Fucking nailed it.

This may have been the most predictable PED suspension of all-time. Oh, what, after a guy gets suspended for PEDs in 2012 he suddenly turns in the best years of his career? Nope, nothing to see here.

Here’s what I had previously written about that fraudulent, fake, crook, fraud, faker, thief Byrd, both when he was traded by the Mets and when the Phillies acquired him:

When he was traded by the Mets:

Only the Mets would be dumb enough to print (apparently unsponsored) t-shirts and then render them useless before they were to be of use. That’s bad business, and bad business is part of the reason why the Mets were forced to trade Byrd, who, at 35, is suddenly having the best season of his career (…), in the first place.

When the Phillies signed him:


But even if you take Byrd’s numbers at face value and assume that, magically, him having the best year of his career in his mid-30s after a positive PED test was just happenstance or hard work or good ol’ wily veteranism, that would fail to take into account the fact that he was the beneficiary of a huge amount of luck. His BABIP – average on balls put in play – in 2013 was .353, the highest of his career. I’m no SABR nerd, but if I was, I’d tell you that, almost without fail, a player’s BABIP will eventually regress to between .290 and .310. Byrd’s has always been high – for his career, it’s at .325 – but even for him, .353 is unattainable over the long-term. Plus, he struck out a career-high 144 times last season. He’s obviously swinging harder and more foolishly, and benefitting from some luck on the balls he does put into play. Last season was an eyebrow-raising anomaly, which just happened to come in a last-ditch effort for a final contract. RED FLAG. RED FLAG. RED FLAG.

And:

“HEY, THAT GUY HAD CAREER HIGHS IN HOME RUNS, SLUGGING PERCENTAGE AND OPS AT 36 IN A CONTRACT YEAR A YEAR AFTER TESTING POSITIVE FOR PEDS! SIGN HIM UP!

I don’t know why you’d read any other site.

Side note: Also heard Byrd was a malcontent dick when he was with the Phillies.

UPDATE: Dan Haren going hard: