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Branyan is as much to blame as the M's, but he hurt the team by trying to play in the second half with a bad back. How many times have we seen this with M's players? Can't the M's do any better in medical diagnostics? Maybe he earned his coin in the first half, but he showed that you couldn't count on him for the season. Pay him $8M for his first 80 games, then give him incentive pay to stay healthy for the second half. I obviously don't mean just hauling is carcass out to first every every day, but actually being healthy.