s a lot of money for someone to be doing something they absolutely love. Most full-time minor leaguers would have a second job to supplement income anyways. I think 50K is probably enough for most to not want to throw everything they have away.
LOL I love my work but if I don’t get paid what I think it’s worth I’ll find other work to love or work I don’t hate that pays more
And if you’re a minor leaguer who has spent years playing baseball with little in the way of transferable skills (from baseball), possibly no college education, and the hope an $80K/month paycheck if you crack the majors — what other job are you going to find that pays more or has anywhere close to the same earnings potential?
Not saying MiLB players have no skills or value off the field, but most of them aren’t going to step away from baseball and start making six figures at a desk job without a track record. Because of that, even a small shot at cracking the majors likely provides a better financial opportunity than they could find elsewhere in the short term.
Does your job come with the possibility of a $500,000 salary?
Even so, you have to remember that the $50K salary proposed for MiLB is for only 5-6 months of work. They have another half a year to supplement their income with a second job.
i think there has to be a personal disincentive against PED’s without penalizing the do-gooders.
my best suggestion….
first ped suspension = 3 year post season & all star ban. 15 year ban from any mlb affiliated non-playing job.
second ped suspension = 5 year postseason & all star ban. 30 year ban from any mlb affiliated non-playing job.
third = lifetime – pete rose style ban.
this could help deter younger/near contract (peralta type debacle) players from abusing. even Byrd, after his first PED suspension would’ve maybe resulted in a major league min or minor league contract for a team with no realistic chance of making it to the playoffs. but even then, there would be considerable public backlash against signing someone, basically admitting to your fanbase that you don’t expect to get to the playoffs sometime in the next couple of years.
i also tack on the 15/30 year bans for older folks who would basically be shut out of any future coaching positions as an extra deterrant against using late in their careers.
I’m not sure if Haren is being humorous or attempting sarcasm but I do find it funny that he can remain that level of butthurt having cleared $80M in his career including some really bad seasons.
Does HE know those were bad seasons though?
I think the majority of players would prefer a game that was played without steroids. The “make them legal” argument essentially says “put steroids in your body or have a competitive disadvantage.” At what level is society comfortable with that? Should a player have to choose between injecting horse semen into his ass or fall a step behind?
That’s why I think the guys from pre-testing eras really deserve a pass, or at least mostly do. Of course, I don’t know, maybe a lot of guys are still cheating and getting away with it. The legalization crowd always says they are, and there really isn’t a way to disprove that argument.
no one ever injected Horse seman into their ass for a PED so not really sure what you think is going on but it must be a crazy world in your warped mind.
Do either of you know how much horse semen costs? 10 cc of California Chrome’s finest would set you back $100k or more. Stick with the cheaper PEDs.
Just neighing.
Nobody ever injected horse semen, are you sure about that?
I gotta say, this is my most favorite horse semen-related discussion thread.
(Today.)
I think you’re overestimating the number of players that would be ok with accepting all the health risks steroids bring.
I’m not sure I am, or if I am how that matters for what I’m saying. I’m saying that legalization creates a choice for players between using potentially harmful drugs or falling behind those that do. There is also room to say drug A is probably not dangerous so its okay while drug B is dangerous so it isn’t.
I tend to agree with TKDC (and others who have made the same point) – if the choice is doing manual labor for $4/day in a 3rd-world country, or making $15,000/year as a career minor leaguer, versus making even a MLB minimum contract, the incentives to use are huuuuuge. I don’t think there’s a lot of thought being given to potential, nebulous health consequences down the road. Generally, humankind is not great at long-term planning or weighing short-term gains versus long-term consequences, particularly when the long-term effects are unclear or poorly understood (see: retirement planning, diet and exercise decisions, etc).
One could suggest that offended players like Haren could refuse to sign a contract with any team that had a player test positive. Small market left I think.
When Byrd signed with the Reds a couple years back, a beat writer asked him about the first drug suspension. His answer included a story about what sort of work he was doing before baseball (he was a refrigerator delivery man), the fact he and his family can live off the contract he signed after the test forever ($16 million), and the fact that without the drugs, he wouldn’t have had a job in baseball at all. Essentially, he was totally unapologetic and honest that this is a job that provides for his family and that the risk paid off.
At the time, I found his candor refreshing and said, ‘well yeah, that all makes sense.’ Now, I’m not sure how to feel. But I’d guess that given what he’s taking into retirement, there are an awful lot of guys saying, ‘being Marlon Byrd isn’t that bad of a thing.’ Whether it’s this or something else, something probably needs changed, because outside of the 5% who may be punished down the road by a HOF committee (and that may be high), as long as the checks show up before and after the suspension, it’s tough to argue that what he did isn’t the smart thing.
at least it was honest. That is still something we never ever get. Look at Colabello
If the penalty was the literal death penalty, there would still be PED abuse. It would be less, mind you, if only as a practical matter of eliminating repeat offenders, but it would still exist. Some people are willing to go to any length for fame and fortune.
After the first failed test, all contracted salaries above the league minimum amount go to a fund shared equally by all minor leaguers. A second offense and the players is irrevocably banned for life and all future salaries are paid to the minor league player fund.
Bam, zero team incentive for any player to fail a test, cheaters are properly punished, and minor leaguers are better paid. Win-win-win.
Except neither the teams nor the players would go for this. The minor leaguers definitely would, but they don’t really have a say at all.
Good proposal, and I know that in order to be part of the constructive conversation we have to pretend that a solution is desired, but to state the obvious….
The league doesn’t want to stop PEDs, the union doesn’t want to stop PEDs, imo they have no plans to stop PEDs (regardless of public statements to the contrary) but only to increase usage.
The excuse that ‘the league can’t stop PEDs, its a CBA issue, the union would never go for comprehensive testing,’ is not serious- purely on grounds of safety the league could easily get comprehensive testing. As a health and safety matter, PEDs seriously damage bodies, the use creates liability similar to cumulative body damage ligation in other sports, the increased velocities pose a mild-yet-increasing danger to players and spectators, and the PED usage in the MLB incentives downstream use through high school. Reports roundly suggest that the Dominican and Cuban factories are nightmarish PED bonanzas, often with kids. I understand there are still some issues on accuracy with HGH and certain tests, but from what I know these matters are marginal and workable within medical industry standards.
It’s simply a farce, imo.
The public doesn’t have any reason to think that usage is declining, or that usage is far short of 100%: the issue is simply marketed a bit slicker. Players saying they want testing means nothing, some of these ‘in favor of testing’ player surveys appear to be PR by the union trying to show good faith. There is no serious effort to curb use, and the league can easily stop it when they want: imo, no reason to expect it.
And, not to excuse the inexcusable, but why would MLB actually want to stop PEDs? Obviously it is a marketing issue for MLB moreso than other sports, but none of the pro sports leagues, or even top amateur leagues, in all the world take anti-doping measures seriously, why would MLB have a peculiar moral crusade against PEDs? All the PED guys are likely going to get into the Hall eventually anyway, all the Disney sports journos seem to be pushing it constantly. It’s a false effort.
The anit-doping hysteria is taken very seriously in top amatuer sports. Athletes are required to keep the WADA gestapo informed of their whereabouts at all times, so that they can be pulled away from whatever they are doing and ordered to piss in a cup.
“The public doesn’t have any reason to think that usage is declining, or that usage is far short of 100%*”
*Citation needed. (Badly.)
Why are you quoting this at me?
I think this is still a matter of speculation. Certainly, there are severe side effects with taking massive doses of steroids, and professional wrestlers, which appear to be a population with a lot of abusers, tend to have shorter lives. But, wrestlers also take an enormous physical beating several times a week, and alcohol and other drug abuse is rampant.
I don’t think the baseball players who are using are taking nearly that level. Male testosterone levels vary widely, so much that the normal range is about 270 to 1070 ng/dL. If a player was in the lower range and used supplemental steroids to get to the high end of “normal”, should that even be considered abuse? After all, he’s just trying to get the advantage that some of his colleagues have naturally.
Exactly how severe the effects of anabolic steroids are is a matter of speculation, as medical studies have thus far typically involved self-administering subjects who also consume other substances, but it is accepted medical fact that they have deleterious health effects.
But do those studies control for dosages? Just because 10 steroid pills damage your body does not imply that 2 steroid pills would.
It’s also an accepted medical fact that HGH and replacement test have a clinical use.
My point is more that we don’t really know if steroids can be used without adverse long term health effects.
Exhibit A is Melky Cabrera and his tumors. There’s no proof that PEDs contributed to them, but steroids have got to be at the top of the list of things that can cause abnormal cell growth.
I disagree; this is why we science.
Very difficult to look at any single incident and point to a cause. Doing so, especially without a rock solid foundation of applicable research underneath you, is very risky business.
PED generally and anabolic steroids specifically are not intrinsically and inevitably harmful.
Denying access to proper medical supervision and administration of these drugs is intrinsically and inevitably harmful.
Perhaps not “intrinsically and inevitably”, but once you OK PED use, I think there would be a ratcheting effect in which guys “turn the volume up to 11”, so to speak, in order to remain competitive.
You think that giving people access to proper medical supervision and administration of drugs will lead to a greater incidence of inappropriate dosing?
Possibly, yes. It would depend largely on the details of your medical supervision and administration program.
I am certain that if the league says “PED use is now legal and our recommended dosing regimen is X“, then X becomes the new baseline, and those who want to gain an advantage will simply go with X + Y.
As people who had access to board-certified endocrinologists (and other qualified medical professionals) would learn, there is not a simple linear relationship between dosage and effect.
While there may be such a thing as “enough” for recreational drug use, there’s no such thing as “enough” performance.
” I think there would be a ratcheting effect in which guys “turn the volume up to 11″
….why not just stop at 10 and make 10 the loudest?
*blank stare*
…….
…….this one goes to 11.
Yes, they are intrinsically and inevitably harmful, although the severity of those effects is dependent upon a variety of factors including dosage. There is no such thing as “proper medical supervision and administration of these drugs” for athletes, as it would go against The Hippocratic Oath. Even if their use wasn’t banned, no doctor could give them to healthy athletes and retain their medical license. Anabolic steroids are rarely prescribed medically, typically for serious conditions like muscle wasting diseases.
What are the penalties in other professions, police fire ems armed forces? Are they regularly tested?
@RichW, I served in the US Military, and penalties for illegal steroids can be an immediate dishonorable discharge. We were drug tested randomly every month (from what I remember I believe it’s 1/3 of a unit gets randomly selected each month), and we also get tested after major holiday vacations or whenever we return from taking leave. It’s not just a steroid test, it’s an all-encompassing drug test.
This is completely uninformed hogwash that is unsupported by any shred of scientific evidence.
There are a wide variety of medically accepted uses for anabolic steroids, and they are commonly prescribed. Furthermore, anabolic steroids are only one class of PED, and your willingness to commit to the blanket assertion that PED are “intrinsically and inevitably harmful” demonstrates that it is entirely safe to disregard any further opinions you may wish to share on the subject.
This might be effective for a specific player, sure. But with guys are are fringe major leaguers, when the alternative is the minors, it would be worth the gamble even if they could just stick in the majors for a year.
What’s the minor league salaries? 30K? 50K at best? Major league minimum is 500K. A fringe player isn’t going to be upset if their salaries above 500K is withheld, as getting the shot at 500K is worth it. Spend 8-10 years in the minors, or one year in the majors and make the same amount. Even during arb – if they wouldn’t have been in the majors without the PED, having some salary withheld won’t bother them, as the alternative to 500K is 30-50K.
Get caught once and the player must undergo weekly drug tests at their expense, reduced to monthly after 52 passing tests, for the rest of their career.
A second violation makes the contract voidable at the option of the club. However, the salary remains on the books for purposes of the salary cap and must be paid out to charity instead. Further, unless the player signs with another team, the player must remain on the 40 man roster for the life of the contract.
So as a player, if I “accidentally” ingest a substance I should not and I serve my time, I am now presumed to be a repeat offender to the point where you are going to withhold 94% of my salary (using Marlon Byrd as the standard) until I prove I am clean each and every year for the rest of my life? I think I am going to have to talk to my union, my agent, and several lawyers about this and I don’t think you are going to be able to make it stick.
If you’re that player, why are you taking things wthout knowing exactly what they are?
Do you have an analysis of everything you ingest.
No, but I didn’t sign contracts stating I was responsible for everything I put in my body. I’m not tested for anything. If I were, you could be darn sure I would know everything I put in my body.
It’s also misleading to say “everything” you ingest. It’s pretty unlikely these guys pop on a poppy seed side effect; they test positive because they’re using supplements that make claims that could only be substantiated if they were actually anabolics.
Actually, yes. I posted somewhere above that I was in the Military, meaning I was drug tested at least monthly, and if I popped for any kind of banned substance I would face a dishonorable discharge. I had to know what was in absolutely everything I took (medicines, supplements, etc…). If we were prescribed a medication with some narcotic in it, we had to know that and have our prescription documented for every test. If I was taking supplements, I made damn sure to know there was nothing illegal in them. It’s really not that difficult to avoid.
As long as there is such a wide disparity between minor league salaries and the MLB minimum, and the belief that using could get a marginal ML player a lucrative contract, there is going to be a huge incentive to use PEDs.
It may be different people, but on this site we have both people claiming that raising the lower end of the strike zone two inches will bring baseball Armageddon, and people advocating extreme “solutions” to the PED situation without regard for the possible consequences. Let’s get some perspective: we’re talking about a game here. True, it’s also a lucrative business, but it’s a game which has virtually no effect on most of our lives (huge emotional swings aside).
I think it helps to right-set on the business side of baseball from a players perspective — as is, the MLB CBA is the most player-friendly agreement in professional sports; there is no salary cap, contracts are guaranteed, and the league is very much financially stable to maintain these contract levels. But at the same time, when the CBA comes up for re-negotiation at the end of the year, there are a bunch of asks the players will be making of the owners — a larger chunk of TV/web revenues, more ability to market players (social media, over-the-top content,etc) to help their off-field revenue streams, fixing qualified offer system, the battle over an international draft, etc — and the MLBPA will need to be prepared to offer up somethings to get their way.
And whether smart or not, the MLBPA and the players in general have been very vocal in their stance against PEDs and their thoughts on the draconian punishments that should be handed down to violators, likely because they see the potential impact situations liked Byrd and Gordon could have on owners comfort doling out long-term contracts.
So that is just to say, both sides will be pushing for aggressive punishment.
“For a player accustomed to having a regular income stream during the season, the loss of access to their money until October or November of each year would raise the cost of getting caught the first time.”
Yeah, how will they ever live off the meager $500,000 minimum MLB salary???
There is a very good chance that almost every player is taking something already. They’re only catching the guys who are lazy or dumb, or unlucky enough to get tested at the wrong time.
“There is a very good chance that almost every player is taking something already.*”
*Citation needed. Again. (Badly.)
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the “void” the contract option at all, except that the team shouldn’t be the ones to reclaim the funds. Teams need to be held accountable for this stuff, too. For example, take a team that doesn’t have a huge chance of making the playoffs, but if things break right, could find themselves on the Wild Card bubble – why not hire a player, turn a blind eye when he takes some substances, hope you get some crazy over-the-top performance out of him, and maybe make the playoffs. Worst case, he gets caught, keeps his contract money, and you miss the playoffs, which you were going to do most likely anyhow. Teams have serious incentives to be complicit in PDA use. They should be punished, as well.
So, if a player gets caught, void the contract, and the remaining money on the contract goes to a charity of the MLB”s choosing. Players have a HUGE disincentive to use PDAs, and teams have no incentive to have a millstone contract voided due to PDA use, since they still have to pay that money.
Thoughts?
Are the contracts voided automatically or does the team get to choose? How would you deal with a situation where a guy like Madison Bumgarner uses steroids and becomes eligible for free agency sooner than he would if his contract had played out? If the team gets to choose between absolutely zero benefit or whatever the player is worth, why would they void it, outside of maybe a Ryan Howard situation?
F.y.I dan harens Twitter is a must follow, funny guy.
Just make the players take polygraphs if they have a positive test. There’s no law against it. Many employers give their employees polygraphs under certain circumstances, and a failed drug test to me implies probable cause to initiate one. I know they aren’t 100% perfect, but it should weed out the plausible deniers from the downright cheats almost every time anyway.
Gotta get union approval.
The players are most likely going to be suspended for the positive test anyway, so this at least gives them a chance to get out of it if they poly says they told the truth. So it seems like a no-lose situation for the players, so why should the union deny it? I’m only suggesting the polygraph be given to an individual after they have failed a drug test. The questions to be asked in the test can be worked out between the league and the union.
Eh….polygraphs are not well-accepted, well-established science. There are plenty (generally law enforcement and other “law and order” types) who will vouch for their efficacy, but there are plenty of studies questioning their accuracy (which is why judges have fairly wide latitude in establishing their admissibility). You can find studies that support their effectiveness also, so it’s far from settled science.
I’ve failed a polygraph test despite being completely honest and forthcoming in it.
You do realize that such tests are unreliable legally. Why should players give up the same legal rights everybody else has?
As for other employers; they shouldn’t be allowed to force anyone to take one but that’s an argument for another forum.
Holding a player’s salary in escrow would not only be unacceptable for the union, it probably wouldn’t be supported by the team either. If the contract has already been agreed to, the team would probably want the PED abuser to keep doing so in order to maximize their performance. Realistically, teams simply have to do their due diligence before signing or extending a player. If there are concerns that PED use may be in play, then don’t sign the player.
Perhaps I’m mistaken, but I thought that Byrd was under more stringent testing due to his prior failed test. Why are we so certain that he has been using the past three years without getting caught? He traded contact for power, a somewhat common adjustment for aging players. Perhaps he felt incentive this season since he could only get a minor-league deal during Spring Training? Not defending his decisions, I just don’t think we should immediately credit his comeback to PEDs.
The escrow idea is one I’ve had for a while, and posted it on the last Fangraphs PED article. That said, one in baseball would ever agree to have the entirety of a player’s contract be held in escrow over the length of a season. Not owners, not MLB and certainly not players.
The best way to do it is by holding a certain % of a players contract in escrow, releasing part of it to them at the conclusion of each “clean” season. For example, if a player signs a 5 year $100M contract, 20% of that will be held in escrow. The player would earn $16M a year in guaranteed salary and upon conclusion of a clean season the extra $4M would be released to them. The % held could vary based on AAV and/or length of the contract and would escalate with the annual salary. If that same contract is structured where you’re making $14M, $15M, $16M, $17M, $18M over the 5 years, the escrow amount would be structured the same ($2M, $3M, $4M, $5M, $6M) to make sure the player doesn’t use when his financial stake is the lowest.
If a player fails a test, not only will he forfeit his salary over the suspended dates (as he would now) but he would forfeit all remaining escrow money. The players still get their guaranteed money, but now there is a significant financial incentive to not use. Because the CBA greatly restricts “bonuses”, I highly doubt escrow money for failed tests can be reapportioned to other players and there is no way you’d be allowed to hold a player’s entire salary (minus league minimum) in escrow. Not only would the MLBPA never agree to it, but you start getting into some really cloudy legal waters at both the state and federal level.
The best possible compromise to this situation for the next CBA will be some sort of escrow system to increase the financial ramifications of a positive test. The next step would be some sort of PED buyout which would allow teams to buyout and terminate a player’s remaining contract for a certain percentage of the remaining contract. Again though, when you start messing with guaranteed money, the MLBPA is going to scream bloody murder. All these players taking to twitter to complain should be taking to their team’s union rep instead. But I bet not one of them is willing to potentially sacrifice guaranteed money to fix the PEDs issue.