Sunday diversion / faulty logic, but very interesting baseball question

Jayson Stark poked me in the eye (unintentionally, but still)
If you are a fan of Manhattan Loft Guy baseball diversions, you know I have taken a pretty hard line about reigning National League MVP Ryan Braun. (Refresh yourself with my February 26, diversionary Sunday: Ryan Braun is NOT "innocent"; it is long [surprise!] but I am pleased about how well it holds up.)

Here comes Jayson Stark of ESPN with a very interesting analysis, doing what all good baseball geeks do: looking at numbers and asking questions about our assumptions. He is worth a full read, but here’s the gist: if Ryan Braun’s 2011 performance was enhanced by illegal testosterone, you’d expect his post-scandal 2012 numbers to not be enhanced, right? After all, Braun couldn’t be cheating this year, after having dodged a bullet over the off-season, right? Facts are Good Things, and Stark has a set of them: Braun’s YTD 2012 numbers are very similar to his 2011 performance at the same stage of that season. The money conclusion:

those facts say this is exactly the same player now as the guy we were watching before that test

Stark’s just raising questions, of course. My first (defensive) thought was that this is a Small Sample weakness (Braun won the MVP because of his entire 2011 performance, not just the first third of the season), but the fact is that his overall 2011 performance looks very much like his 2012 start. (You can verify that by on Baseball Reference, here.)

direct vs. indirect evidence
My more mature (still defensive?) thought was that Stark’s logic is faulty. The question he is marshalling facts about is “did Braun use illegal synthetic testosterone?” and his logic train makes these stops:

• if Braun cheated in 2011, his performance numbers should have been elevated by his elevated testosterone
• (this one is unstated, but necessary) if Braun cheated in 2011, he must have stopped cheating by now (otherwise: he is an idiot)
• (this one is unstated, but necessary) if Braun cheated in 2011 and his performance then was enhanced, the effects would have worn off by now
• (he pulls into Union Station, smiling broadly, with this one) because “those facts say this is exactly the same player now as the guy we were watching before that test”, those facts also say that he could not have been cheating then

I concede that Stark (and Braun) might be right; there is no 100% proof because the positive test result was not fully adjudicated (see that February 26 post if you are not sure why I say that). If we did not have that positive test (and Braun’s technical defense to it), we would be looking at circumstantial evidence as the best evidence. And Braun may yet put up a body of work that shows a consistently high level of performance that is both (a) presumably clean and (b) at 2011 levels. But that is indirect evidence, no matter how complete.

I don’t know the science, but it is possible that Braun’s artificial testosterone did not boost his performance so much as his stamina, by helping him avoid (quickly recover from) the kind of nagging injuries that may have depressed his 2010 stats. I have no idea … but that’s a logical possibility, consistent with Stark’s facts.

Stark cogently deals with the question “did Braun’s 2011 stats reflect PED use?”, using 2012 as a presumably clean baseline, but that is a weaker way to ask the real question (“did he use PEDs in 2011?”) than this question: “is there direct evidence that he did cheat?”. That direct evidence, of course, is the positive test result that found elevated levels of testosterone that (as I understand it) cannot have been produced naturally by Braun.

Stark is arguing by inference about whether Braun had illegal stuff in his system. Nice try, but they found illegal stuff in his system.

I would not say “case closed” because there is always the possibility that Braun is (truly) innocent. But I am satisfied based on everything I have seen to date (Stark’s interesting numbers included) that it is much more likely than not that Braun cheated, and got away with it. Until there is an effective attack on the validity of the test results (as opposed to whether the way the sample was handled was consistent with MLB’s deal with the union), that’s my story, and i am sticking to it.

But it is a free country, and you are free to disagree. Baseball being baseball, numbers are always good things on which to base arguments (even if there is better data on this exact question), so expect to see these arguments going on and on. That said, (a) the arbitrator did not find Braun “innocent” and (b) “how the hell did Phil Rizzuto get into the Hall of Fame?”

© Sandy Mattingly 2012