When they [players who aren’t power players] are investigated/prosecuted/sanctioned, no one cares. The vast majority of those who tested positive are a) those who used to recover from injury b) middle relievers (who recover from injury nearly every day) and c) quick speedy types (Alex Sanchez). But every discussion of PEDs focuses on the fact that chicks dig the long ball, and thus, only those guys were guilty.
That that’s totally true. I also wonder why the NFL gets such a serious pass. Look at Shawne Merriman. Look at all the other old players who stepped up and said, “I used PEDs” and no one gives a shit.
There is so much work being done out there by people who actually know the science who are coming to the conclusion that PEDs in baseball were bad - but no worse than greenies. Had no worse effect on numbers than a smaller strike zone. A much smaller effect than expansion. Are probably no worse than caffiene use!
But no - don’t you dare gore our sacred ox. Grandpappy used to tell me stories of Roger Maris - don’t you dare suggest he might have taken greenies in order to stay aware the whole season. Shame on you for suggesting Cal Ripken never would have made it if he didn’t have access to the Leaded pot of coffee in the clubhouse. Those are our heroes! I’m sorry, but baseball history is FILLED with flawed people! If you want to make an argument for Maris - make a segregation argument. If you want to make an argument for Aaron, make an expansion argument. Make a “strikezone the size of Bonds’ pre-PED head” argument. But the fact is that EVERYONE was using PEDs, and by “everyone” I mean “for the last 50 years”. Pitchers, hitters, outfielders - everyone. And the biggest fact remains - reaction time and reflexes reign supreme in the game of inches.
You mean the same time that expansion just occurred, the strike zone shrunk, and outfield walls were being brought in? There were more home runs you say?!?
Are you suggesting there hadn’t been a dramatic shrinking of the strike zone post-strike? Okay…
(I’ll take the failure on your part to address the other points I raised as a concession to those, since you have a history of not going back to previous points raised.)
Expansion and the strike zone aren’t really relevant comparisons, it seems to me. The statistical profile of the league changes year to year for all kinds of reasons. Those effects are part of the structure and rules of the game (or umpiring conventions, at least)–affecting all players equally.
The problem is when a subset of players is gaining an advantage by breaking the rules.
Sure. But the point that so many people miss is that subset is probably the vast majority of baseball - hitters *and *pitchers. Yeah - it’s easier to hit a HR when you’re juiced, but it’s harder to hit that juiced HR when the pitch is juiced as well. (Or, more realistically, it’s late in the season and the ace pitcher you’re facing probably would be a AAA scrub because the ace needed a few days of recovery from his 9 IP shutout 5 days ago, but can now take the mound without missing a beat because he’s recovered using the clear. Or middle reliever, etc.)
Why? They directly impact the very best players in a positive way. Put Barry Bonds up against someone who would have been in an AA league with only 28 teams, and he has a harder time making contact. Bonds additionally had amazing patience and fantastic batting eye. Make the strike zone bigger and he can’t choose his perfect pitcher nearly as easily, and has to swing at less optimal pitches.
Put Bonds up against himself. Bonds was already a Hall of Fame player with a long career who was following the classic spiral down as he aged. All of a sudden, at age 35, some three years after the last expansion, he sets a career high in homers, and follows that the next year with the “major league record”. Get real.
Sosa, while his career high was improved from 40 to 66 in the expansion year, four years later hit 64. Still due to expansion? I think not.
McGwire was done; his career was over. His record indicates that he started using before expansion!
Dave Kingman can only be kicking himself that he was not born 20 years later. He’d have hit 1000. In one year. And batted .214 with 1001 RBIs.
Get real about what? I make absolutely no reservations that PEDs had an impact on Bonds (or anyone else). Just that no one should look beyond what EVERYONE was using (i.e. amphetamines). There were a great number of factors taking place, but just one of them seems to be the focus of people wanting to preserve their precious memories of the past.
Why don’t you think expansion was still a factor 4 years later?
Why have you still not addressed the strike zone? Or park dimensions? Gosh - one would think people are focused solely on the PEDs…
Because it may be partially about the winding of the balls. But your explanations are incorrect. It is also about steroids and HGH. After the crackdown home run records have returned to normal. That should tell you something.
Evidence? (At least in that short of a time period.)
You have two examples as proof? Really? Also - do you want to take another look at Griffey’s numbers and tell me he didn’t see a gigantic power surge in the late 90s?
And still no defense of the shift in strike zone or the park dimensions…
Yes, in fact, I have looked. His power surge occured at age 26, and began to fail at age 30, exactly as expected.
I gave you that defense: Cal Ripken and Ken Griffey. It’s extremely disingenous of you to pretend that my direct response to that sentence was not a defense.
So…still just defending 2 players over that entire span?
Two examples is not a defense against potentially several thousand examples. Especially when one of the main results of PED use is recovery from short term injury (i.e. being able to play every single day over a long period of time).
And again - the argument isn’t: “Steroids did nothing”. It’s “steroids had an effect - but so did every other PED that had been used for the last 50 years.”
Is that what the argument is? Fine. Demonstrate the effect of amphetemine users
upon baseball during the 1950s and 1960s. What player’s records are demonstrably impoved above the level of their peers? What player’s records demonstrate that they did not use amphetimines during that period?
See, that’s not even really my argument (the one about other PEDs). It’s an argument, sure.
My argument is that there were numerous factors that caused an increase in home-run rates league-wide in the mid-90s, some of which were directly controlled by MLB (baseball, park sizes, expansion), likely with the express purpose of driving up HR rates to increase league interest. Blaming it all on PEDs is cheap scapegoating.
I don’t like steroid use in baseball (or any sport). But to attempt to wipe out the entirety of MLB for a 15-year period is overkill, IMO. Let the record state what it states - we’re all adults here and we can all make what adjustments we feel are appropriate when assessing players from different eras.
League structure, ballpark locations and design, rules and umpiring conventions–these are part of the game, and they directly impact all players.
When a ballpark in Denver was added, for example, the whole league got a bonus to batting numbers and a penalty to pitching. The players, as a group, didn’t get better or worse, but the numbers look different because of their different context. Meaningful comparisons across years must always make adjustments for such developments. Expansion or changes to the strike zone are among these. Savvy baseball statisticians know how to take account.
PEDs, on the other hand, are a secret, unintended (by the league), unequal factor, affecting only some players in any given year. There’s no way to separate it out.
I’d extend that to the 70s, 80s and early 90s, since those are the years you’re not arguing for. I’d also push for not just using amphetamines, but using any drugs during that period. Because the contention is that “PEDs were ‘different’ during the late 90s-early 00s.” In addition, you’re STILL ignoring everything else I’ve been harping about - pulling fences in and reducing the strike zone. Why do you keep avoiding that? Because the fact remains - PED use has been constant since the 1950s (40s if you go back to Ted Williams bringing greenies back from WWII). The difference is the late 1990s when we saw myriad changes to the landscape of baseball - changes sacred cow defenders totally ignore.
And let’s take the scourge of greenies and stadium size and pitching (expansion) and fielding completely out of the equation. Let’s judge Ruth and Bonds and Maris and McGwire and A-Rod and Griffey and Gehrig and everyone else on equal footing. It’d look like this: