8:06pm: The Brewers have declined the option, Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel relays.
7:57pm: Longtime Brewers outfielder Ryan Braun is now a free agent, according to the MLBPA. That suggests the Brewers have turned down their half of a $15MM mutual option for 2021 in favor of a $4MM buyout.
Because of Braun’s recent decline, it’s no surprise that Milwaukee is going this route. Nevertheless, it could bring an end to a fruitful Brewers tenure for Braun. He joined the organization as the fifth overall pick in 2005 and proceeded to turn into one of the most productive players in the history of the franchise.
From his debut in 2007 up until this past season, Braun slashed .296/.358/.532 with 352 home runs, 216 stolen bases and 43.9 fWAR over 7,340 plate appearances. Braun also racked up six All-Star nods, a Rookie of the Year and the 2011 NL MVP Award along the way, though the latter accomplishment has been tainted because of his involvement in the Biogenesis scandal.
Major League Baseball suspended Braun for 65 games in 2013 after finding that he tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs. The ban cast a pall on what was an excellent career to that point, but Braun has been mostly productive at the plate since then. Injuries have taken their toll in recent years, though, and Braun is now coming off the worst offensive season of his career. The 36-year-old ended 2020 as a .233/.281/.488 hitter with eight home runs in 141 plate appearances, and he racked up almost as many appearances as a designated hitter (16) as he did an outfielder (20).
Braun said as recently as July that he’d like to continue his career in 2021, but that was before his troubles this year. He’ll now have to decide whether to continue in baseball, but if the universal DH doesn’t stick around next season, it won’t do Braun any favors should he seek another contract. Braun’s next deal (if there is one) won’t be especially lucrative.
lying cheater
Yup. He can go kick rocks.
Stop at the sanctimonious BS
You would turn yourself into a human pincushion in order to play pro ball…especially knowing there would be $4 million at the end regardless if you continued
So it’s ok to cheat then?
And it’s ok to frame someone else for your cheating?
I agree with this part. Completely immoral of him the way he tried to blame someone else, and ruin their life, to try and cover up his cheating.
“ruin their life”?
?
Dude. He didn’t do his minimum wage job properly. This called the results – rightly so! – into question. Guess I don’t have much sympathy for someone who’s excuse is incompetence.
Do your job, kids.
That’s the moral of the story.
🙂
Not to split hairs, but a lab tech is definitely not a minimum wage job. But your point is still a good one.
Lab technician…or another position in the healthcare/laboratory field that collected his sample.
Ducky, so to be clear, you’re saying making a mistake at your job is equally as egregious as cheating the system and then trying to ruin someone’s career to salvage your own by deflecting blame?
To be clear I’m not saying anything like that.
But go ahead and infer, revise, & free style with my take as much as you want.
🙂
Ducky loves those cheaters!
That’s not the big issue. He threw the guy who tested him under the bus and ruined his career. It’s one thing to cheat. It’s another thing to cheat, and ruin an innocent drug tester’s career while doing it.
How’s that ESPN reporter doing who threw Braun under the bus? The arbitration process is secret if the player wins their case when being accused of something. Braun had won. That guy’s mistake was why. Nothing more would have happened had the ESPN reporter or insider leaked the story. Guy wouldn’t have been thrown under the bus, Braun wouldnt have had to speak to a failed test that was tainted due to the mishandling. Now when Biogenesis came about and Braun implicated there the story could have been told without the guy being in such a negative spotlight.
So Braun is exonerated because someone else screwed up? Hard pass.
Are you are faulting a reporter for doing their job? It is hard to discern your possible ironic sarcasm under the Twitter-like “sentences.” Hopefully, your intent is of the sarcastic variety.
I agree Stan Lee Manly. Hard pass
This is what’s wrong with society today, all the news networks base their news off social media and message board comments. Everybody just wants to constantly one up the other to come off as the smartest person in the room, it’s sad and disgusting to view on a daily basis. Carry on folks, you’re doing an admirable job of dividing us further yet.
I personally don’t care about the cheating, it’s so hard to get worked up about it after living through the steroid era, it was the throwing the collector under the bus the way he did. Braun choose to be a pincushion to earn his millions, Braun got caught and then Braun tried to pin it on the guy that makes 1/100th per year then he does. Braun will forever be that person to me, not the guy that took steroids like so many before him but the man that tried to destroy another mans life simply to save his own skin.
Agree with you I’m all you said
These guys, man.
I played football and baseball in the 80’s. Gear was everywhere. Nobody viewed it as “cheating”. Rather, it was an all out attempt to just simply be the best ball player you could be.
The “liar, cheater” faction is exactly why I have so little trust in sports writers. People have just gobbled this up.
I wonder how many of them know what it’s like to really aspire to be excellent at anything.
so because people cheating didn’t think of it as cheating the rest of the world shouldn’t either?
Nah.
I think you – personally – should get very upset about it. I mean, why ruin a good HOTTAKE.
UH?
😉
lol just because you call something a “Hot take” doesn’t make it bad or even a hot take. This is what I just so love about the internet, someone wraps a lie in a nice pop culture phrase and suddenly they think their clever and worse, right.
Also I’m not upset, in fact I made it clear I didn’t care about his clear and obvious steroid use, I care about trying to destroy a mans life.
Being a jock isn’t the only thing someone can excel at. In schools, too much attention and money are given to sports while hardly anything goes to non-athletic endeavors that are just as vital if not more. At a middle school where I worked, I served as the advisor of the new student newspaper. It was a lot of work and I enjoyed it immensely but didn’t get a single penny for my efforts. Meanwhile, all the sports coaches got money for their afterschool gigs. And spare me that hogwash about sports building character. In a sport like football, the main lessons boys learn is how to act superior to their academic peers and being a bully. There’s nothing more aggravating in a classroom than some prima donna athlete who refuses to work hard because he thinks he’s the star of the class. Sports are not more important than the arts. In fact, I would say sports are less important.
One more thing: You should tread lightly when knocking journalists who are mainly there to keep us informed. Unfortunately, a lot of idiot leaders today are trying to cover up their own lies by telling their nitwit followers that news is fake. This is a dangerous trend that threatens our democracy. I will take great joy next Wednesday when I wake up realizing those idiots are hanging their heads and out of a job. As for journalism, the only thing you know for sure is that you can’t do it.
Of course it isn’t, @cey.
I never implied it was.
To your first point, that’s a Big Reason why I send my son to private school.
Also…man, I learned a lot about myself and some important life lessons on the football field. None of which were “how to act superior and be a bully”. Quite the opposite, actually.
I don’t need to reference any personal experiences I’ve had with the media.
So.
How can the BBWA elect Selig to the Hall while shunning the best ball players (outside of Mike Trout) that I’ve ever seen play?
Tell you why. Folks love their outrage. Look how any story on PEDs elicits a slew of MAD ONLINE!, stuff.
In fact it makes it harder in the classroom to be an athlete because teachers and professors have this notion that you do. Being a college baseball player at a smaller school. They don’t want you missing class and you are punished for it. So the athlete has to go above and beyond. Maybe a little different when you’re looking at huge schools and these stars, aka basketball one and done players, they don’t even need to go to school basically. But for 95% of us we are held accountable more than a normal student due to views as yours.
no. no i wouldnt.
Jmchale40
“Talladega is comming up in a few weeks and you know you wanna win that thing”
“NO I DONT”
Never liked Ryan Braun, never liked anyone who used steriods and won an MVP over someone who didn’t. Prince Fileder or someone else more deserving should have won the award. As far as the money goes, basically what you just said is if Satan offered me 4 million for my soul I’d do it. That’s foolish, you’ll understand one day
You are being kind
despicable person
He will probably retire. No he won’t be making the HOF either.
You who is without fault cast the first stone
Exactly.
Dirtbagblues! Where you at, man? Time to warm up your stoning arm.
😉
If any accusation or judgement can be cast aside simply because the one making it isn’t themselves perfect, does that also rule out prosecution by law? Admonishment at work? Like, if someone crashes into your car drunk, you can’t get mad, cuz you once stole a candy bar? I just don’t get the supposed logic.
So… Houston may be an option…
i think Braun should get another shot… he didnt play well in 2020 but he also wasn’t exactly terrible. I mean he showed he’s still got okay power (hitting 8 HR in 39 games) and given that he hit much better in 2019 and given his tremendous track record… he definitely deserves another shot somewhere to see if he’s still got anything left in the tank. He could be a valuable enough DH/part-time DH for a team in need of some pop, or worst case scenario some pop off the bench.
He can’t stay on the field. It’s time to let go.
“I think Braun should get another shot”
I seem to recall that his cheating was in oral form, not with needles.
He will 100% be back with the Brewers. Either going to retire or sign one more one-year deal with Milwaukee. Can’t see him on any other team.
I hope he gets linked to the Astros just for the comments section.
They will turn them off
They better not!
Now that’s funny!
The Era is Over. Good.
Astros should sign him. He would fit right in
I mean with that logic Braun would fit with all 30 teams as they all have some sort of cheating history.
In a few years, the Brewers will have a ceremony to retire his number and his specimen cup.
I wouldn’t mind him with the Cardinals for LF!!
As 1 of the more objective observers..i am telling you they’d be lucky to get 110 games out of him. Including a smattering of pinch hit appearances and 3 inning stints followed by 3-4 games being “unavailable” due to back, oblique, or some other nagging injury.
I’m certainly no fan of the cards but why him?
There is nothing about that scenario that would be worth it
He is the only person that I boo when I’m at the ballpark. Only player that I’ve booed in 50 years of going to games. He’s a horrible person. When I see that smug look on his face, I want to punch it. Good riddance!!
And the best part when the least educated baseball fans in the world, Cub fans, booed him, he hit a homer or got a hit that resulted in a RBI.
Never failed. And the look on the “fans” faces at Wrigley was PRICELESS.
Man, you are such a loser
He’d be helped by having the DH in the NL next season, but that appears to be dead.
Thank GOD the Braun era is OVER! (Watch us bring him back for cheap). Never will forgive him for what he did to that tester. He’s a pos and I’m glad I don’t have to be torn between my dislike for him and my love of MIL.
Probably the end of the line for Braun. However if the DH sticks he could conceivably return at a much lower rate
He would do well in that capacity. Heck, I’d take him for a year as a DH in TB.
I get what people are saying and all have valid points. But if you can sign him on a short cheap deal . Then have him there for every game on the bench to use as a pinch hitter late in games with runners in scoring positions at any time. There would be no one better to have .
Maybe he can get a job with Fedex
Hope he gives the Brewers fans one last chance to cheer for him. Only way he signs elsewhere is if he signs as a bench piece for a World Series contender in pursuit of a ring.
Geez. A=ROD was as bad if not worse than Braun in the stuff he tried to hide.. A-ROD is a star in his own mind on FOX Baseball broadcasts. I would take Braun over A-ROD on tv broadcasts all day everyday. The truth was never spilled by Rodriguez. In Braun’s case the lies came to fruition and most Brewers fans moved forward. Braun would do himself a favor and sign with the Crew for 5million as an often injured DH.
A-rod didn’t lie and pillage some blue collar guy trying to earn a basic living. Braun ne es bueno
Guy can’t hit without roids.
Flat out lied and made the poor guys life miserable. A true POS Braun is. Arrogant, goodbye and good riddance scum bag.
A little salt (for some): Braun is getting the Bobby Bonilla Bonus. Milwaukee will continue to pay him $1.8M every July 1st from 2022 thru 2031, regardless of any new contract he signs.
People will have the chance to rip him a new one for at least the next 11 celebrations of U.S. independence
Is Braun the next 1 year 4 hitter for the Braves?
Anybody remember Ryan Braun stumbling going around third in the 2011 playoffs? Anybody see Randy Arozarena do the same thing. Diffence is Braun ended up out cause he’s a lying cheater. Randy scored the winning run.
Now That’s What I Call Poetic Justice!
The worst form of human garbage imaginable. He should be in prison for the rest of his life. It’s not that he cheated, but rather that he made up an elaborate lie about how the situation went down and cast all blame on someone else thus ruining their life and career in the process. He lied to his organization, his teammates, and the fans. Even after these falsehoods were exposed he refused to own up to his actions and maintained his smug exterior. He’ll be remembered as a scumbag and deserves to burn in hell.
Nottingham–He always speaks highly of you 🙂
Whatevever. All you Braun haters. People make mistakes. If I could still play baseball I would. Its the best game ever! I would have done everything in my power to keep playing. Enuf of the Braun bashing! I aint a saint, and niether is Brauny or any of you. Dude played his ass off for Milwaukee. RYAN BRAUN FOREVER!
I still just don’t get that logic. I don’t hate Braun, but I don’t get THAT particular logic.
I’m still waiting for that cheater to give Matt Kemp his 2011 MVP trophy.