Bobbleheads
Posted: August 16th, 2008 | Filed under: Baseball | 78 Comments »
You may have heard that the Kansas City Royals are planning to give out Tony Pena Jr. bobblehead dolls on Sept. 6. You, in fact, may have decided to beat the Labor Day rush and already started making jokes about the Kansas City Royals giving out bobblehead dolls of a player who is hitting .160 and has an OPS+ of 2 (yeah, 2) and has 13 plate appearances since July 8. You may even have started to plan your “They’re really giving away Tony Pena bobblehead” party, complete with artifacts from other historically inappropriate decisions like:
1. The album cover from the Jerry Lewis Singers recording of “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “If I Had a Hammer.”
2. A Mike Jacobs T-shirt from that glorious day when the Florida Marlins gave it away on Jewish Heritage Day despite the somewhat inconvenient fact that Mike Jacobs is not actually Jewish*.
3. A recording of the job interview Matt Millen had with the Detroit Lions.
*OK, so by now you have certainly heard about the online headline they had last week in Haaretz, a big newspaper in Israel: “Two Jews and and a black man help Phelps fulfill Olympic dream.” Many have talked about how it sounds like the beginning of a joke that, say, you would hear in a Shecky Greene act. We here in Beijing have been wondering for a while now what inspired the direction of that headline. The image I have had is of Michael Phelps up on the podium for his post-race press conference, behind the microphone, with his coach next to him, and he leans forward and says: “First off, before we get started here, I just want to say that I really want to thank the black man who helped me fulfill my Olympic dream.” Then he sits back to take questions, but first his coach leans over and whispers something in his ear. Phelps then goes forward again and says: “And also the two Jewish guys.”
In any case, back to Pena bobblehead, the Royals apparently are crying foul about the jokes: They don’t really think it’s fair to second guess the Pena bobblehead decision, which was made way back in February. They have a small point — bobblehead days, because of the various intricate bobblehead logistics involved, have to been be planned way in advance. And so there’s no way to guess what will happen. When the decision to have a Tony Pena bobblehead day was made, he was the Royals starting shortstop, he was viewed as an above average defender, and he’s a very likable guy who seems a worthy representative for “Hispanic Heritage Day,” which is on the same day. Plus, let’s face it, these are the Royals and there are not too many slam-dunk bobblehead candidates.
Of course, it’s only a small point because Pena also had a 66 OPS+ last year, which was the third-worst in baseball for anyone getting 500 or more at-bats. And there was every indication, based on his minor league numbers, that the 66 OPS+ was, in fact, a fluke year, a Norm-Cash-in-1961 kind of season*, and that he was very likely going to hit a lot worse in 2008. It really did not have take Nostradamus to see this year coming.
*I’ve written here before that Norm Cash was, in fact, a very good player in years other than 1961. He’s underrated in that way. The guy played more than 2,000 games and he had a career 139 OPS+. I appreciate that OPS+ is not the end-all, but still Cash’s OPS+ is higher than Ken Griffey, George Brett, Al Kaline, Billy Williams, Tony Gwynn, Joe Morgan, Rod Carew, Wade Boggs, Roberto Clemente, Dave Winfield, Rod Carew and Jim Rice, all of whom are in the Hall of Fame or will be shortly. Now, let me be quick to say that I am not suggesting that Cash was as good as any of these guys — I’m not saying that at all — I’m just saying Cash got on base, and he hit for power in a low-voltage era, and that 139 OPS+ is pretty damn impressive.
Still, while I think Cash’s overall career is under-appreciated — for a baseball fan, that 1961 season is impossible to take your eyes off of. The guy hit .361/.487/.662 with 8 triples, 41 homers, 124 walks, a 201 OPS+. Unreal stuff. And my favorite part of that season were two short stretches he had in June of that year.
The first stretch began with in the second game of a doubleheader against Cleveland on June 8.
– June 8: In that game he got two walks (one intentional) and two hits, one of those a homer off Wynn Hawkins.
– June 9: He went two for three with an RBI single and another intentional walk.
– June 10: He managed one hit against Cleveland’s Gary Bell, but it was a home run and the Tigers won 2-0.
– June 11: In the first game of a doubleheader, he got two hits, both long home runs to right field off of Washington’s Joe McClain.
– June 11: in the second game of the doubleheader, he went four-for-five with another walk and another home run.
– June 13: After a day off, he face Boston’s Gene Conley and he had two more hits, two home home runs, another intentional wak.
So that’s six games — in those six games he hit .650, reached based 18 out of 25 times, and mashed seven homers. That’s the kind of week a hitter dreams about. Thing is, after a few days, he had another week that was just about as good.
– June 20: Norm cracked a triple and a homer off Dick Donovan in a Tigers victory.
– June 22: After a rainout, he had two more hits, including a double, and a walk and he scored two runs.
– June 23: He went two-for-two, got hit by a pitch, hit another triple, scored three times, as Tigers scored 13 runs in the first four innings. The Tigers, incidentally, were in first place now.
– June 24: A hit, a walk, a homer off Mudcat Grant, two more runs scored as Tigers win in the ninth.
– June 25: First game of a doubleheader, Norm hit two more home runs, both off the lamentable Wynn Hawkins, as Tigers won fifth game in a row.
– June 25: Second game of the doubleheader, two more hits and another homer for Norm Cash, and it was another homer off Gary Bell. He also walked.
– June 28: First game of a doubleheader, Norm doesn’t hit any homers, but he cracks three singles against Chicago.
So that’s seven games — this time he hit .560, reached base 18 out of 29 times, and mashed five home runs. Norm Cash really was a good player for most of his career, but it had to be a lot of fun for him in ‘61.
Again, back to Pena, the reason this bothers me is not that the Royals were unduly optimistic about Pena’s baseball future or that they did not anticipate the potential for extreme comedy built around a Pena bobblehead doll. No, what bugs me is a a more general thought about how we rush to make a player a fan favorite. We don’t take our time anymore, wait for a player to succeed, it’s all about potential and promise and young success.
I think Alex Gordon is an even better example of this … I like Alex Gordon. I do. He’s only 24 years old, he’s shown signs of becoming a good defensive third baseman, he has flashed some power potential, he seems to be improving his plate discipline. If forced to bet — something I do not like doing because I’m terrible at predicting the future — I would bet that Alex Gordon will be an All-Star more than once in his career.
But … I could lose that bet. Because Gordon is also hitting .256/.348/.418 in his second full season, he’s on pace to strike out about 150 times*, his defensive numbers appear to be atrocious (only Jorge Cantu among third base qualifiers has a worse zone rating) and while he flashes power potential, he will probably not hit 20 actual homers this year.
*Gordon could become the 15th player in baseball history to strike out 150 times and not hit 20 home runs. Those include:
1. Delino DeShields, 1991, 10 homers, 151 Ks.
2. Ben Grieve, 2001, 11 homers, 159 Ks.
3. Juan Samuel, 1988, 12 homers, 151 Ks.
4. Jhonny Peralta, 2006, 13 homers, 152 Ks.
(tie) Jose Hernandez, 2003, 13 homers, 177 Ks.
6. Brandon Inge, 2007, 14 homers, 150 Ks.
7. Mickey Tettleton, 1990, 15 homers, 160 Ks.
(tie) Sammy Sosa, 1990, 15 homers, 150 Ks.
(tie) Juan Samuel, 1984, 15 homers, 168 Ks.
10. Mark Belhorn, 2004, 17 homers, 177 Ks.
(tie) Ron Gant, 1997, 17 homers, 162 Ks.
(tie) Donn Clendenon, 1968, 17 homers, 163 Ks.
13. Curtis Granderson, 2006, 19 homers, 17 4 Ks.
(tie) Brad Wilkerson, 2003, 19 homers, 155 Ks.
Quick thoughts about the list: There are some young guys on the list who got better (Sosa, Granderson), some young guys who got worse (Grieve), a couple of guys who struck their way out of baseball (Bellhorn and Hernandez) and lotsa Juan Samuel. Nobody really compares all the well with Gordon.
And yet, there are many Kansas City fans who view Gordon as a star, embrace him like one. These are the times. If you’re a Royals fan, you can’t take your time, build a relationship with a player, get to know him. There’s no time for courtship. Jermaine Dye was the first Royals player to start an All-Star Game in forever, and he was traded by July of the next year. Johnny Damon led the American League in runs and stolen bases and cracked 214 hits, and he was traded before Opening Day of the next season. Carlos Beltran played five full years in Kansas City, but there were some low moments in there, and the the last three years were clouded by trade rumors, and everyone knew how that was going to end.
So maybe there’s no choice. Maybe the only way to deal with this stuff as a fan is to embrace Alex Gordon as a star early in the hopes that he will become a star. Maybe the only way to deal with this stuff is to take a likeable young player with a good glove like Tony Pena and make a bobblehead out of him and hope for the best.
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Seeing Sosa on that list made me go back and look at his stats and career. I tell you, if there was ever a poster boy for PED’s. It’s actually glaring – here’s a guy with 1 billion home runs and his career OPS+ is ALSO lower than Cash (128) and it took him 3 years to get his OPS over 100. Then suddenly he’s Ruth.
Count me as one die hard fan that looks at those 60+ home run seasons and sighs.
The only people on the Royals roster this year that I could consider a star… are Guillen, and Aviles. Pena never crossed my mind last year or this one. I keep waiting for Gordon. Dejesus is close. Meche is close.
Well, if you have to plan to give Bobbleheads in February for giveaways in September, you have to make sure they will still be here. So guys like DeJesus and Teahen are probably out since they might well have been traded. Let alone Grudz. But with Pena, we could be confident there would be absolutely no market for his services from another franchise. I mean, we even got something for Berroa.
But now at least we know why Pena was never shipped out of KC. We had to keep him here long enough to be here for his bobblehead day.
Doesn’t Soria also represent “Hispanic Heritage Day”? Seems to me even back in February this was a better bet.
A recording of the job interview Matt Millen had with the Detroit Lions.
“So, Mr. Ford, what’s it gonna be? Am I your man, or do I post these videos of you and the sheep on Youtube?”
Devon Young: you consider Guillen a star? The corner outfielder who can’t run to the ball, who has a 90 OPS+ (100 is a league average hitter), of the 2.7 VORP? Of the team-leading 13 double plays? Not only Aviles, but DeJesus and Gordon have _clearly_ been superior hitters this year, and that’s not even considering their more difficult defensive positions.
This only thing that says “star” about Hoagy (as in “JoGui”) are Mellinger’s oddly sycophantic columns about him, his $12 million/year salary, and Dayton Moore’s dubious imprimatur.
I was just telling my son that the only reason Pena remains on the roster is because of his upcoming bobblehead day, and at the time I said it, probably two or three weeks ago, I was mostly kidding. Now I think that’s the actual reason he’s still around.
And even if it’s not the actual reason, isn’t it a sad statement about the Royals that some of their fans would seriously consider the possibility that the team is making some personnel decisions based on an upcoming giveaway item?
They should wait until the late innings to give out the Pena bobblehead.
I seem to remember the White Sox having a bobblehead day for Esteban Loaiza – the year after his “Norm Cash season” of 2003 – shortly after his trade to the Yankees.
Giving Millen the job was one thing … letting him stay in it for (at least) eight years is beyond my understanding.
How could I forget Soria?!? DUh!
People outside of KC, know Guillen, that’s why I’d consider him a star… even if not a great one
I remember the Mike Jacobs t-shirt day, because we had gone through the whole “is he a MOT” when he came to the Mets. The Mets color reporter did a bit about the tshirt in the stands that day, and the Marlins INSISTED that the fact that they were giving out a Mike Jacobs tshirt on Jewish Heritage Day was just a coincidence.
We will be at Kaufmann on the 25th and it looks like we get shortchanged on any kind of promotion. Christian Family Day the day before (although we may get to KC in time to catch some of that) and the Mexicutioner tshirts are the day we leave.
In New York, bobbleheads are only given out to children 12 and under, despite the fact that the boxes say “not suitable for children younger than 5 years of age”
As far as the Royals rushing players to stardom, wasnt’ the best example of this already done this year?
I’m talking about the Billy Butler jersey I have hanging in my closet. Is there another franchise in baseball that would have given out a jersey (not just a t-shirt) of a 22 year old DH who had yet to play a full season in the bigs?
What makes the Pena bobblehead worse is that it doesn’t even look like him. It looks like a white guy. And it doesn’t have goggles.
http://kansascity.royals.mlb.com/kc/images/promos/y2008/0906.jpg
They could have shaved the name off and put Aviles’s name on it, or Gordon (it looks like the Gordon bobblehead). It’s probably closer to Mitch Maier or Teahen, but Hispanic? No.
Wade,
The Royals pushed nothing, you and everybody else there were extremely excited to get that jersey. Would you rather have a jersey of Gload?
Hey, looking at that Pena Jr. (which I agree could be anyone) bobblehead, shouldn’t he have his eyes on the ball? There’s no way he makes that stop looking up like that.
Here in LA Dodger fans voted on this and they ended up with a Joe Biemel Bobblehead night.
This reminds me of the old saying I was sad because I had no bobblehead, then I saw the man with the Tony Pena Jr. bobblehead.
I think Joe is correct about how a fan base can make hasty decisions about a player and not see the truth. Every city has a different relationship with its team. The Royals are in a large fallow period where they just haven’t been able to keep Damon, Dye, Beltran, or find any pitching. Seems easy to get overly excited or upset.
Blame bad decision making and the Messersmith decision for fans rushing to love players before their time. All the PR folks in Cleveland talk about Adam Miller, an always injured minor league pitcher. Sentiment, as I’m sure the Royals know, sells zero tickets. But fans loving players is always a good thing for the franchise. The bigger problem may be when a fan overreacts and decides a player is awful. If you would listen to call-in shows here in Cleveland, fans would have this guy playing SS: .223/.320/.326 and not this guy ,278/.322/.499.
Player A, Asdrubal Cabrera, is a young player, a wonderful defender whose ceiling is not too high offensively. Second baseman of the present and future, perhaps, yet not a difference maker at any position.
Player B, Jhonny Peralta, has some bad moments. He strikes out a lot, does not have the greatest range, but is slugging higher than A-Rod (by a small margin) and his arm is terrific. Could be a career year for him, though his skill set and production is always unique for the position.
Fans here in Cleveland should love JP and be cautiously optimistic about Cabrera. Most hate JP because he looks bad twice a month trying to flag down broken-bat fly balls and can’t range that well to his left.
The Indians had a fan vote for the Aug 30 game promotion. The fans voted for the Asdrubal bobblehead. So Cleveland fans are about as sharp as the KC front office. Yikes.
I wonder what players, on a local level, get undeserved strife relative to their value. Pat Burrell? Adam Dunn? A-Rod? on a national level get drilled. Every town has them, sad to say.
Looking back at Justyo’s comment. If there was ever a poster boy for crack smoking. There is no evidence that Sammy Sosa did anything but make himself a better baseball player. We have no idea how hard he worked to get there but he never failed a drug test (just corked his bat) and there is no evidence whatsoever that PEDs enhance performance for a baseball player. Get over it.
I don’t like the forcred stardom of Gordon either. Omaha has had numerous Gordon giveaways despite the fact that Alex has never ever played a game here. And what’s worse, there appear to be a lot of bandwagon Royals fans (yeah, that’s what I said) around Lincoln because of his Husker ties. I loved Gordo as a Husker but I don’t buy into the “face of the franchise” stuff we’ve been fed just yet. I’ll buy it when he BECOMES that by the way he plays baseball, but not because someone tells me that’s how I should see him.
I’m counting down the days until TPJ bobblehead day; it could be FUN! But hopefully he won’t be in the lineup that day…
It might almost be worth flying out from New Jersey to attend my first Royals game just to get a Tony Pena Jr. bobblehead. It will look great next to my Jason Tyner bobblehead!
(PS: I also have a Tony Boselli Houston Texans jersey)
Hey Erik– I won’t devolve the thread with personal attacks or go through the litany because you do sound like the ultimate authority on the subject but allow me to say “(just corked his bat)” may be the funniest line I’ve read in quite some time. Thanks for that.
@Erik
Speaking of crack smoking. Lots of guys never failed a drug test–most of the guys in the Mitchell report as a matter of fact–hundreds, probably thousands. I respect that you are a Sosa fan and I’m sure he did work hard, but if you actually think he never took PEDs you are certainly in the very small minority. And suggesting that PEDs don’t enhance performance is beyond silly, it’s just flat wrong.
Isn’t 1961 the year Cash corked his bat?
David please cite some research that suggest steroids improve baseball performance. To say that questioning whether “PEDs” is “beyond silly” just shows ignorance. The question of the affect of certain PEDs on baseball performance is certainly an open question and far from “flat wrong”.
The thing about Sosa is that it could be PEDs (possible and probably likely) or it could be a HUGE spike up in OBP from his pre-98 days to his post-98 days.
From ‘92 to ‘97 Sosa’s OBP looks like this .317, .309, .339, .340, .329, .300. That’s pretty bad, at best league average and at worse just plain awful
Then from ‘98 to ‘03 (After that Sosa gets scared of the ball following being hit in the head by a Solomon Torres fastball that breaks his batting helmet, either that or he gets old, either way he struggles) his OBP looks like this: .377, .367, .406, .437 (his ‘01 season was his best offensive season), .399, .358.
That is quite a jump so regardless of the increase in homerun productions or anything else he started getting a lot more walks (his most walks before ‘98 was 58 in ‘95 that ramps up to 73 in ‘98 and peaks at 116 in ‘01).
I actually think that his boost in performance was less about PEDs and more about the willingness to not swing at 0-2 split finger fastballs in the dirt (which he did a whoooooooooole lot in ‘97)
————-
Because I’m not sure how to do italics on these comments I couldn’t do a true posterisk about that Torres fastball but I believed that absolutely ruined Sosa’s career. Before that he was coming off two of his best seasons offensively, if not his best 2 seasons (you could argue ‘98 is better then ‘02 or vice versa, they both end up with the same 160 OPS+) and he looked fine coming out in ‘03. However in April he gets hit with this Torres fastball in the head, gets taken out of the game, his batting helmet shatters, and within that week he gets put on the DL. He is scared to death of the baseball when he comes back in June and struggles (this is when the corked bat incident comes). Though he still has a good season, it’s not the same Sammy that the Cubs are used to since 1998. There is a notable dropoff in the stats. Then in ‘04 he gets worse and all his bad habits, like his self centered attitude become too detrimental for his positive qualities. So he was sent off to the Orioles where he sucked and that basically ended his career. Some would say he just got old but I think it all changed with that fastball.
Yes, I have thought about Sosa’s career for a very long time.
Speaking of “beyond silly”, here are some signs that someone is among the sheep:
Asserting that we know that steroids enhance performance and know how they do.
Asserting that the Mitchell report is authoritative in any fashion.
Asserting that because a player made dramatic improvement suddenly it must be because he used steroids.
Asserting that steroid use by players was in any form a manner of cheating.
Asserting that because a majority of commentators believe something there must be a grain of truth in it.
Asserting anything about steroids without reference to the game’s history.
@ Aaron
True, a lot of fans bought into the BamBam hype. But, the jersey day was definitely premature (hindsight being 20/20).
You are correct, sir. “Stormin’ Norman” was a heck of a hitter and not too shabby at first, either. As a Tigers fan, it has been a long time since I thought about him. Thanks for the reminder. He did have his demons, and the way he passed on was shocking and sad, but I’m pretty sure he won’t be forgotten by Tigers fans everywhere.
Asdrubal Cabrera is a young player who clearly has not played enough in the big leagues to be confident of what his true defensive upside is. However, for his career at shortstop, he has a FP 9 points above league average and RF9 1.85 points above league average.
I’m going to repeat that number: 1.85 plays above league average. Thus, if Cleveland played him every inning, every 4 games he would make more than 7 outs more than an average shortstop before considering that his reliable glove also would save some outs. I’m guessing that perhaps Cabrera played shortstop some games when Sabathia pitched in NL parks, as they’d want more defense for the ground balls and need less offense with Sabathia hitting. But that is an *enormous* improvement. He’s not that good. Nobody is that good. Ozzie Smith was only 0.44 for his career. So let’s assume that the real numbers should be 0.50 (range should be higher early in the career, when quickness is higher; Ozzie often exceeded 0.50). Over 160 games, that is 80 more balls reached, and probably another 5 errors not committed.
With 600 plate appearances (probably about right for a bottom of the lineup hitter) that’s like saving .141 off the pitcher’s OBP.
Peralta is actually above average in range and in FP, although not in Cabrera’s league (again: too few games to really know about Cabrera). And he’s only 26. So it looks like Peralta would save about 1/3 of Cabrera. 2/3 of .141 is .094.
Add .094 to Cabrera’s career OPS and you get .791, slightly better than Peralta’s .772 for his career, slightly worse than Peralta’s .821 this year. And that may short change Cabrera: each out saved (assuming all singles, as is likely for shortstop) would add to both OBP and SP. So it *seems* to me like Cabrera’s defense makes him worth about as much as an OPS of .885 for a shortstop of Peralta’s defense. Peralta’s OPS this year is .821.
I’d say there is a *very* strong case that Cabrera should be the regular shortstop. Peralta hits more than well enough to move elsewhere on the team. Jimmy Carroll, for example, seems to be the second baseman now. He’s on the downside of his career, is barely outhitting Cabrera (who is a dozen years younger) and Carroll at second base is almost half a play a game below league average. I find it unlikely that a good fielding shortstop wouldn’t also be a good fielding second baseman; they are probably the two most similar fielding positions, and the transition has to be a lot easier than moving from short to third. A strong arm is *useful* at second base for turning double plays without momentum behind the throw to first.
But if Peralta’s arm is a good as advertised a case can probably be made that the Indians would be better off moving Cabrera to second and keeping Peralta at shortstop. Cabrera at second base in the big leagues makes 0.56 more plays than league average per 9 innings as well as having a stellar fielding percentage. But it’s fairly clear to me that Cabrera could well be something very special defensively and should be playing every day. Given the Indians’ record of pitching fatigue, I think they’d be much better off using Peralta at second and Cabrera at short and really cutting down on the runs and pitches.
The Indians’ fans’ problem is not that they devalue Peralta, but that Cabrera and Peralta are both good enough (in different ways) to deserve to be every day players. Consider Derek Jeter, who is having (for him) something of a career year defensively, only 0.21 plays below average per nine innings (for his career, the number is 0.4). Peralta gains 0.17, or 0.38/9 better than Jeter, or about 60 more plays made per year. 60/600 is 100 points of equivalent pitcher’s OBP. Jeter’s OPS is .750. Peralta’s versus Jeter this year is over .900, and over 1.000 if you count each out saved as .100 points of OBP and SP, and Cabrera’s is better than Peralta, as I discussed above. So it appears that either is more valuable than Jeter right now.
Given that the Indians are rebuilding this season, I’d play Peralta full time at second base for two reasons. First, it *appears* that Cabrera is just the better fielder; putting him in the position which has more opportunities just is smart. Secondly, there is *always* a huge market for shortstops, and the Indians have seven weeks or so to either persuade themselves that Cabrera’s the real deal and trade Peralta, persuade themselves that they could have a young superb double play combination for many years, or showcase Cabrera enough to get a juicy trade offer for him. Because given that Peralta *is* a plus fielder, he *should* be worth more to somebody else (the Red Sox, maybe, or the Dodgers if they give up on Furcal?) playing shortstop than he is to the Indians playing second base.
And they *both* deserved bobble heads.
Sammy Sosa in 1997: 36 home runs, SP of .480, career high SP of .564, career high batting average of .300, career high OBP of .340, 174 strikeouts.
Sammy Sosa in 1998: 66 home runs, SP of .647, batting average of .308, OBP .377, 171 strikeouts.
Sosa in 1998 did not suddenly learn how to make more contact: his career high in batting average rose by less than 3%, his strikeout rate dropped by less than 2%, his OBP rose by 11%, which is typical of a maturing player. But his slugging percentage increased by 35% 1997 to 1998, his homers increased by 83%. Those are not typical numbers for a 30 year old ballplayer.
This is the cart: OBP. This is the horse: Home Runs. OBP went up because Sosa started hitting homers like Babe Ruth, even though he didn’t really hit like Babe Ruth (who thrice *batted* over .377 and five times had OBP over .500). So teams pitched around Sosa, both in intentional walks and especially in two out bases empty “lets not give him anything good to hit and see if he’ll strike out” walks. Don’t put the cart in front of the horse. To my memory, there are only two players in MLB history who showed such substantial power number increases after they reached age 30 without changing where they played: Bonds and Sosa. Even Mark McGwire’s rookie year established 49 homers and a SP of .618, and in 1996 he set career highs of 52 homers and .730 SP (moving up to 58 homers in 1997 when he moved to St. Louis). So he changed ballparks, and “only” increased his home run total by 43%. Substantial, but only half of Sammy Sosa’s improvement. Heck, even Bonds changed ballparks, but he’s the only guy who thinks PacBell/SBC/AT&T parks was a big batter’s improvement over Candlestick, and the year AT&T opened (2000) Bonds only increased his homers by 3 over his prior career high, and career high SP by 10%.
You can believe Sosa became a more selective hitter because his OBP went up. But he still struck out a ton, didn’t really improve his batting average very much (his career high of .328 was only 9% better than his pre-1998 career high), but boy, did he suddenly hit homers like nobody’s business. *I* believe it was PEDs for all three of these guys, and Clemens, Gagne, LoDuca, and who knows who else. For Sosa to be getting that many more homers without that many more hits or fewer strikeouts, he had to be adding distance to fly outs, which is typical of added strength from more productive weight training enabled by steroids. More muscle mass leads to more weight, less speed, and also explains why a guy who stole as many as 36 bases with a decent percentage before 1998 and 18 in 1999 never stole more than 7 bases again. PEDs -> homers -> pitches so far off the plate than even Swinging Sammy wouldn’t offer at them -> walks.
But its ok to personally attack Sammy Sosa or other athletes because you have determined that they used steroids…
I’m not actually a Sosa fan at all. I couldn’t, in fact, care less about him. I just feel that the willingness of so many people to chalk up impressive performance to steroid use is what’s beyond silly, pretty much for exactly the reasons Bob R. enumerated. It would just be nice to see an inteligent conversation about sports that leaves the stupid steroid issue out of it.
erik, didn’t i just read that someone concluded that PEDs DO, in fact, sufficiently enhance performance? i remember the article said it was difficult to judge the results, but it’s an interesting read.
http://www.sabernomics.com/sabernomics/index.php/2008/08/did-steroid-use-enhance-the-performance-of-mitchell-report-hitters/
Will –
“…I was sad because I had no bobblehead, then I saw the man with the Tony Pena Jr. bobblehead.”
Okay.
That’s funny.
It’s like a throw-away line in a baseball comedy movie; some over-the-hill-never-made-it defending his erstwhile stardom with, “I was big in the Bigs! I had a bobble-head night!”
What’d really be
oddfun is if TPJ comes back as a successful pitcher.All in all (somebody explain that idiom) a TPJ bobble-head probably has more potential of becoming a valuable collector’s item than those “silver-clad Liberian 9/11″ lead bars that are sold on cable TV in the middle of the night. (Limit 5)
Please remind me to look for the Pena bobblehead on ebay after the game, I’m a Phillies fan, but I will probably laugh out loud if I can add that one to my desk (as a bonus I’m sure it won’t cost me much).
Carl Yastrzemski in 1966: 16 home runs, 4 less than his career high of 20. In 1967 he hit 44 home runs, an increase of 275% over the previous year and 220% over his career high.
Ted Kluszewski in 1952 hit 16 home runs. In 1953 he hit 40. His career high to that point had been 25. His BA and OBP actually declined ever so slightly in 1953 by the way.
Stan Musial jumped from 19 home runs in 1947, his career high, to 39 the next year.
We can keep this kind of speculation going all day. You might point out that all 3 players turned 27 their big year to try to explain the unusual power surge. Or you might note that in all cases, and more so with uniquely gifted athletes, the unusual does happen and may not be directly linked to one cause. After all, those pre-teen girls in Salem really were having fits and those old women really did seem rather odd.
“Speaking of “beyond sillyâ€, here are some signs that someone is among the sheep:…Asserting that steroid use by players was in any form a manner of cheating.”
Well, you’re going to have to parse the word “cheating” pretty heavily to make that true. Using a substance that is officially banned by your sport is, by most definitions, “cheating”, and steroids have been banned from baseball since the early 1990’s, when Fay Vincent advised all clubs that, “The possession, sale or use of any illegal drug or controlled substance by Major League players or personnel is strictly prohibited … This prohibition applies to all illegal drugs … including steroids.”
If the ballplayers who used steroids after Vincent’s memo weren’t “cheating”, then what were they doing?
Can’t wait for the Banny Blog tomorrow. Banny never does well during day games. 5 runs so far in the first against the Yanks. 2 HRs to A rod and Nady.
Once they convert Pena Jr to a dominant middle reliever that bobblehead will make perfect sense.
I’m only half kidding.
Paul, I know about that injunction, but it is a perfect example of a rule that is not a rule because there is no enforcement. Not only was there no enforcement, there was open and regular violation that was not just tolerated but tacitly promoted by the very authorities charged with enforcement. Using it as an argument is legalistic nitpicking.
A law without teeth is no law at all. We could argue the legal issues and the philosophical issues ad infinitum, but a commissioner’s memo that is for all intents and purposes ignored even by those in charge is no basis for castigating the players.
Further, once we begin charging players with cheating for violating an obscure and de facto meaningless policy, we need to frame the charge in broader historical terms of what we mean by cheating in baseball. Why are steroids more an example of cheating than amphetamines or corked bats or spitballs or any other banned substances or activities? We know with certainty that Mays used illegal substances. We may confidently speculate that many other superstars of that era did as well. If Sosa cheated (assuming there is real evidence he did, not just circumstantial guesswork), we need to reexamine the entire history of the game.
And if we are to call players seeking to improve their play cheaters, what do we call those who actively undermined their performance by drinking, carousing and the like?
To take the poster boy (but only one among many examples) for such cheating, how many times was Mantle in prime condition while on the field? And when I plunked down my ticket fee, was I getting my money’s worth? Was the Yankee ownership that paid him a king’s ransom in salary getting their full value? How is that somehow tolerable while a player trying to maximize his output not so?
It does not take much parsing at all, just some historical perspective and an honest appraisal of what the situation was at the time.
The Royals need good promotions to get people out to the stadium, but they need a good team to have good promotions.
Wow Bob. You were a member of the debate team in school, weren’t you? You just took the position that players can violate any rule, written or not, as long as they did so in the spirit of trying to improve their play. That’s just swell. Good luck figuring out where (or if?) to draw the line under that precious little scenario. Corking bats? Stealing signs? Spitballs? How about using filed spikes on opposing players? According to your view, that shouldn’t be considered cheating either since a reputation for slashing open second basemen would make a guy more likely to steal bases successfully.
If you’d like to wander around in that minefield while taking the philosophical view that REAL cheating should mean cheating the fans out of their hard-earned money by performing at less than peak performance, then God Bless. Personally, I’ll stick with the more common definition of cheating, the one where guys willfully break the rules under the assumption that they will gain an illegal and therefore unfair advantage over their opponent.
“Paul White” –
You’d make a good middle school principal.
Some rules are wrong.
Some rules are stupid.
Some rules are unenforceable.
Some rules invite breaking.
Some rules — Prohibition comes to mind — are all of the above.
Remember that Readers’ Digest piece a few weeks ago about Sal Fassano whining that the only reason he isn’t in Cooperstown is that he didn’t take steroids in the 90s? What a whiner. He blames his T-Bones fate on ‘roids when he could’ve hit the weight room more often and the dining rool less frequently.
Hitters were doing it. Pitchers were doing it. There’s all sorts of debate on whether doing it really made much of a difference in the performances of skills required to excel in baseball.
They finally came up with a system to enforce the rule (sort of a horse after the cart approach to rule-making I would think) and the steroid level (whatever its significance on stats and careers) is over. Just like the Spit Ball Era is over.
I find it interesting that the spitball was outlawed in 1920. This, of course, was the year Babe Ruth’s home run total jumped from 29 in 1919 (a career high) to 54. That was more than nearly every other team in the majors.
Paul, I did no such thing. And I will not get into a hair-splitting discussion with you. But you have twisted my words to say something quite different from the point I made, in fact to make it almost perversely the opposite of my point in some ways.
I will say that in discussion, the willful twisting of someone else’s arguments, by exaggeration, oversimplification or the drawing of invalid implications is a form of cheating.
I wonder if Joe thinks that Aviles is another example of rushing to make someone a star. I have read several people on this post saying that he is a star. Maybe he will be a star, but his numbers, like Bannister and Pena last year, represent that maybe he has been lucky.
Anyone could have picked him up. That means teams like Florida and Oakland did not grab him. Of course, everyone passed on Albert P., so maybe Aviles will be great!
My dad and I are Indians fans in NW Ohio and we take a motorcycle trip somewhere different every year to check out a stadium that we’ve never been to before. This year, it is KC. When I pointed out to him that the game we are going to was Tony Pena Jr. bobblehead day, he confusingly commented “I thought they fired him as manager a couple of years ago. Are they that proud of finishing over .500 that one time?”
I had to explain to him that Jr. was a weak hitting shortstop that actually played for the team now, and he seemed really confused, like he couldn’t believe that former Indians LDS hero Tony Pena had a kid old enough to play in the bigs…
At least the Ben Oglivie bobbleheads we got in Milwaukee last year were at least of someone who had ONCE been good, no matter that it was 25 years ago…
Fine Bob, please untwist your words for me. I’m reading your comments and seeing where you said that steroid users were merely “players seeking to improve their play”, and specifically said it was “beyond silly” to argue that “that steroid use by players was in any form a manner of cheating”.
Now, I read that and it sure does seem that you feel steroid users didn’t cheat and were simply taking the act of trying to improve their performance to another level. I honestly don’t think I’m twisting your words by drawing that conclusion from them. They seem to imply that you feel steroid users did nothing wrong, at least in baseball terms. They broke a rule, but one that you feel was “a rule that is not a rule”. In that case, I’d like to know where that line should be drawn. Which baseball rules are okay to break in the pursuit of merely “seeking to improve…play?” Just the stupid rules? Or the unenforced rules? Who makes that call, the players themselves?
Ok.
First, I did not say “merely” and only made that comment to compare our reactions to steroid users whose efforts are to become better performers to players who diminish their capacity to perform. By excerpting that phrase and letting it stand alone you misinterpret the point, which is not to defend steroid use as a positive but to note that our standards about what is cheating are backwards.
As for the issue of cheating, if your view is that a rule is a rule and any violation is cheating and deserves condemnation, there is little more to say. Aside from my own view that obedience to law is responsible for a lot more horrors in the world than is disobedience (another issue altogether, I know, and not really pertinent here), I will comment only on one of many objections I have to calling steroid use cheating.
Let’s consider an analogy to clarify. On day one of classes a teacher announces there will be daily homework that will be collected and graded as part of the student’s class average. For 5 months the teacher never collects any assignments. In fact, when students mention that he laughs it off, even by his manner suggesting the students a bit stuffy for asking.
Suddenly, one day in March he calls for the assignment to be handed in. How many students will have done it do you suppose, students of any age? So he admonishes and begins lowering all their class averages. It was a rule, but were the students guilty of something because they no longer obeyed it? In the real world, I mean, not in some theoretical realm of analysis.
In essence, baseball did even worse than that. At least the teacher had the authority to collect and grade homework. Baseball did not even have the authority to enforce its injunction. And having announced and virtually forgotten it, management not only turned a blind eye but tacitly, and perhaps even actively, encouraged players to bulk up.
As for what rules are okay to break, there are plenty already treated that way. The phantom tag at second base on the DP, the 20 second rule between pitches, the coach standing in the coaches’ box, the batter having both feet inside the batters’ box and I am sure more, have evolved into non-rules by the natural course of events. And those are actually real rules, because each can be enforced. The steroids ban not only was by de facto practice inapplicable, but did not even have the possibility of enforcement. There is no need for subtle analysis to proclaim that there is no cheating when it is accepted, common and unenforceable.
KC is going to prematurely annoint players “star” status until KC actually has them. The second Moose and Eric Hosmer make it to the bigs, they will get “star” status too.
But I bet that once we have a solid, competitive team, we’ll be a lot less starry-eyed.
Jeez, tough fan weekend Joe. Banny gives up 10 runs in an inning plus and your new Premier League fav Fulham loses to a team making their top-flight debut after 104 years in lower divisions. Ouch.
Gordon possibly wouldn’t even be the only player in the AL this season to strike out 150 times and fail to hit 20 homers.
Carlos Gomez is currently at 112 K, 5 HR.
Bob R. you sound like a whiny little kid. Will you please stop typing things?
Don’t you just love it here. I’m telling you, this is a room in heaven. Bob R and Paul White, thanks for the interesting reading and debate.
Bob R. – ‘accepted, common and unenforceable.’ Exactly who was it accepted by? You, me, the players, the fans, the manager, the GM, the owner, the commissioner? Because I don’t think the fans accepted steriods in any way, shape or form. You remember when Mark McGuire left his bottle of androsteindyown out in his locker for the world to see- he went from hero to ‘what the hell is that, and what do I tell my kids’. I don’t think it was accepted, by anyone except a few baseball players who kept it a close secret. As far as ‘common’ goes- where was it common? Exactly who admitted to doing it while they were do it, if it was so common. Ken Caminiti admitted to it, after he retired, of course, but you remember the finger from Rafeal Palmerio, and then he promptly tested positive for a banned steriod. I truely believe that if Mike Sweeney knew about steriod use on the Royals, he would not lie about it. So, I don’t think it was common. These players did steriods, behind the fan’s and the GM’s and the owner’s backs, then lied or refused to comment(Mark McGuire) about it. Why did they do steriods and hide it from everyone, because they knew they were CHEATING. The teacher in the example above would be a prike for collecting the homework like that, but he has every right to. I think a more apt example is a teacher who says that your tests are not open book, but when test time comes, the teacher leaves the room and the students all whip out their books and cheat. On the eight test of the year the teacher comes walking back into the room, midtest and catches every single kid using their books on the test. Now what. The teacher said you could not use the books, you did for a while then got caught. That was cheating- the teacher knew it, the students knew and did it anyway, because the risk versus reward. Some as baseball, why did Jason Grimsley do HGH, risk versus reward. Did he knew he was cheating, you bet he did.
The Detroit Tigers had a bobblehead day for Ivan Rodriquez planned this year (can’t call him pudge, that’s Carlton Fisk’s nickname, and you just CAN’T steal a nickname, I say we call him Fatty Rodri or Fat Rod), then traded him anyway. 20-30 thousand Ivan the terrible bobbleheads are sitting in Detroit. Get rid of Pena. Sell the bobbleheads for a buck and give 20 thousand to charity.
Joe,
Please assure me that you will update the Banny log following Sunday’s game. Yikes! That was something. And what did you think of Hillman leaving him out there for so long. I don’t live in KC and subscribe to the Extra Innings package, so I was watching the YES broadcasters and Michael Kay was pretty critical of Hillman. At the same time, I can understand a manager not wanting to burn through eight innings of bullpen. Your thoughts?
OK, here we go, what ever happened to LRP (long relief pitchers), in actuality LRP’s should be able to pitch 5 innings per, most LRP’s were starters at one point and because of injury, aging, or just couldn’t go through the year-long grind anymore, nobody uses them. What a perfect scenario for Bannister, put him in the bullpen for a week or two and give some innings to get settled down. If you need him in long relief, EUREKA! There are other starters out there on the waiver wire that can fill in the rotation. Send Pena down and pick one up. If you have to trade for one, there you are.
Hope Joe weighs in on the U.S.-China baseball game. A lot happening in that one.
I have the Alex Gordon problem with Jeremy Hermida. I heard so much, and he’s shown flashes in small bursts but I don’t think the stardom is coming.
I know that calling me a “whiny little kid” is an insult, but as I am 65 years old I can squeeze a smidgeon of consolation from it.
Of course, I suppose that might mean I sound like a whiny, senile old man, but as my children have not taken over control of my bank accounts yet, I can safely ignore that.
Man in Black, I don’t think there is much room for discussion of your points because they are not easily provable one way or the other. My reading and recollection indicates that journalists were fully aware of steroid use for years before the witch hunt began, that ownership and management were similarly aware of it and ignored it, glorying in the increased attendance incident to the surge in home run hitting (which I do not think has been demonstrated is directly linked to steroid use, by the way) and that fans only became incensed when directed that way by a craven press and headline hunting politicians.
I don’t intend to try to prove my point either, but state it to indicate that there are alternative views to those you present. I do think there is ample evidence that steroid use was widespread among ballplayers, from the least successful like Alex Sanchez to the stars. And as I recall, when McGwire was discovered with his stuff, that particular formula was not banned in any way. As in all anti-drug laws, the line between legal and illegal is fuzzy at best and usually entirely arbitrary.
That is why public response, orchestrated as it was by management and its handmaiden press, could be effective. They were able to turn what is essentially a medical issue into a moral one, like anti-drug bigots always do. I say that as someone who despises drug use and who even avoids prescription drugs whenever possible but who tries to be objective about the motives behind and results of idiotic official drug wars.
Was there something sleazy about using steroids? I have no problem admitting that. Any mention of drug related use carries the aroma of illicit activity, and few people in public life will admit to it, at least not for public consumption. Many of the people with whom I worked before I retired used recreational drugs regularly, but could never have said so publicly, nor were they immoral people.
One thing that galls me is the double standard about the entire issue. There is no doubt whatsoever that the players of the 1960s-70s popped pills as a matter of course. The essential difference between what they did and what players recently have done is that the earlier group did not combine the pills with year-round rigorous workouts, carefully planned diets and constant attention to their fitness. The pills were a short cut. Many if not most of the contemporary players used steroids as part of a much broader and difficult program of fitness training.
So if fans have rejected players for steroid use, that has no weight in my view. In any case, even that is uncertain which is easily ascertained by reading the support of many fans for signing players accused of steroid use if they think it will help their teams. As with your other statements, I don’t know there is any certain statement we can make about opinion on that subject.
In the end, whom did they cheat? The owners who saw the revival of the game after the strike and made fortunes? The fans who attended games in droves and were thrilled? Other players who may well have been using the same substances, including pitchers in about equal proportion to the hitters? I suppose they did outrage the prigs and sanctimonious who cannot distinguish between a medical and moral issue and who get into high dudgeon of self-righteousness and maudlin sentimentality about children whenever the issue arises.
Bob and Paul, thanks for re-affirming my belief that most people are annoying. By all means, continue ELSEWHERE.
The Brewers had several thousand Richie Sexson caps left over from the previous season, but they had traded Sexson. So they gave the caps away in a pre-season exhibition game. One of my prized possessions. I doubt Sexson appreciated it, though.
Hey, any player who DOUBLES his OPS+ is worthy of a bobblehead! If A-Rod doubled his OPS+, they’d give him 500 gold medals AND a gold bobblehead!
But noooooooooooooo, if Tony Pena Jr doubles his OPS+, he doesn’t get a bobblehead! Stupid Tony Pena Jr!
Go Tony!
“*Gordon could become the 15th player in baseball history to strike out 150 times and not hit 20 home runs. Those include:”
I’d like to point out that there are some solid, solid major leaguers on that list, so I’m not really sure that it really has any predictive value.
Also, every homerun Mark Belhorn hit in 2004 won a world series. EVERY SINGLE ONE!
“Player B, Jhonny Peralta, has some bad moments. He strikes out a lot, does not have the greatest range, but is slugging higher than A-Rod (by a small margin)”
Eh?
A-Rod Slg : .598
Peralta : .493
If you’re going to bestow man crushes on a player, at least pick some stats that aren’t blatantly obviously false in a mere glance.
Say something like “Peralta’s RC/27 is 0.02 higher than A-Rod’s with 2 outs and RISP in road games when facing John Lackey!”
“Let’s consider an analogy to clarify…. Suddenly, one day in March he calls for the assignment to be handed in. How many students will have done it do you suppose, students of any age? ”
Your analogy is flawed. In your analogy, NONE of the students do their homework, the teacher doesn’t care for five months, then suddenly he cares and starts berating them for it.
Do you seriously believe that EVERY baseball player used steroids between 1990, when Fay Vincent specifically declared ALL steroids offlimits, and 2004, when baseball finally implemented a somewhat decent program to test for it.
Because they didn’t. While we can argue numbers all day long, there were a lot of guys who DIDN’T use them as well.
So, in your analogy, what happens if half of the students turn in their homework every day, and half of the students don’t. Do you still think that that half of the students who didn’t shouldn’t be held accountable for it?
You might not consider it cheating. Baseball owners might have quietly endorsed it (though I think most owners simply didn’t know) and Bud Selig, rat-faced little weasel that he is, was probably cheering it on, but it’s STILL cheating.
Whether or not it’s worse cheating than using a spitball, using a corked bat, or using greenies is another discussion altogether. It is STILL cheating.
I have an Austin Kearns bobblehead from when I went to Cincy to see a game in their brand new stadium. He’s better than TPJ but stil…
Creston, we are heading towards pointless hair-splitting which I imagine is annoying some people. Nonetheless, I want to point out that I did not say no students did assignments. I asked how many would have; I probably more properly should have simply noted that many would not have and any attempt ex post facto to punish or even blame them would be fruitless.
In any case, the analogy, flawed or not, is intended only to clarify a point, not to be point for point the same as the issue. The fundamental point is that law is not simply what is written or promulgated. It only has force if enforcement is established, and I do not even mean if enforcement is effective. There has to be at least some mechanism for enforcement and the steroids ban did not even meet that minimal requirement. The most that can be said is that it was a wish, not a rule, or I would even go so far as to say it was commonly understood to be wrong, but with enough room for interpretation to be fuzzy.
Which leads to the other point about law or rules. They are not simply what is written. Custom and practice are also part of law. Some entities, I think even in the U.S., have courts of equity that hear cases based on custom rather than written law. And while one can argue that customary understanding was that steroid use was improper, it could equally be argued that customary practice had essentially nullified that understanding. It may not have been all, or even most (although that is uncertain), but it certainly was widespread and easy enough to know.
In the end, I don’t really care if anyone thinks it was cheating or not. The witch hunt, the effort to demean the achievements of players in this era, the rumor-mongering and gossip, these are the disgusting features of the sordid affair, sordid on the part of baseball management, media and politicians. At worst, even if you think it cheating, it is no worse than the daily efforts by ballplayers to gain advantage, a misdemeanor at most. Like it or not there is now a procedure in place for discovering users and punishments established. Now we can say people who use are guilty, but not before.
Bob R., 65 years old, “whatever it takes to win as long as you don’t go to jail for it”…Karl Rove is your hero, right?
UGH…
Let’s parse and parse and parse until nothing means anything. If the rule was unenforceable and unjust and PEDs had no effect, why did EVERY SINGLE PERSON USING THEM lie about using them? Outisde of Canseco, who only admitted using them after he no longer could earn a paycheck in MLB.
Right is wrong, black is white, cheating is fair…*VOMIT*
Your arguments are intellectually dishonest and are clearly a cover-up for some other agenda you hold very dear.
You figure it out. And while you are at it, work at responding to arguments rather than repeating bromides and assuming that cliched moral statements represent morality.
Is it REALLY that impossible for the Royals to make a switch or even ADD another bobble at the end of September to makeup for the TPJ blunder? The cardinals have added bobbleheads late in the year 3 out of the last 5 years that WERE NOT ORIGINALLY on the promo schedules.
Maybe even DROP a current player and ad a Bo Jackson or another member of the Royals Hall of Fame (Willie Wilson, Hal McCrae) I wonder WHY we didnt have McCrae as a bobblehead giveaway when the Cards were in town? That would of been awesome and you would ASSUME that they will do McCrae next year to finish the Royals Hall of Fame Collection wouldnt you?
What about Soria or even DeJesus?
Maybe next year for bobbleheads, just like we say for the ROYALS.
Bob R.-
I don’t think that means what you think that means- Inigo Montoya
In our discussion here, you have used words like ‘moral, immoral, illicit, recreational’ and I am not sure they mean what you think they mean. The way that I am understanding all your comments from above, there is no such thing as cheating, that recreational drugs (again I think that means not alcohol and caffiene and nicotine, but illegal drugs) should not be illegal, you don’t particularly care what your children and now probably grandchildren think about sports and the people who play them or whether said kids/grandkids use drugs or cheat when they can get away with it.
I really don’t mean to simplify and take out of context your statements, but these are the points that stick with me. So, either I am misunderstanding what you are saying, or you are the devil and trying your best to corrupt the earth one kid/grandkid/blog at a time. On a side note, you fit the devil description very well, a little bit older, well read, with an outstanding vocabulary, and a certain wit and tenaciousness that resonates.
By the way Bob, you telling Paul that his twisting your words around is cheating is hysterically funny and totally ironic.
Player A: .263/.330/.339
Player B: .205/.288/.274
Player C: .278/.377/.490
Player A is Billy Butler before being sent to Triple-A, Player B is Alex Gordon against lefties, and Player C is Alex Gordon against righties.
If Gordon can figure out how to hit lefties decently he will be a perenniel all-star, because he already is a borderline all-star against righties.
Now that Joe has posted a couple more and moved on from here, I will go against all my instincts and enter the rabbit hole…
@Richard Aronson– GREAT post/analysis on Sammy.
@Man In Black – You’re Devil comment was very amusing and frighteningly spot on.
And as for Bob R… Here is my truth. The fact that Sammy Sosa has three of the 8 60+ home run seasons in the entire history of the game is nauseating to me. Sammy – I suddenly can’t speak English – Sosa. 3 of the 8. Ever. 1 of 2 people to ever do it twice and the only player in baseball history to have done it 3 times. The only player in the history of the game. Sammy Sosa. Only. Player. Ever.
In my world Sosa doesn’t do it without steroids. In my world Sammy Sosa is a mediocre hitter. He doesn’t do it with greenies, or speed in any form, or heroin or weed or blow or Jack Daniels or voodoo dolls or whatever the heck you can think of. The only way he does it is with Jose Canseco telling him exactly how to inject it in his arse. I mean please.
We can argue the vagaries of truth all we want. But that is my truth. I didn’t intend for it to offend anyone. But if it did, all intellectual masturbation aside, deal with it. It is my opinion.
And anyone who can even attempt to argue that steroids, when used properly under ‘professional’ guidance cannot positively affect endurance, recovery time and strength is just not being intellectually honest. No matter how many words are ‘cleverly’ typed.
Anybody who read Bill James (and everybody here *should* have read Bill James) will remember that pre-steroids, most hitters have their best years ages 28-32. A major jump in performance up to age 28 is common. Sammy Sosa’s big jump happened when he hit 30 years old, which is atypical, and lasted long after he turned 32 without changing ballparks, which is extremely atypical. Carl Yastzemski in 1967 turned 28, so he falls within that range, and also substantially boosted his career high in OBP and batting, indicative of a player who has learned how to hit better. Stan Musial’s big year came, surprise, the year he turned 28. I’ll sort of give you Ted Kluszewski, who was 29, with two caveats. In the 1950’s there were no steroids. And there are probably hundreds of ballplayers who have increased their career best in home runs by 15, including some who did it after age 30. But how many guys, after establishing certain career levels (and excellent career levels they were, too) and reaching the age of 30 suddenly increased their career high in home runs by 24 or more without changing ballparks? Two that I’ve found: Sosa and Bonds.
For what it’s worth, Kluszewski completely conforms to James’s 28-32 standards except he started one year late. From age 29-33 he had his best four years, and then fell apart, never having more than 301 at bats in a season. Sosa had his four best years starting at the year he turned 30, then his 5th best year, then two more years that were also excellent, before deteriorating, completely coincidentally, the year they started testing for steroids. Oh, and Kluszewski went from being a good home run hitter to a great home run hitter, whereas Sosa went from being a good home run hitter (in context of the times) to hitting 60 homers in a season more times than EVERYBODY IN THE HISTORY OF BASEBALL COMBINED BEFORE THE YEAR HE FIRST HIT SIXTY.
Or, to put it another way, in the entire history of baseball, there have been exactly six seasons where a player hit more than 62 homers in a season, and all six happened in those few years when steroids were pretty well known to help weight training, hitters had learned the muscles helped them hit better, and players were not yet subject to discipline and testing for steroids. And then they started testing for steroids and all the enormous home run totals disappeared. Yet to you, that’s pure coincidence?
Look, I’m not opposed to steroid use. Steroids don’t make you a better hitter. Steroids plus lots and lots of hard work might make you a better hitter. Steroids enable more effective muscle growth and quicker healing times after weight training, so players can put in more time lifting weights and improve their strength. But they still have to put in the time. From what I know, steroids also help in that you can keep on lifting during the season (faster healing time) without having tired arms at the plate. Athletes have known for a *long* time that weight lifting helped build muscle mass and reduced injuries. Baseball resisted weight training (or at least heavy weight training) because over the long season you’d have to sit out 2-3 days a week if you were lifting during the season. Before steroids.
Medical science has always improved players and always will. Maybe Babe Ruth wouldn’t have cared that what he ate and drank hurt his ability to stay in shape and play well, but these days nutrition is pretty well known. The best ballplayers stay in shape year round. We have contact lenses and laser surgery: are those illegal? We have arthroscopic surgeries and Tommy John replacement surgeries. Should Greg Gagne give back all his saves because medicine enabled a surgery that kept him pitching? I’d say no. Should he give them back because he took steroids? I still say no. There are hundreds of athletes who are playing many sports with bits of titanium in their bones. Nothing natural about titanium rods. They should all keep on playing.
I remain of the opinion that there is no moral difference between using some forms of medicine (say, antibiotics) and not using others. I argue that if a ballplayer uses laser surgery to improve his eyesight so he can sustain a career, then so should he use steroids. But I argue that steroids should be regulated and monitored so that players don’t harm themselves by taking too many or continuing to take them if they are starting to cause health issues.
If you want to believe in Santa Claus, in the Easter Bunny, that Sammy Sosa didn’t take steroids and that Osama Bin Ladin was the reason we invaded Iraq, go ahead. That won’t get you committed as a danger to yourself or others. But I can put two (steroids became effectively perfected) plus two (skinny ballplayers like Sosa and Bonds and McGwire suddenly became Popeye and showing more power than any players in history at an age when most players are deteriorating, not improving) together and get four. I can understand McGwire using steroids: he’d had a lot of injuries, and started lifting to try and stay healthy. I am sorry Sosa turned to steroids: he was an excellent multidimensional player who quite possibly would have made it into the HOF if he had stayed clean. And Bonds is a tragedy: he was a sure HOFer before he took steroids, and now, well, we’ll never know. I know what it is to feel dismay that your favorite ballplayer might have been using drugs to become that good. We’ve had season seats forever, and the glee my mother showed when Gagne came into the game during his peak was only exceeded by seeing Koufax pitch. Now I *believe* that Gagne was using steroids the whole time, and that enabled him to go from a hittable starting power pitcher with average control to a somewhat wild closer who was throwing so strong that he didn’t really need much control. So I share your pain. But what’s done is done: move on, or stay in your fantasy land. I will cheerfully root for the Cubs to win the World Series if that will help you accept that Sosa was juiced.
Just one problem with the teacher collecting homework analogy: it’s highly incomplete. To make the analogy accurate, the teacher called for homework. The students got their parents to file a lawsuit preventing the collection of homework on the grounds that the poor little tykes were overworked. And then in February the SAT scores were published, the parents told the school that they’d accept some homework after all for the good of the school, and most of the students started doing their homework.
The reason there was no steroid testing after it was ruled illegal by the commissioner in 1990 was that the player’s association fought testing tooth and nail until finally they realized that public opinion was so much against them (and there were enough liability issues, like Roger Clemens throwing bats) that they yielded, grudgingly. And most ballplayers stopped juicing, and look at how many guys are setting all kinds of home run records any more?
Like I said above, the tragedy of juicing is Barry Bonds. Because, domestic violence complaints (possibly attributable to steroids) aside, we know from testing that he was *probably* clean the last two years. Yes, drugs can be developed in advance of testing, but his major source had been shut down by the Feds (we can find steroid labs but not Osama Bin Laden: mission accomplished!) and I think he is mostly clean. Plus he gets so much rest (usually 2 days off a week) so he can lift during the season and maintain a high level of performance without steroids. So the tragedy is that *maybe* Bonds really is the best hitter of all time, and deserves to keep on playing, but he won’t be given the chance. I’d be a *lot* happier if Bonds were DHing somewhere, batted .220, and were cut, than with him having one of the best final seasons in history and wanting to come back, but not being given the chance.
I absolutely do not think Sammy Sosa was a mediocre ballplayer. He was a great right fielder (check his range factors) with a strong arm. He had good speed, with 199 steals (82 CS) before his big jump in home runs. He had a silver slugger award, an All Star appearance, and three times finished in the top 0 in MVP balloting, all before he hit 66 homers. He would definitely have reached 400 homers for his career and might have reached 500 without steroids. I think if nobody had ever taken steroids, Sosa would probably have been a marginal HOF candidate in the way that so many ballplayers who don’t walk get more HOF cred than they deserve because of their counting numbers. But even a low OBP marginal HOF candidate is not mediocre.
Marginal describes Paul LoDuca, who juiced to stay on a major league roster. At age 29 he went from a guy who had 5 career homers and was at best a reserve catcher to a .320 hitting 25 homer slugging guy who was supposed to make LA forget Mike Piazza. Then it appears LoDuca cut back on the juice, and he never hit more than 13 homers again. But that one year made him such a part of the public perception of quality that he got four all star appearances despite never having a OPS+ above 102, aside from that one year.
Erg, 3 times in top 20 in MVP balloting. Stupid typo….
@ Richard Aronson
After checking the stats I absolutely stand corrected.
Paul Lo Duca is the poster boy for PED’s.
Well said Richard, all of it. And I wholeheartedly agree on Barry Bonds.