Three thoughts about the Melky Cabrera suspension:
1) It’s good news for the Dodgers. However, it hardly ensures that they will make the playoffs – or that, as some have written, they should. One player doesn’t decide a season – and that’s without even knowing what will happen to other players in the remaining 44 games.
2) I’ve seen it written where you could tell from Cabrera’s dramatic improvement compared with 2010 that something nefarious was up. Yes, that looks as neat and tidy as a bow … until you consider him alongside Matt Kemp, who is six weeks younger than Cabrera. Look at these OPS stats:
Player 2006-10 2011-12 Change Cabrera .709 .849 19.7% Kemp .808 1.009 20.0%
My point, I hope it’s clear, is not to accuse Kemp of anything untoward (nor is it to imply at all that OPS is a definitive stat), but merely to illustrate that the revelation about Cabrera doesn’t justify making assumptions about every ballplayer who shows dramatic improvement.
3) Some people can’t understand how people can be dumb enough to violate the MLB drug policy when they know they’re going to be tested. The explanation is that laws are broken every day, sometimes by stupid people, sometimes by smart people, sometimes rationally, sometimes not.
