Manny Ramirez who is a very good player on the Dodgers got suspended for 50 games today for using a banned substance. The substance he used was a gonadotropin which is used to raise the testosterone level. It is also used to improve a person’s sex drive. It is also used to replenish a person’s testosterone level after using steriods. That 3rd category is what has everyone up in arms.
Manny did use a banned substance but he did not test positive for steroids. The substance he did use is not a performance enhancer as far as muscle tone is concerned. It does make you a better lover but I think we all can agree that’s not what anyone is doing on the baseball diamond.
Lots of people are screaming that the Dodgers should be stripped of all the runs and RBIs that Manny was responsible for and have their won/loss record adjusted. I understand that sentiment so I decided to find out what would happen if you remove all of his runs and RBIs. Here’s the results of that exercise. The one thing that we have to decide is in the case of ties who gets the win? I don’t think it would be fair to suggest that the Dodgers lose all games that come out as ties but I have that as an option. In that case the Dodgers would be 3 games down from San Francisco now and 1 game behind San Diego and Colorado. They would still be 3 games ahead of Arizona. In fact in every scenario the Dodgers stay ahead of Arizona. The only scenario that has them not in the lead is the aforementioned “lose all ties” case. So here’s how it would look if they took all of Manny’s runs and RBIs.
