Yeah, for a guy who said he wasn’t interested in the performance enhancer side of baseball, I sure do a lot of posts on it. I guess I’m a little awestruck by the whole thing. As I’ve said before, I think the only way to really get to the bottom of it is to either legalize all of it, or blow the league up. I don’t think either will happen for some time, which makes it a little interesting to watch. 

There’s a good piece on The Biz of Baseball detailing the number of suspensions handed out due to testing of the various drugs as agreed upon in the (JDA) Joint Drug Agreement between MLB and the MLBPA.

Maury Brown, the writer of the piece and of the site itself, calls the period not the steroid era, but the testing era. He states from the beginning that while he’s listing the number of suspensions per franchise, he doesn’t believe it correlates with the numbers, adding that the data is far more complex than that.

An awful lot may depend on where they have selected to focus player development. If you happen to have a lot of high dollar free agents on your roster, there is a good chance that hGH, and not steroids, could be used by players.

Those caught at the minor league level are caught, in large part, due to economics. Steroids are cheaper than hGH, and therefore, more likely to be used, which leads to more positive tests.

He provides numbers on the kinds of drug violations, a break down by substance, and then by team. Somewhat surprisingly the Mariners come out on top, although, again, Brown states that’s not the point. But one interesting theme he touches on is:

I would suggest that not all agents with players that do not speak English have not done their job entirely in informing players to the best level that they could. I believe that the MLBPA have advisors, as should MLB. Players need to be educated about what is, and is not permitted and that substances could easily be within a wide array of supplements.

He concludes my saying the piece was written to be updated, especially once suspensions stemming from the allegations cited in the Mitchell Report are handed down.