Punishing the teams with PED users

[nate]

how do you know? Maybe that executive's decisions and relationships were effected by that drug use - both good and bad? Is that now the companies fault because they gained some benefit through activities they weren't aware of, did not approve of, and were not complicit in any way?

 

Again, different.  Drug use is a minor impact on a company, it is not directly performance enhancing like cooking the books, committing fraud, etc.  Cheating in baseball by using PEDs is fraudulent.

[Lifetime]

Not talking about fines at all.  

 

Just saying perhaps they need to force the team to take on the luxury tax implications.   They signed the player, they benefit from his performance while juicing, they accept the luxury tax ramifications.  To me that seems like a fair middle ground.  

 

Because there is nothing currently in the CBA, I think the Yankees will be able to get over should A-Banned, gets booted.  But it may be something they should consider adding in the next CBA,.

taking on luxury tax implications is a defacto fine IP. If the team signs a player and are aware of his PED use, do nothing to stop it or report it, reap the benefits, aka are complicit, then we're talking about something else all together. 

[Lifetime]

You lose a lot of credibility with your "LOL!"s.  LOLing at somebody for disagreeing with you is a little douchey, even if it is on an online message board.

 

And no, I don't have statistical proof that you lose credibility.  I could paste links of other threads, though.

you lose credibility every time you post yet another personal attack post that has zero content addressing the subject at hand. 

[Inside Pitch]

taking on luxury tax implications is a defacto fine IP. If the team signs a player and are aware of his PED use, do nothing to stop it or report it, reap the benefits, aka are complicit, then we're talking about something else all together. 

 

 

It's only a fine if the team exceeds the tax limits...  More importantly, I did specifically say I'd limit it to teams that knowingly sign a player that has been popped for it before -- as was the case with Arod.

 

Like I said -- because there is nothing in the current CBA, I doubt a team would see any impact.

[Marsaka]

Colon hasn't been caught again. There is no evidence he is cheating this season.

 

Are you serious?  Arod has never been caught either, that doesnt mean he was never using.

[Lifetime]

Again, different.  Drug use is a minor impact on a company, it is not directly performance enhancing like cooking the books, committing fraud, etc.  Cheating in baseball by using PEDs is fraudulent.

Oh OK. It's not exactly the same, then again, it wasn't intended to be. It is however much closer a comparison than an accountant cooking the books. The bottom line is, you can fine a company for something illegal an employee did if the company is not complicit in or that they were negligent in preventing it. The fact that they happen to benefit from said actions does not mean they should be punished.

[ettin]

I was looking through the old archives of angelswin.com and found something pretty funny to answer your post.

 

http://www.angelswin.com/forum/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=47083&start=1&highlight=Wells+trade&highlightmode=1

 

That thread was definitely not Scott34's finest moment.

[Inside Pitch]

I was looking through the old archives of angelswin.com and found something pretty funny to answer your post.

 

http://www.angelswin.com/forum/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=47083&start=1&highlight=Wells+trade&highlightmode=1

 

 

There is some comedy gold in there...

[Lifetime]

It's only a fine if the team exceeds the tax limits...  More importantly, I did specifically say I'd limit it to teams that knowingly sign a player that has been popped for it before -- as was the case with Arod.

 

Like I said -- because there is nothing in the current CBA, I doubt a team would see any impact.

The CBA does not effect what MLB or the law can do to teams. The CBA is for the players. 

[Second Base]

The owners (and Bud Selig being a former owner) wouldn't EVER agree to this, so it really doesn't matter.  But in the large scheme of things, is it fair to punish a team with PED users? Absolutely. They benefit from the player by contributing toward win total. They should either forfeit some wins or be penalized. 

 

It would force teams to police themselves and effectively eliminate the issue. But this will never happen. MLB isn't interested in making the sport clean as much as they are preserving the image of the sport and if that image in tarnished by PED users, then they'll go after them. But if nobody thought less of ball players using drugs, MLB wouldn't bother with any of this.  They're more interested in making money and one of the ways they make money is by attracting fans and nothing takes fans away more than a game that isn't seen as fair or honest.

Admittedly, after the baseball strike of the mid-90's drove fans away from the game, MLB had no problem promoted the crap out of juiced players to bring in money and fans back to the game. They can't just pretend that now all of sudden they're concerned with the integrity of the game.  They're interested in money and if it's financially a smart decision to bust PED users, then they'll do it

[nate]

Oh OK. It's not exactly the same, then again, it wasn't intended to be. It is however much closer a comparison than an accountant cooking the books. The bottom line is, you can fine a company for something illegal an employee did if the company is not complicit in or that they were negligent in preventing it. The fact that they happen to benefit from said actions does not mean they should be punished.

 

Yes you can if they benefited from it.  In fact they constantly do.

[Lifetime]

no you can't, and you can only point to some arbitrary benefit with no ability to substantiate how much if any a team benefited from PED use. 

 

Not complicit, not negligent, no punishment.

[nate]

What?  You can't tell if they benefited?  Now you are just telling jokes.

[AngelsLongBall]

No Nate, it's not the same thing at all. 

 

As a comparison, let's say a company hires an experienced high level executive paying them millions of dollars per year. The company has a drug policy that requires them to take regular random drug tests which the executive passes every time. Then sometime later, so evidence that said executive has not only been using drugs while under their employment in violation of company policy, but has obtained those drugs illegally trying to evade detection. The company finds out and terminates him for violating company policy voiding his contract. Should the company be held responsible for this executive's drug use and be forced to pay/donate a significant portion of the remaining contract funds to some sort of charity? It's ridiculous. It's not the company's (or team's) fault this person broke the law and violated company policy while employed there. Yes, they "benefitted" from the person getting caught in that it allowed them to get out from under that big contract, but that doesn't mean they should be punished. 

Uh, that's kinda an apples to submarines comparison.  It would be more like that executive using insider trading knowledge to further the profits (wins) of the company.

[Mark68]

Actually, Buster Olney thinks that teams might pursue a different direction:

 

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2013/08/could-mlb-teams-sue-ped-offenders-part-i.html

 

"There are two basic legal remedies that could accomplish this. Depending upon the player’s contract status and the timing of the lawsuit, a team would likely seek a judgment for damages related to paid salary (i.e., an entitlement to recover money from the defendant player) and/or a declaratory judgment voiding future salary obligations (i.e., relief from paying some or all of the remainder of the player’s contract). It is also possible that a team could assert theories of recovery that would allow it to seek damages that are not tied to salary, though there would likely be more barriers to such claims. (The range of possible claims will be discussed in more detail in Part II of the series.)

Secondly, there are some non-monetary benefits that a team could hope to gain. Beneficial legal rulings could help set the stage to help win (or avoid) future conflicts of this nature, although the precedential value of any rulings could easily be marginalized depending upon a variety of factors. Certainly, there are potential deterrent and public relations benefits as well."

[Lifetime]

Uh, that's kinda an apples to submarines comparison.  It would be more like that executive using insider trading knowledge to further the profits (wins) of the company.

 

 

 

Uh, that would be apples to oranges too. There is no way to quantify how much a team benefits from PED use, or in fact whether they benefit at all. That's not the case for insider trading, cooking the books, fraud, etc.

[shellback]

w/l record is an arbitrary benefit.

hmmm...

[Lifetime]

What?  You can't tell if they benefited?  Now you are just telling jokes.

OK Nate, please feel free to quantify the benefits for me. How much effect does PED use have on a player? How much does that PED use benefit the team? Does PED use have some sort of set amount of benefit, a minimum amount of benefit, a maximum amount of benefit. Do all players show an increased ability from PED use? 

[Lifetime]

w/l record is an arbitrary benefit.

hmmm...

nice simplistic argument. How much did PED use directly effect W/L record? Is there anyway to quantify that or even attach a reasonably accurate estimate? Arbitrary.

[katie]

troll

Pot meet kettle

[nate]

I doubt you will find anyone that will tell you that players don't benefit from PEDs.  Increased player performance benefits the team.  Ergo the team has benefited from cheating.

[nate]

Pot meet kettle

Link?

[austin724]

Someone ask Tim Salmon his thoughts on if a team should be punished as well. I heard him say the other night that they should be.

[Lifetime]

Pot meet kettle

This coming from someone who has repeatedly posted comments like that while having nothing to add to the topic of the discussion.

[shellback]

nice simplistic argument. How much did PED use directly effect W/L record? Is there anyway to quantify that or even attach a reasonably accurate estimate? Arbitrary.

our opinions are all much simpler than yours, however, i would encourage you to look at bartolo colon's w/l record.

and, i didn't capitalize colons name purposely. so don' go all english teacher on me.