#San Francisco Giants Hit With Another #PED Suspension - This TimeinMinors

Overlooked in recent past news, reported by SportingNews.com 9-6-12:

San Francisco Giants hit with another PED suspension, this time in the minor leagues:


"  The latest to be busted is catching prospect Leonardo Rojas, a 22-year old who was drafted in the 15th round in June out of Miami Dade County South Community College. Rojas reported to San Francisco’s Arizona Rookie League club and hit .250/.333/.364 with a .697 OPS in 52 plate appearances.


 This news comes after the Giants have already lost major leaguers Guillermo Mota and Melky Cabrera for 100 and 50 games, respectively. Both tested positive for PEDs.


     Being that Rojas is 22 and was taken in the 15th round means he isn’t incredibly high on the team’s prospect list, but it’s still another blemish for a franchise long linked to doping and cheating when it comes to PEDs.


Interesting relating article : http://touch.goldengatesports.com/goldengatesports/#!/entry/peds-and-baseball-an-unfair-game,5122815bd7fc7b567035faf3


    The above latest revelation has to lead one to further believe that the Giants are not carefully screening or vetting their prospects and trades to have such a preponderance of players continue to show up in the PED files as compared with other teams. In fact, one has to almost wonder if or believe that Giants management is purposely overlooking such tainted players or even going after them after seeing such a long string of tainted - usually Latin - players come through the Organization going all the way back to the Bonds era beginning in 2001 (Remember perhaps not a total coincidence the Giants have parlayed two World Series in three years. We know for sure that Cabrera , alone, gave the Giants enough hitting and game winning hits to put the Giants in the series last year - even before he was caught cheating and suspended.





In addition, there are many players from other teams who got into PEDs through Bonds, the Giants and Local Balco Labs. Probably near half the players implicated in Mitchell got their drugs either directly or indirectly from Giants players / Balco connection... such as Sheffield, Giambi(s) , Verade,etc. And then there are probably that 'close to 50% ' , according to ictor Conte of Balco fame, who are still using PEDs in a newer less detectable form. However, when drug tests were not even given during the regular season it would be hard to indict players, anyway. Even this season, there' s only a single required testing, so once that test is given, players can comfortably go back on the juice. Perhaps. That's why we've seen some stats go down, such as those of Scutaro, perhaps being careful to wait until the test is given. But then, it's hard to figure totally - perhaps the smart players know more than we do; we will see, of late, whe one guy's stats drop significantly ,eg Crawford, another's will risen((Scutaro, Belt).



Perhaps not a total coincidence the Giants have parlayed two World Series in three years. We know for sure that Cabrera , alone, gave the Giants enough hitting and game winning hits to put the Giants in the series last year - even before he was caught cheating and suspended.
The late season acquisition of already implanted users Jose Guillen seemed to 'fuel' the Giants further , as it were, with averages and homer numbers 'taking off' the last month of the season. After the Giants lost one of those late season surprises, Renteria, they went out and got another Mitchell-implicated player , Miguel Tejada. When Tejada failed they groomed Crawford, with the help of another new players , 37 year old Marco Scutaro, who would suddenly raised his average 100 points while cutting his strikeouts in half after joining the Giants and help propel them to another World Series win in 2013. Scutaro, who attributed it to luck, would help Crawford raise his average another 50 points from 2012; though his average is down of late to .279 the 'little ' no-hit infielder of a year ago leads the Giants in home runs with five!



P.S. We don't mean to single out only Scutaro, Crawford, Belt and of course Sandoval. There are probably others on the Giants using PEDs. We've only addressed the more obvious cases.
Sstrikeouts , or lack thereof, are a key indicator of PED use. when you see a player cut his strikeouts way down, like scutaro (last year) and Sandoval (this year) - while significantly raising averages over a period of time, it just has to be more than coincidence , or luck in the case of Scutaro. It's amazing that this stuff is still going on more tha ten years since Bonds and Balconreally got it all started - and made a mockery of the game. Perhaps some day another sportswriter like Lance or Mark - or player- will be brave enough to stand up again and say what many probably know right now. But, then , we have a new generation of fans who only know steroid baseball, yet there are still a lot of old school fans , like us, who still care and would like to not have to play this game, Who's On PEDs...