What’s eating Raul
Posted: June 10th, 2009 | Filed under: Baseball | 81 Comments »
Raul Ibanez is one of my favorite people in baseball. We can start there. His oldest son Raul Jr. was born one day before our oldest daughter Elizabeth, and we exchanged little gifts for the kids once or twice. We talked often about playing chess against each other — never have, but we talk about it — and whenever we see each other (which, admittedly is not that often these days) we always have a good time catching up.
So, obviously, I love the Raul Ibanez story. The whole thing. I love everything about it: Here’s a hard-working guy, taken in the 36th round of the draft, didn’t get up to the big leagues for any extended time until he was 26, was basically released when he was 28, was signed by an abysmal Kansas CIty team in a “Hell, why not” move that offseason. He was first given 500 at-bats in a season when he was 30. He didn’t complain, didn’t feel slighted, didn’t quit, didn’t think about quitting as far as I know. No, he just kept working and working and working on his game and in Kansas City he put up three pretty-good-to-very-good seasons in a row. Everyone in the clubhouse loved the guy too.
He signed a long-term deal with Seattle, and even people in Kansas City — the very people who helped Raul get his career going — thought that the Mariners overpaid. Instead, he punched up a 120 OPS+ over those five years, drove in almost 100 runs per season, banged 22 or 23 homers a year while playing half his games in a pitchers’ ballpark. Sure, maybe some people ripped his defense — and his defense did fall off the last couple of years — but he always played hard. Sure, maybe some people ripped his lack of speed, but when you totaled it up he was an average or above average base runner because he kept his head in the game and played with such passion.
Sure, some people ripped the Phillies for signing Ibanez to a three-year, $31.5 million deal when he’s 37. I thought it was great. I was proud of the guy. He’s the essence of the self-made ballplayer. He has a lot of fans too — I don’t mean to say he doesn’t — but I think with someone like Raul, well, he doesn’t really flip any of those switches that gets the public or analysts excited. He’s not quite a .300 hitter, not quite a 35 home run guy, not quite a big-time on-base percentage guy, not quite an All-Star, not quite … Ben Oglivie is one of his comps, and that’s a good one. Few people noticed Oglivie (except the one year when he just seemed to emerge from nowhere and lead the league in home runs). Harold Baines is another good comparison, I think. Raul’s just a good player, a damned good player, who is most appreciated by those who are closest to him.
OK, so that was the Raul Ibanez story … until this year. Then, this year, as everyone knows, he got off to a preposterous start. After 55 games, he was hitting .329/.386/.676 with 19 homers and 54 RBIs. He was tearing up the National League.
What followed, I think, was inevitable. A 37-year-old guy putting up those numbers? A guy few people had noticed the last five years? Yeah, inevitable. And inevitability played out in this blog post by a Midwest Sports Fans blogger named Jerod Morris.
I’ll talk about the post in a minute — I don’t know Jerod at all but feel like in many ways he’s getting a bad rap here — but before that I want to say that the post is almost beside the point. Someone, at some point, was going to make an insinuation about Raul Ibanez. I know this because, privately, I received emails from people who made insinuations. How could it be any other way? In this day and age — after A-Rod, after Manny, after Barry, after Clemens, after McGwire, after Palmeiro, after Giambi, after Sheffield after Balco, after the Mitchell Report and congressional hearings, after everything and more, after all of that — there was no way around the whispers.
Then, what happened was this blogger, Jerod, took the whispers above ground. He didn’t necessarily think he was taking it above ground … it seems he was, as he says, mostly just responding to a friend in a fantasy league. But he wrote a long blog post — something you know I can appreciate — trying to get to the bottom of the great Ibanez start. He found himself running into brick walls. He could not credit it entirely to Ibanez’s new home park. He does make the conclusion that Ibanez has hit most of his home runs at either A. Good home run ballparks or B. Against terrible pitchers. But he doesn’t find that to be compelling.
Now, I’ll say here that, my personal opinion is that Jerod missed something in his analysis, and I’ll get to that in a second. But the point is: He did not find the answer he was looking for so he put a megaphone to the whispers. I don’t think he was making accusations. I don’t think he was some blogger in his mother’s basement mouthing off. I really think it was a well-intentioned piece meant to make the larger point that so many of us have made — in this day and age, it’s hard to know what’s real.
Trouble is, he pointed at Raul … and that was unfair. Raul did not deserve that. And, beyond that, the Internet is an echo chamber. When the blog was Twittered and linked and finally written about, the shades of gray that I think are in the longer piece were gone. Suddenly, it was all about some guy — some BLOGGER guy — charging Ibanez with a steroid crime. Suddenly it was about a few buzzwords and a couple of juicy quotes and 140 characters. Well … another sign of the times.
And then: It turned into a bit of a scandal. Suddenly, there was all sorts of beside-the-point talk about blogging and accusations and responsibility and … ugh. I often think that people are looking for excuses to get into these dreadful conversations.
Raul, for his part, came out forcefully … and I thought he mostly handled it beautifully. I don’t know that he needed to bring out the old blogger in the basement cliche — which sent this whole discussion reeling into another tedious Mainstream vs. Blogger argument — but hey, he was emotional and hurt. He forcefully denied charges, offered to take a blood test, said he would return every dime he ever made in the game if he ever tested positive. I know Raul, and I know that he’s a proud man. He should be proud. All this time, so many people have not believed in him, but he fought through that, he kept swinging, he finally made it to the top … and for anyone to question him now was simply too much for him to take.
I don’t blame him for his reaction; I applaud him for it. In fact — and maybe this is a pipe dream — I kind of hope that Raul will take us into a whole new stage in the Selig Era. He’s strong enough to do this too: I hope he DOES stand up, rail against steroid use, volunteer to take the most advanced tests, leave no doubt — or as little doubt as possible — so that people will see that, yes, a man who was on the brink of being run out of the game, a man who has faced doubters and critics at every turn, a man who had every reason to break the rules did not break them, did not even bend them. I come more and more to the conclusion that what baseball could use now in this era of doubt is a pioneer, someone who takes it upon himself to take on all comers and say, “That’s it. Yes, some unfortunate stuff happened, and a lot of people are to blame, but you know what? We’re moving on. The game is moving on.”
It would be a hard thing for any player to do. He would have to fight wars on multiple fronts. Like I say, I think Raul is strong enough to do it.
Now, I can tell you the part that I think Jerod missed, the part a lot of people seem to have missed, the part about Raul Ibanez that you don’t hear enough about: This hot beginning is not at all out of line with Raul Ibanez’s career. I’m telling you: This is ABSOLUTELY TYPICAL for Raul.*
*I wish that Jerod had seen this … and then he might have kept the regrettable steroid stuff out of his piece. Jerod really did seem to be looking for a reason why Ibanez is hitting like he’s hitting … and in my opinion that reason was right there in front of his eyes.
The reason: When Raul Ibanez is hot, he’s HOT. There’s aren’t many people in baseball like him.
Look: Through 55 games, Ibanez was hitting .329/.386/.676 with 19 homers.
OK, let’s start in 2002. That year, Ibanez had a 50-game streak — June 7 to August 2 — when he hit .328/.385/.704 with 15 doubles, 5 triples, 15 homers. He drove in 54 runs. Few noticed because the Royals were abysmal that year, and it was in the middle of the season. But that stretch, you will note, is about as good as the stretch he’s on now. In some ways, it’s even better.
In 2003, he had a 55-game stretch where he hit .326/.360/.514 … not as good, but pretty damned good.
In 2004, he hit .365 over a 54-game stretch. In 2005, he got off to a dreadful start and then hit .330/.400/.524 over his next 55 games. In 2006, he hit 18 homers and drove in 57 RBIs in a 52-game stretch.
The last 52 games of the 2007 season, Ibanez hit .363/.425/.652 with 15 homers.
Last year, for 55 games, July 12 to Sept. 14, he hit .374/.435/.648 with 17 doubles, 2 triples, 13 homers. And that, you might remember, was in Seattle and a lousy hitters’ ballpark.
This is a man who, when he gets hot, absolutely tears up pitchers. I’ve seen it up close. He has had a 50-to-60 game hot streak EVERY SINGLE YEAR since 2002. Now, true, this time around, his hot streak started with Game 1. And why not? He was in a new league, in a new ballpark, facing pitchers who had not seen him as much. He’s in more of a fastball/slider/change-up league, which is in his comfort zone (rather than curveballs and split fingered fastballs which, generally, have eaten him up).
Point is: Raul Ibanez got hot, and this is how he hits when he’s hot. There’s nothing out of the ordinary here, nothing at all. Now, if he goes on to do this all year, if he goes on to hit 55 home runs, then yes, that would be out of the ordinary, that would be an outlier year like the years of Roger Maris, Davey Johnson, Andre Dawson, Luis Gonzalez, Brady Anderson and everyone else who had a wild and out of character year.
But for now, Raul Ibanez is just continuing what he’s done year after year. It’s just that people are noticing.
* * *
Update: I really liked Jerod’s comment … so I’m going to publish the key points in it:
What I am the most disappointed in is that if I were to make a list of 10-20 players whom I “most” believe in, Raul Ibanez would be on that list — which is why, combined with the whispers I was starting to hear about him, I decided to research and write the post in the first place.
I’ve been getting lots of emails tonight from people who have been saying that I will be vindicated “when Raul tests positive” and that it is somehow inevitable. I obviously think that speculating is warranted, but I am absolutely rooting for Raul Ibanez, for many of the reasons that you cited above. I understand why today’s game of Internet telephone has made this a me-against-Raul-Ibanez thing; I just think it’s unwarranted and disappointing. But despite what some may think who have not read my post and simply have jumped on the bandwagon of controversy, I’m rooting for Raul Ibanez, think he’s clean, and would be crushed if he ever failed a drug test.
That got lost in all of today’s drama, but it’s true.
I realize I am now the face of the Raul Ibanez speculation, but at the end of the day I’m a dedicated baseball fan who WANTS players to be clean and who is rooting for Raul.
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It seems a number of people expected Ibanez (including Simmons) to have a good year, just on the basis of now playing in the National League.
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since he left, i have absolutely missed raul more than any other player the royals have allowed to leave in the last decade. glad to see him doing well. good work, joe.
Great piece, finally one that gets behind the name calling and looks at the facts from both sides.
Great post. Everyone who has owned Ibañez on a fantasy team is well aware of his crazy hot streaks. I didn’t realize quite how many he’d had, though. This season really isn’t out of character, except that he’s having his hot streak at the start of the season instead of the one week I might happen to bench him.
I’ve always thought that Raul is legit, however, whenever a player says they’re willing to take any kind of blood test, it’s strictly lip service, as unless I’ve missed some news, there is no reliable test for HGH.
Joe,
I loved your post.
Add Raul’s history of hitting well with men on base, and what you cited about him having enormous hot streaks throughout seasons, and I continue to find more and more reasons to believe in Raul.
And I appreciated your honest assessment of my post. What I am the most disappointed in is that if I were to make a list of 10-20 players whom I “most” believe in, Raul Ibanez would be on that list — which is why, combined with the whispers I was starting to hear about him, I decided to research and write the post in the first place.
I’ve been getting lots of emails tonight from people who have been saying that I will be vindicated “when Raul tests positive” and that it is somehow inevitable. I obviously think that speculating is warranted, but I am absolutely rooting for Raul Ibanez, for many of the reasons that you cited above. I understand why today’s game of Internet telephone has made this a me-against-Raul-Ibanez thing; I just think it’s unwarranted and disappointing. But despite what some may think who have not read my post and simply have jumped on the bandwagon of controversy, I’m rooting for Raul Ibanez, think he’s clean, and would be crushed if he ever failed a drug test.
That got lost in all of today’s drama, but it’s true.
Thanks for highlighting all of the great aspects about Raul Ibanez and another compelling statistical reason to believe in his start this year. I realize I am now the face of the Raul Ibanez speculation, but at the end of the day I’m a dedicated baseball fan who WANTS players to be clean and who is rooting for Raul.
And of the many posts I’ve read about this topic today, this one is right at the top of the list. And that is no surprise, considering the source.
I agree with Erik. Well, Beltran, too.
Damon Stoudamire took a lot of flak when he was one of the ringleaders of the Jail Blazers back at the start of the decade. But he did a similar stand-up thing and volunteered for drug tests against the wishes of the players association. I think it was marijuana, and not something performance enhancing, but I gained a great deal of respect for him in that period.
Two points:
1) You’d know as well as anyone. And I want you to be right. But a good guy can still be a cheat. And as an above poster mentioned, there’s no test for HGH. Of course, there’s no proof that HGH works, either, so whatever.
2) I think the NL thing holds some weight. The NL stinks. The pitching in the NL seems pretty bad, especially beyond the top guys.
Aside from being more grounded in facts and possibly better written, how is this post different than Rick Reilly’s multiple “Sammy Sosa is using steroids, let’s test him right here” columns on SI’s back in the day?
Or Bob Ryan’s notorious column saying that he is now obvious that Nomar used steroids shortly after he left Boston. The list goes on.
Honestly, there’s more accountability — whatever that means at this point — shown by how this guy has handled the controversy than we see from the scores of scouts and people inside the game who feed us anonymous quotes year after year after year.
@will
The big difference is that the blogger is probably not trying to get himself over while discussing the story, unlike The Guy Who Wants To Be Dan Jenkins.
I can’t wait for what must be the next post, the all-time outlier seasons by position. Davey Johnson, 2b, etc.
As for steroids, judging by the sales numbers of the book about A-Rod, almost everyone has moved on.
[...] Here is a fantastic piece by Joe Posnanski you might enjoy better than my humble effort. Possibly related posts: [...]
Twitted by 2xAught7 | June 10th, 2009 at 9:28 pm [#2]
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Bloggers vs. MSM: Ibanez, Steroids and Credibility « Tyler Duffy | June 10th, 2009 at 11:38 pm [#13]
[...] Here is a fantastic piece by Joe Posnanski you might enjoy better than my humble effort. Possibly related posts: [...]
can we turn off the ads masquerading as comments? They bring nothing to the discussion that is taking place here and instead seek to divert it to their own personal realm and forum, and I find that behavior to be glory-hogging and coat-tailing at its worst.
I have not followed Raul Ibanez’ career like most of you but if Joe says Raul is a strong character guy then I am first in line to believe it. So, he had better be if he ever decides to buck the NLPBA and agrees to any and all drug tests. We all would love to applaud the strength of a player to buck the system and his union and like it even more if each and every test came back clean. However, it will never happen…The NLPBA will NEVER, EVER allow that sort of thing to happen in our lifetimes unless my overly biased cynicism for bloated, out of touch unions is so strong that I am now the one out of touch with reality.
Oh, also, a comment on the header of this Joe post…I’m so old school that I remember when great athletic achievements were met with the now seemingly so naive saying, “He’s been eating his Wheaties!” made famous (I think) by ’50s USA pole vaulter Bob Richards. My disabled uncle with cerebral palsy ate his Wheaties practically every morning all of his life I believe with some small hope that downing that cereal daily might help him become an athlete like his heroes on the playing fields. So, with that long-gone innocent era so far in the distant past, I still wish that the header could say “What Has Raul Been Eating, His Wheaties?” I know, I’m far too nostalgic but I can always hope…
The steroid era sucks but the Genie is now way too pumped up to wiggle back into the bottle (of Mark McGuire’s bottle of Andro sitting on his locker shelf…)
personally, i don’t know and i don’t care who in mlb is or was using steroids, hgh,bht,ddt,abc, or xyz…all i want is to see good baseball within the context of the individual game i am watching…enhancers are, it appears to me, a fairly common factor in football and basketball…and i do not care, as long as the individual game i am watching is well-played…if someone like lyle alzado wants to take them until he dies of a brain tumor, well, that’s his choice…if barry bonds jurnior finds it useful to have his head grow to the size of a watermelon so he can make 20 million a year, hey, his choice…but he can be fun to watch, in a game…the steroids factor matters only, it seems to me, in the long term stats…but that doesn’t matter to me…i do not care what individual awards or records any player gets or sets…i root for my team in THIS game, only…and, at this point, i think that if they do or may help, and if they are ‘legal’ or not yet ‘illegal’, then maybe it is time to see if any of the royals might be willing to risk longterm health and short term ‘roid rage’ issues in exchange for an enhanced ability now to hit the freakin’ ball out of the infield at least once per game. period.
Joe, great writeup but I disagree with one thing. I don’t think Ibanez handled it beautifully, and this is why: No Major League Baseball player who was in the league over the past 10-20 years has ANY right to get mad about accusations (with the exception of the couple guys like Thomas and Schilling who have repeatedly spoken out and tried to get tougher testing policies). Even the clean players are complicit in the scandal, because they could’ve done something. As far as I know, Ibanez hasn’t, and because he hasn’t (until now) made any real effort to clean up the game, he has no right to get mad when the accusing eye looks in his direction.
Also, the “blogger living in the basement who doesn’t have a clue” thing really needs to stop. I mean, it really needs to stop. Maybe when all the hack writers at newspapers (note: not all newspaper sports writers are hacks) are unemployed and the good bloggers are making a living by writing online, the dinosaurs and those who echo their drivel will give up on the whole mom’s basement idea.
What surprises me the most about this post is not the fact that someone voiced suspicion about Ibanez and roids/HGH, nor that Ibanez came out swinging, nor that Joe P wrote an even-handed and well-written post about it. No, the most surprising thing to me is that Joe P appears to be endorsing the concept of the hot hitter. Not the hitter who gets hot, but the hitter who TENDS to get hot. Haven’t we been through enough with the coin-flipping posts a few months back? Isn’t streakiness next to clutchiness?
The real point to be made, I suspect, is that Ibanez has long been GOOD enough to post a stretch of games like this, not that he’s a guy who gets HOT enough.
[...] yes, that is essentially what a blogger is. As Joe Posnanski writes Morris essentially “took the whispers above ground.” Morris goes on to make his case, [...]
The part that’s missing here is the lazy, self-serving Philly sports columnist who aired this story (hell, it wasn’t a story but a discussion in a fantasy baseball league) and, while leaning on the blogger-in-mom’s-basement cliche, totally misrepresented what Jerod wrote. Then ESPN, ever hungry for a quick controversy, hopped on that. All Ibanez ever heard was what the mainstream media said about Jerod (who, I guess, is a professional writer). I doubt Raul ever read the actual post.
Once again, the MSM tries to attack bloggers, and instead reveals its own biases and vindictiveness.
I totally get Ibanez’ anger. On the other hand, Raffy Palmeiro was pretty pissed at first, too. We truly don’t know anymore, and Raul needs to understand that. What’s happened before with steroids in baseball is going to taint everything that happens from here. It’s not fair, but it’s reality…
Nothing to add… that was awesome.
so you know how fans like to yell names that rhyme with “boo” like bruuuuuuuce or duuuuuuuuuuuce or huuuuuugh. well the phillies fan do that with Rauuuuuul. Am i the only person who thinks this doesnt work?
new updated citizens bank park being homer happy stats. 26 games at home 34 hrs. 31 Games away, 50 home runs(best in baseball). knocking the ball out of Citi like it were wiffleball.
“Ben Oglivie is one of his comps, and that’s a good one. Few people noticed Oglivie (except the one year when he just seemed to emerge from nowhere and lead the league in home runs)”
I would add that Dan Quisenberry certainly noticed Ben. He absolutely killed Quiz. Admittedly as small sample size, but in 18 plate appearances he hit .400/.500/.800. with 2 HRs. (in fact the first ML HR Quiz ever gave up was to Oglivie, in the bottom of the 9th to win a game at old County Stadium)
For once, I’d like to see a clean Major League player get angry at the right people – the dirty Major League players. If it wasn’t for Sosa, McGwire, Bonds, Palmeiro, etc., nobody would be speculating on PEDs. Jerod didn’t create this mess, he just wrote about what everyone else was thinking.
[...] What’s eating Raul? — (Joe Posnanski) [...]
There isn’t a definitive black and white test for HGH, but with a blood test they pretty much know if someone has been taking or not. The main problem is usually getting players to give up the blood, not the test. They have busted people on HGH in the Olympics before.
I have to agree with the blogger in his Mom’s basement. There are some really good, well written reputable blogs out there, but the majority are not. Most are written by hacks who have no idea what they are talking about and have no regard for silly things like “proof” or “integrity”. A blog allows you to show or say anything, but most don’t think if the should.
Of course hitters get ‘hot’…anyone who ever plays a sport knows that somedays you just feel better and more ready to play, and some days you don’t…
Even if Raul Ibanez had never, ever in his life gone on a streak like this in his life, the chance, every year, that some Raul Ibanez-like dude goes on a streak like this to open the season is really high.
Isn’t this just another anecdote for The Drunkard’s Walk? The human mind wants clear cause and effect and naturally looks for plausible antecedents in strings of random chance. Juicing is just the antecedent du jour.
I feel some of the speculation would stop if Bud Selig was replaced. At least for me, he represents a lot of what the “steroids era” was about. I am not trying to forget what has happened, but I want to move on. I think that starts at the top. I know that this won’t happen, because it would take Selig admitting some wrong doing, or knowing about some wrong doing.
I also feel the MLBPA needs to find away to protect, and SUPPORT it’s players. Obviously they have been really good at protecting all their players from drug testing. I think they need to find a way to support players like Raul when they are being scrutinized like this. I am sure he has paid his union dues. He deserves some public support.
Brent @ #24 – Quiz actually wrote a poem about Oglivie entitled “Ode to Ben Oglivie.” An excerpt (from the Bill James HBA)…
i heard you were a quiet man
could do a times crossword in 15 minutes
yet you seemed nervous at the plate
waving, wiggling that bat
a puppy’s tail
held high by sinew-strong arms
God, I miss Quiz.
[...] * OK, not only do I really admire Joe Posnanski for how he writes — the dude is a master — but also the way he thinks and researches. Everything is on display in this blog post about the Raul Ibanez “controversy” [...]
This is the normal fallout from the steroid controversy that’s been going on for the last few years. Isn’t this what we were expecting? That any time a player seemed to suddenly improve or put up big numbers, that people would become suspicious?
If Ibañez is innocent, he’ll be one of the victims of the way the PED issue has been (mis)handled by MLB. Even worse, the likely course of events if he is innocent will probably be:
- his statistics normalize, and people will claim that it’s proof that he “stopped juicing” when the rumors surfaced.
- the player’s union will veto any volunteered drug testing and put pressure on Raul to rescind his offer, which will be seen as “proof” that he’s using PEDs.
I don’t want the ’steroid issue’ to go away, I’d like to see it dealt with openly and honestly. Because it is not going to go away, it’s just going to be used to tarnish innocent players along with the guilty.
You sidestep the blogger in the basement issue a bit. There has been a giant snark-a-thon by all the bloggers who are convinced that they can run every facet of a major league baseball organization in a far superior fashion. How many times has that gif of Ibanez hooking that throw been posted? Just go cruise around the adolescent wonderland that is SBNation.
The truth is that many blogs are dominated by immature and arrogant people. Does it really matter if they’re blogging from the basement or an upstairs bedroom at their parents’ house?
Also, if the same logic were applied to something like the military, that is that all soldiers should be ready to be accused of the litany of heinous crimes that are known to have happened recently and not with rarity, the person saying it would be considered a traitor or scum or similar. Same with accusing cops of being thugs or Catholic schoolgirls of being promiscuous. The ratio of known PED users to believed to be non-PED users is so extreme that, yes, it is wrong to accuse someone of something based on a crappy, weak statistical argument.
Your response that you found a stat that could explain it is a sad testimony to the notion that a person sitting in his mother’s basement could run a baseball team.
First of all, great Oglive reference. Second, I’m absolutely rooting for Raul. I don’t want my sons seeing only the cheaters and scum of professional sports….I want them to see guys like Raul Ibanez, Mark DeFilece, and others who worked their tails off, and continue to do so, just to stay in the show.
Second, with the Oglive reference, now you need to get Teddy Simmons into the hall…..
Am I the only person that didn’t see a scathing accusation in Jerod’s piece? After I finished reading his post, I felt like his conclusion was that it is too soon to tell…that most likely he is just hitting well right now and will come back down to earth (ala Pierre), but if he ends up with 50 HR, than we will need to revisit the topic.
I just don’t see the controversy. And maybe the controversy was just created by the media that ran with this non-story.
I agree, Kevin. The media loves running with the “irresponsible blogger in their mom’s basement” angle and this was a great opportunity. Just look at Ken Rosenthal’s performance on OTL yesterday, what a windbag.
“Eating Raul” is one of the great underrated dark comedies of all time. Nice reference.
If anything the real story here is how the media ran with this, and Raul ended up responding to the way the media responded to it, rather than to Jerod’s actual piece. This all seems way overblown to me.
In reality the only person Raul Ibanez should be upset with is himself and the rest of the clean players in the player union. They allowed steroids to go on for how many years before testing was even put in place? Why wouldnt fans question anybody who puts up great numbers right now? I mean if A-Rod and Manny and Clemens needed steroids what does that say about the regular guys? How much money have they made from the steroid use through out baseball?
We fans have the right to question what we are seeing. Especially when a 37 year old is producing so great. (Joe great point with the 50+ game streaks in Ibanez’ career. This just stands out as he is now on the world champs, got a big contract, and it is to start a season.) But If the players dont want us to doubt their work they either need better testing or they should have spoken up. We all want a clean game but it needs to be proven to us that its real what we are seeing.
To Go Bears @ Post 19:
No, streakiness is not next to clutchiness. There are several reasons why a player may go on a streak. It could be that they are finally healthy, or go a few weeks or 6 weeks with their mechanics just right. Or maybe that they are just seeing the ball better and not swinging at garbage and then hitting the good pitch the pitcher is forced into.
Last night during the Red Sox/Yankees game Rick Sutcliffe showed just how out of whack Wang’s delivery is compared to last year. If/When Wang gets command of his wind up, he will go on a streak, and then when it goes off by a few millimeters, or he tips his pitches, he will then get hit again.
i haven’t gotten through all the comments yet, so it may have been mentioned, but you missed this:
raul and the phillies have played the nationals’ atrocious pitching staff TWELVE TIMES so far this year.
Really brilliant new Onion story:
Nation Desperately Seeks Sportswriters’ Opinions On Kobe Bryant
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/nation_desperately_seeks?utm_source=a-section
I take my position as a fan and with other fans like me. Wait, let me say I’m a FORMER FAN of Baseball.
First of all, the FANS are the one’s who’ve paid the price for all the cheating in baseball. Why? They’re stealing the FANS MONEY! Not once has Major League Baseball OR the MAJOR LEAGUE OWNERS OR the lying cheating Players EVER PAID the fans back for cheating. Sure, they’ll lie and cheat and STEAL your money but they won’t offer to pay ANYTHING back! No contrition, no “I’m sorry I cheated YOU” no offer of discounted seats. Actually, the more they cheat the more they smile and STEAL more from you. How about those $2500 seats at new stadiums? They jacked up the price just to see who’s another sucker again.
No matter how you slice it all these liars and thieves will continute to do so until the people paying their salaries (FANS) FIGHT BACK. That’s what I’m doing. I’m not going to give any more of my money to these A-holes. My son and I find plenty to do during these months and our lives are much better for it. Going to the movies (an absolute BARGAIN compared to 3 grueling hours at a “Major Fraud” ballpark. Going to the park, throwing the frisbee, fishing at the lake, Putt Putt golf, Worlds of Fun etc etc.
My son (another EX-FAN of baseball) said it best the other day–”I’d rather be around people I can trust instead of wasting my time with any crooked baseball stuff”.
Man I hate what baseball has done to their fans but I love this kid!
Are you giving up football too? Didn’t football “steal” your money? Several players from Super Bowl winning teams have admitted that they took steroids, including Terry Bradshaw, winner of four Super Bowls. Shouldn’t you be trying to get a refund from the NFL too?
[...] Today, everyone with a Blogspot account and the ability type is weighing in on the story with some going the mainstream media v. bloggers route while others like Joe Posnanski are taking a look at the situation by shining a wider light on Ibanez’s stats. [...]
Scary random stat:
In today’s Cards/Marlins game, Ross Gload outhomered Albert Pujols. This is noteworthy because Pujols went yard.
Buchholz, you’re right I gave up on football too.
It’s just that baseball had a certain “lore” to it. I guess it’s part of the American boys idyllic dream. You know, simple, pure, innocent. It just hurt more to find out it’s a complete fraud.
I just ask that if you’re a fan of baseball your only avenue is to fight back with your wallet. Trust me, it works.
Eric,
How did they “steal” from us? Unless you were never entertained during the crooked time you speak of, than I have a hard time seeing how they are stealing from you. I understand your anger and frustration, so maybe “cheated” you out of what you thought was pure is a better way to say it.
I still love watching baseball, and I think it is changing drastically with the new testing in place. Oh, and a movie could never match the cost of my $4 seats for baseball games.
I’m cheated because they lied to me. They said they weren’t using steroids-a lie. They said it was an even playing field–it isn’t/wasn’t. They said they would fix it-they didn’t.
Wagging fingers, shrugging shoulders, scolding congressmen. The only people that got screwed were the fans. Ironic isn’t it?
In reading the actual blog post in question I was struck with just how ridiculous it is for it to be represented as throwing out steroids claims in regard to Ibanez. At the bottom of the blog Jerod posts the quotes that were taken from it by the Philly sportswriter. It made me absolutely sick that someone could so blatantly misrepresent the tone, context, and conclusions of a piece of writing and not receive any punishment or widespread ridicule. This is especially troubling given the most consistent complaint the mainstream media levels against bloggers: that they have no accountability for what they publish. If you want to point to a piece of writing that lacks accountability to the truth or fairness in how it treats its subject matter, the piece from the Philly sports hack should be Exhibit 1A.
Eric (#51)
No it isn’t ironic, even if what you say about fans getting screwed it true (more on that later), that is not ironic. Fans have the least latent power amongst the parties that you list so it would not be ironic that they would be the ones to be screwed, I think you need to check your definition of ironic.
Secondly, I find it pretty disingenuous to claim that somehow baseball players stole from their fans by cheating. Fans pay to be entertained, and whether or not that entertainment was accomplished through less than ideal means, that entertainment was received. It is fair to say that the steroid scandal has destroyed your ability to be entertained by baseball in the future, but to claim theft is a big stretch.
I wonder how you feel about movies? Do you feel cheated when it becomes obvious that an actor has used some nefarious means to bulk up for a role? Do you feel Hollywood has stolen from you too? I admire the sentiment that there is lots to gain by simply spending time with your loved ones, rather than just near them while enjoying the actions of others, but your vitriol towards others is puzzling to me.
You can rationalize it all you want and I don’t blame you for it. I was the same way until my kid asked me who pays for all these cheaters.
Ironic that the people who pay the money are treated the worst, with the most disrespect when they should be treated as a valued customer.
This whole thing, to me, is just one more big indictment of Selig. Supposedly, MLB has taken steps to clean up its sport, and that would, theoretically, exonerate any and all player achievements this season, right?
Tell me why, then, are people so willing to yell “steroids” at the first sign of an outlier? Could it be that Selig has ONCE AGAIN failed the sport MISERABLY? Shouldn’t restoring the public faith in the game be HIS HIGHEST PRIORITY?
Instead, he chose to pursue limited competitive balance measures at the expense of the integrity of the game during every collective bargaining process he has been involved in. Little wonder the fans react the way they do, given “leadership” such as this.
Selig is part of the problem – Baseball STILL does NOT test during the off season so the players can cycle on/off in time for spring training.
However, it’s the players themselves who are the most accountable. They’re the one’s injecting themselves illegally.
[...] Posnanski, a friend of Ibanez, writes a balanced piece on the debacle. As always, Posnanski “gets it”, and in this post, offers the most [...]
[...] so many of us have made – in this day and age, it’s hard to know what’s real,” Posnanski writes. “When the blog was Twittered and linked and finally written about, the shades of gray that I [...]
I don’t believe Ibanez’s hot streaks mean he’s “good enough to have them”. It’s more a matter of him being bad enough to have cold streaks. If a man can do what Ibanez has done for 50 game stretches, he can do it for 160 games, ability-wise. What I think Ibanez has done is a masterful job of playing around his shortcomings. When he played in KC, I was convinced that when he was hot, he was going to the plate just looking for a certain pitch and not EVER swinging the bat at anything else with less than two strikes. It seemed to me that eventually he’d start thinking he really was good enough to hit anything and he’d start chasing pitches he couldn’t handle. If he can just stay humble enough, he could have a terrific season. He may never hit as well against “ace” pitchers as against hangers-on, but who does?
It’s interesting how this is/has become a reflection of the fight between MSM and blogging — in fact, John Gonzales, who wrote the article in the Inquirer, called it a great “case-study” of that topic on his appearance with Jerrod on OTL.
To Gonzales, this is a great case-study because it shows the alleged difference in standards and fact-checking. The more significant difference is the failure of the MSM to pick up on, much less convey, the subtlety of Jerrod’s point.
Jerrod wasn’t accusing Ibanez, or even necessarily speculating about him. What he WAS doing was musing on the sad reality of the current climate — the fact that a player who gets that hot later in his career will inevitably be doubted. The fact that Ken Rosenthal is too dense or uninterested to understand the difference IS sad, but it’s also unsurprising.
The MSM’s reaction to the rise of blogging has been through the lens of speed. The general belief is that blogs are big because they get the word out quickly — despite the sacrifices necessary to do so. What they’re missing is that blogs are also popular because they’re not beholden to the institutions of the status quo — and that breeds truth as well as lies.
Just to continue with #60 a bit more. Ibanez and Matt Stairs are two guys I think take pretty much the same approach. Stairs has more power, pulls the ball more and has a somewhat more limited plate coverage in his swing than Ibanez. Stairs doesn’t even change his approach with two strikes and he has said so publicly. Both of them have proven they can be really valuable hitters with somewhat limited ability. Steve Balboni was the same way. Don’t swing at stuff you can’t hit. Concentrate on the stuff you CAN hit and don’t listen to advice from anybody. It works if you work at it. Of course you cannot afford to be too proud to look stupid facing Justin Verlander or Zack Grienke when they have their good stuff. If an occasional pitcher can throw really good stuff in locations you can’t handle, just wait til next time. Don’t let humiliation get you down.
Raul Ibanez doesn’t need to be THE guy in the middle of the Phillies order. He just needs to be one of the guys. The pressure isn’t on the guy like it was in Kansas City or Seattle. This, more than anything, explains why his numbers have been so good.
As a Phillies fan, I have been impressed with Raul’s overall game. He’s not the fastest guy, but he runs well enough and he’s a pretty good baserunner. His defense has been better than advertised and he has a pretty good throwing arm.
I appreciate Raul’s determination, and his spoken challenge to undergo whatever tests are requested of him to back up his words. If only cowards like Clemens and Bonds could have done the same, if they had the opportunity.
However, I agree with Algorad (#25) and Matt (#40). Rather than biting a blogger’s head off, Raul’s genuinely righteous anger needs to be directed at his own fraternity of MLB brethren, and the more publicly, the better. However, that would take some real bravery to stand up to MLBPA frat brothers and leadership, and at this point, I don’t expect that even out of the most stand-up guy in the league.
As you chronicle, when Raul was fighting just to stay at the major league level, right in the thickest part of “PED Era I” (as if someday, just like wars, there won’t be a “II”?), where was his anger then at the cheaters willing to risk their health to beat Raul for the job?
His resentment should be for those players that chose to take illegal and risky shortcuts that both made it harder for him to win a job in 2002, as well as pre-taint a spike in raul’s performance in 2009? That’s at least seven years worth of anger that righteously should take his former and current teammates to task–not some fantasy team manager drawing natural, if incorrect, conclusions in this sadly but properly skeptical era.
as an addendum to my previous argument re: the phllies playing the nationals a ridiculous 12 times already this year, i’d like to support with the following stats, since baseball-reference was inexplicably missing 2/3rds of ibanez’s game logs earlier today.
in the 12 games against the nationals pitching, ibanez has:
6 hr, 18 rbi, .440/.509/.880 for a delightful 1.389 ops. yeah thats nice. he’s also sporting a .421 babip in those games. 22 for 50 !
he’s also managed 4 hr, 9 rbi, a .500/.536/1.154 line with a delicious 1.690 ops in 6 games against the hapless padres. .474 babip there!
replace those with games against decent teams and he probably looks quite a bit more normal.
of course, i will admit i’ve complained about him more than my fair share in my fantasy league.
ibanez wins another!
excellent stuff bringing up the streaks. i had no idea… i hope someone uses this as their lede somewhere. excellent stuff
The players should understand that their own union is the biggest culprit in this whole mess. If they had agreed to testing instead of fighting it for years, then the steroid issue may have been nipped in the bud. So when the innocent get accused due to the actions of some of their predecessors, and their representatives did nothing to stop it….well, shame on them for allowing their representatives to allow the bad apples to cheat and get away with it for years and years.
Jake at #14:
Those aren’t ads. I don’t know when or why it started happening, but every time you link one of of Joe’s posts somewhere, it now makes one of those posts here with a link to the place at which you linked it.
It wasn’t happening until recently, but it did happen to me the last two times I’ve pimped a JoePos piece elsewhere (not this one), and I did nothing to make it happen.
Thanks for that great article about Raul. I’ve liked this guy since his early days with KC and Seattle. You could tell just watching him that he had a great work ethic and that just loved the game of baseball. I always thought he would fit with my Toronto Blue Jays. His “blue collar” work ethic would have made him a superstar here in Toronto, guys like Reed Johnson have shown us that in the past. I was sad to see him sign with Philly in the off season but I was happy to see that he was finally getting some recognition for his hard work. He’s a great player and I like the way he handled himself with these terrible allegations. Thanks for not only standing up for him but also for that blogger who was clearly just forming a thought in the form of the ever changing world of social media.
“There’s nothing out of the ordinary here, nothing at all. Now, if he goes on to do this all year, if he goes on to hit 55 home runs, then yes, that would be out of the ordinary; that would be an outlier year like the years of Roger Maris, Davey Johnson, Andre Dawson, Luis Gonzalez, Brady Anderson and everyone else who had a wild and out-of-character year.”
Are you kidding? The last two players on your list used PED’s. So, why use them as “proof” of any sort to back up your premise?
Good to see the site back up. This is the only sports blog I read *before* going in to work, and articles like this one are the reasons why. Thank you again, Joe, for another article well worth reading.
I doubt this is going to come across very nicely:
The MSM in sports is dying. They disaparge statistics they can’t (and won’t take time to) understand. They disparage people that don’t agree with them (yes, I’m a pot here…..). They don’t bother to look at the nuances of what other people write (which is ironic, as many of them think of themselves as deep, intellectual types). And, also ironically, many of them now have blogs and appear on tv and radio (mediums they spend all kinds of time ripping).
This is just another example of why MSM is dying for many of us (heck, I’m 45, not some youngster). They are only interested in what generates news, not in what is news. They are more and more interested in making the news, and not in reporting the news. They are more and more interested in short cuts to loud yelling and controversy, than they are in intellectual debate (maybe I’m delusional in thinking the press was ever any other way).
This is the kind of thing that makes me read Joe and Gleeman and others, and not buy newspapers or watch local news (or even CNN and Fox) much anymore….and that makes me wonder how we’ll ever have news and reporting that moves our nation forward in terms of discussing important issues (and damn, that post is long and moralistic).
“Are you kidding? The last two players on your list used PED’s. So, why use them as “proof” of any sort to back up your premise?”
How do you know that they did, and more importantly how do you know that none of the others did? How often and what kind of PEDs did they use? Who knows? What kind of impact did they get just from the PEDs? Did any of the others cheat in any other way, like using a corked bat or stealing signs? How would you ever know for sure? Which guys faced the most PED-using pitchers or spitball throwers or ball-scuffers?
Joe’s point is that players have been having outlier home run seasons for as long as there has been baseball. And that’s true.
The fact is that players have also been bending the rules and flat-out outright cheating for as long as there has been baseball.
Good luck trying to sort out which guys cheated and which guys didn’t, and which guys cheated but didn’t get caught, and how much their cheating helped them, either directly physically or through the placebo effect, compared with the cheating of the pitchers they had to face.
I don’t know why anyone would bother trying to figure all that out. It’s impossible, and any “conclusions” you come to will be wrong due to incomplete knowledge.
Personally, I just look at what the players did on the field, because we have never known what truly goes on off the field and we never did in the past either.
Bobby Thomson’s Shot Heard Round the World wouldn’t have happened if the Giants hadn’t had a totally illegal electronic sign-stealing system in place for a lot of that season. What do we gain from finding that out? Does that home run “not count” now, because it never could have taken place without illegal cheating, which helped the Giants make their amazing comeback to force the playoff? Of course not. They cheated, they got away with it, it’s unfortunate, but it all still happened. It was an amazing historical moment. Did other teams cheat like that? How much? Who knows?
Cue the chorus of “but steroids are different, because they are magical pills that automatically make you stronger without working hard, and being stronger and more muscular makes you a vastly better hitter, and that’s why great hitters all look like NFL nose tackles, and only hitters take steroids, and they only started doing it in the late 1990s, and therefore other the many other kinds of cheating that have been in place for as long as there has been baseball don’t matter at all, blah blah blah blah.”
jake and snowman:
it’s a feature of wordpress, basically called “trackbacks”
I don’t fault the union for blocking testing – in virtually any other profession, people only get tested if they are in a position to harm others. This is baseball, not driving a skiploader. It’s called personal privacy. Does anybody care about civil rights anymore? I don’t get all “they’re public personalities” – these aren’t senators and governors we’re talking about here.
Now, I do fault the union and Selig for not starting drug testing (which they actually did) and standing up together and saying “look, we now have this program in place, it is hard to keep up with testing technology, but we’re doing all we can, like the Olympics, etc are doing. Anyone who violates this policy will be discliplined as x, y, z”.
And at that point, stand as one and say shut the f$ck up to any media blather and obtuse accusations. And keep repeating the mantra in quotes above.
Selig blew it by allowing/promoting Bonds to become the poster boy, thinking it would deflect the dialogue. That set an atmosphere of cover-up, and that impression continues on with (insert your own litany of accused players) and mush-mouthed semi-non-confessions. It has become a “have you stopped beating your wife” scenario, and both the Union and Selig have failed baseball by not standing by what they HAVE done.
#48
“You know, simple, pure, innocent.”
If you believe that baseball – or almost any other activity engaged in by adults – is simple, pure, and innocent – you’re either naive or deluded.
How simple, pure, and innocent was baseball when it was segregated, or when players were popping amphetamines like they were M&Ms, or when the owners colluded to lowball salaries, etc?
#56
“Tell me why, then, are people so willing to yell “steroids” at the first sign of an outlier? Could it be that Selig has ONCE AGAIN failed the sport MISERABLY?”
Not to entirely discount the latter (and you’d have to include the union with Selig), but to address the former: a lot of people are stupid, and – especially the majority of sports “journalists” – are more interested in spectacle and controversy than facts or truth.
[...] column, or ranting, babbling blog post really, about Raul Ibanez. Actually, he has written at least one other post about [...]
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