Baseball: - Drug Testing, Key To Success, Velocity, International Draft, Sean Burroughs

The real problem lies within Major League Baseball. It lies within an organization that has correctly railed its players into a drug testing problem. This year, they will test for HGH, a product of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement. The process is based on confidentiality. The CBA explicitly states that all tests will remain confidential through the appeal process. Braun’s result was leaked to ESPN before he has had the chance to put together a proper appeal. His result was leaked before anything was finalized. There is something very wrong with a system that doesn’t allow that system to actually play out. The players reluctantly gave into a testing system. They have even given in to blood testing. Evidently, the process may just play out in public for the world to judge and to get into a frenzy about on just the possibility of someone cheating. http://www.baseballdigest.com/2011/12/14/brauns-test-not-the-problem

If you ask managers, coaches, and players in pro baseball for the key to success, their answers will all come down to that one word: balance. In a variety of ways they will express this same fundamental concept: “In baseball, you can’t let yourself get too high OR too low.” During a game, a pitcher will experience highs: a key strikeout with men on base, a great stretch and stop by his SS to start a double-play, an umpire with a wide strike zone. AND lows: walking the lead-off batter in an inning, an easy pop up behind third that falls between the 3b, SS, and LF for a glaring error, an umpire with a needle’s eye strike zone. Although it’s a lot easier to get back to balance after experiencing a high, you will still need a method to reset, even after something good happens. Of course, it is much more difficult to “reset” back to your neutral balance point, when things go bad. http://bosoxinjection.com/2011/12/14/q-what-is-the-key-to-success-in-baseball

I’m no PITCHf/x expert, but everything I’ve read by those capable of studying that data says that velocity is actually very important, perhaps more important than movement and location after all. It’s hard to throw a 100 mph fastball that is easy to hit, and you have to be Jamie Moyer to get away with an 80 mph, lukewarm heater. Even a few ticks in the ones column of a radar gun can make world of difference. However, until very recently, I believed that a proper study of a pitcher’s peripherals could tell you which of two guys with a 92 mph fastball has the superior arm, and I also believed that two pitchers with the same SIERAs with different fastball speeds were no different in future skill level. When discussing SIERA’s ability to adjust for pitcher control of BABIP, Dave Cameron once noted that velocity may explain some of the missing pieces of the puzzle that correlated with both strikeout and BABIP skills. However, I found that if you control for peripherals, age, year, and role, then knowing a pitcher’s velocity is not useful. http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/content/article/you-shall-know-our-velocity

Major League Baseball has taken another step toward its goal of implementing an international draft. MLB and the MLB Players' Association today announced they have formed an International Talent Committee to review the way international players are signed and developed. The formation of the committee was in accordance with the new collective bargaining agreement. MLBPA executive director Michael Weiner and MLB executive vice president of labor relations and human resources Rob Manfred are the committee's co-chairs. MLB vice president Kim Ng, Mets general manager Sandy Alderson (who had previously been in charge of MLB's efforts to reform its operations in Latin America) and Rays GM Andrew Friedman will be on the committee, as will MLBPA director of player relations Tony Clark, MLBPA senior advisor Rick Shapiro and MLBPA special assistant Stan Javier. http://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/prospects/2011/12/mlb-union-form-international-talent-committee-move-toward-international-draft

Third baseman Sean Burroughs, once the ninth-overall pick by the San Diego Padres in the 1998 draft, has agreed to a minor league deal, a team source confirmed Wednesday. Burroughs, now 31, ranked as high as No. 4 on Baseball America's top 100 list in 2002, at one point posting a .322/.386/.467 batting line for Triple-A Portland in 2001. Burroughs showed promise for the Padres in 2003 and 2004, posting a collective batting line of .292/.350/.384, and he has always been regarded a solid defender. But Burroughs' career ultimately hit a wall due in large part to substance abuse. In an excerpt from an ESPN.com feature in June, Burroughs described his life as a "Leaving Las Vegas" existence. The article said Burroughs was "checking in and out of the cheapest motels he could find, wandering the streets of Las Vegas at all hours and abusing every substance he could ingest. Burroughs says he was so desperate and paranoid that if you picked a couple particularly bad days in 2010 you could find this Little League hero, this Olympic gold medalist, this former big leaguer ... eating cheeseburgers out of garbage cans." http://www.1500espn.com/sportswire/Twins_reach_minor_league_deal_with_former_top_prospect_Sean_Burroughs121411