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"In his letter, Castillo told teams that he was frustrated that an elbow injury wasn't healing properly, and he turned to steroids in order to perform better at the combine."
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I'd be shocked if someone took him in day one. The primary reason his stock was so high was his combine results, which by his own admission were steroid-boosted. He may have taken them to help heal from the injury faster, but I don't think anybody disputes that steroids increase a person's level of physical performance as well.
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I think was poor choice of words on his/whoever is reporting. Anyone will tell you that for steroids to work you need to take them on a regular basis and still work out. His weight didn't jump appreciably and speed is a product of speed training, not necessarily physical bulk of muscles (though admittedly it does help). Besides that it seems like there are different types of steroids nowadays (that cream Barry Bonds used is just supposed to help out with muscle recovery) and he at least said he did it for the injury. Now this isn't to discount what he did, but I think you can see where a guy is coming from if he knows he can put up 30 reps, but because of a nagging elbow injury he's not going to be able to put more than 10...might cost him a ton of money. Not the smartest move in the world, but people do make mistakes.
Also some other things to consider...
1) He was rated a mid-to-late second rounder in the first place...and that based on production, not the Combine. He was bumped up into the latter half of the first because of his Combine workouts.
2) Everything I hear about the kid is he's smart, tough, and has a great motor. Roids don't help you in those departments last time I checked.
3) He came clean when they asked him about it. No "I didn't know it was..." bull****. He said yeah, I did it, it was dumb, and here's proof that was the only time I did it. Plus he had his coach come out to back up his statement. Take from that what you will, but it is something at least.
All these people saying he's going to drop to day 2...I just don't buy it. EVen if you handicap his combine measurements by an appreciable degree he come up with decent numbers and combine that with his production
again, I just don't see him falling past Rd 3.