ESPNs investigative unit, Outside The Lines, has reported that Major League Baseball will seek to suspend about 20 players connected to Biogenesis. Through the Miami-based anti-aging clinic, its founder Tony Bosch has allegedly supplied players with performance enhancing drugs. Some of the players being targeted by the league include Alex Rodriguez, Ryan Braun, Nelson Cruz, Jhonny Peralta, Bartolo Colon, Everth Cabrera and Melky Cabrera. According to OTLs report, MLB will seek to suspend players for 100 games. The 100-game suspension is actually reserved for second violations; first time offenders only get 50 games. While most players would likely be first time offenders, MLB is taking the position that the players involvement with Biogenesis constitutes not one, but two offences, thereby warranting 100 games. The rationale for the double offence as reported by OTL, is as follows: "the players connection to Bosch constitutes one offence, and previous statements to MLB officials denying any such connection or the use of PEDs constitute another." Guilt Without A Positive Drug Test? MLBs drug policy, called the Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program, provides that the league can suspend players for testing positive for PEDs. This is nothing new and fans are accustomed to seeing suspensions in baseball, and sports generally, accompanied by a positive drug test. In fact, baseball has never suspended a major league player without a positive drug test. MLB did suspend Tigers minor league pitcher Cesar Carrillo for 100 games without a positive drug test. The wrinkle in that case, however, was that Carillo as a minor leaguer was not a member of the MLB Union, and on that basis, was not entitled to an appeal. So the decision went unchallenged. So how can MLB even consider suspending the likes of Braun and Rodriguez without a positive drug test? Way #2 To Test "Positive" Well, the Drug Policy also provides that absent a positive drug test, MLB can still suspend a player if it can otherwise prove that a player possessed or used PEDs. In seeking to establish use or possession, the league can rely on things like admissions, written records, e-mails and third party testimony. All this is done with a view to establishing guilt in the absence of a positive test. This is called a non-analytical positive. So in cases where we have a positive drug test, which is direct evidence of cheating, that would qualify as a positive analytical result. In cases where a league looks to establish cheating by way indirect evidence, that is a case of a non-analytical positive result. There is a reason the collectively bargained Drug Policy (which means it was agreed on by the players) provides for non-analytical positives as a basis for suspensions. New technologies for detecting the use of PEDs in athletes are historically a step or two or ten behind sophisticated doping substances. So non-analytical positives help bridge that gap and can operate as an effective tool in fighting doping. So thats where Biogenesis founder Bosch comes in. He has agreed to cooperate with MLB, providing the league with documentary evidence and sworn affidavit testimony detailing his involvement with about two dozen major league baseball players. Among the allegations will be that he sold the players PEDs and personally injected Rodriguez with PEDs (the Yankee third baseman has flatly denied the allegations). So absent a positive drug test, MLB will look to rely in large part on Boschs evidence to establish that certain players did in fact use or possess PEDs contrary to the leagues Drug Policy. Bosch looks to be the key witness. More on that later. Wait More - Way #3 To Test "Positive" The Drug Policy also provides that the league may discipline a player if he has facilitated the sal