Dingers Without 'Roids

[petrel]

Part of the below is cut and pasted from Brad Hicks at http://bradhicks.livejournal.com. His most recent post is called "So What Will Baseball Do for Money, Without Steroids?"

Hicks's argument is that advances in pitching outstrip advances in hitting. He refers to what I call the "second dead-ball era" of the late 1960s where there was no hitting and games (so he claims) were snoozers. I think he has a few of his baseball history facts either wrong or misinterpreted, but the final paragraph is the most interesting.


But population keeps going up, and players are recruited from many countries, and the technology of pitcher training keeps improving in ways that don't qualify as cheating in baseball. (And yes, admittedly, occasionally in ways that do.) So major league baseball faces a question that seems fascinating to me: if we take away the hitters' human growth hormone and steroids and it turns out that ordinary well-trained human athletes can no longer reliably hit the ball, what are we going to do about it? For what it's worth, I think it may be time for yet another rules change. It's not unthinkable, you know. The pitchers' mound used to be a lot closer to the plate than it is now; maybe it's time to move it farther back yet again to give batters more time to see the ball coming. Or maybe lower the mound or eliminate it altogether, making the players arc their pitches more to cover the distance. Strike zones have theoretically not changed ever, but we know that umpires vary widely over time in which way their errors bias, against the pitcher or for him. Maybe it's time to change the bats themselves to improve hitting, or change the design of the balls to make them easier to hit. And if minor tweaks don't keep the game lively, remember that other sports have rewritten their rules in even more aggressive ways before, like imposition of the shot clock in basketball after players determined to run out the clock boringly got too good at keeping the other team from stealing the ball. So, yeah: If honest baseball turns boring again, like it was when I was a kid, will they go back to turning a blind eye to cheating by batters, will they let baseball wither on the vine for a few years, or will they change the game itself to make it more active and more interesting? That's the question that's most interesting to me.

This might actually be a good idea. Maybe the ball should be wound a little tighter, or the mound lowered an inch or two, or perhaps even some permissible amount of cork injected into the core of a bat ("the bat may have a cork center of no more than four millimeters in diameter...."). That way, you could have those dingers without everyone being required to turn themselves into steroid-bound behemoths.

--Pet

[Arctic Blast]

Honestly, though, is MORE offense what baseball really needs?

[dps]

Even if I agreed with this guy's diagnosis, IMO his suggested course of treatment is way too extreme.

[HoustonGM]

I think it's completely overstating that effects of HGH/steroids. HGH doesn't help offense at all. Steroids, we don't know what it does. Certainly, offense is up now as compared to the past, but there's no way we're heading back to another "deadball" era.

Testing has been in place for a few years now, and offense is still pretty high, although lower than the late 90s and early 2000's. I don't think offense is going to dramatically decline any time soon.

[Biggles]

Hasn't there been debate for a few years about whether or not the balls were modified following the last strike, in order to boost offense across the board and thus draw in more fans? If we consider that home runs are up substantially over 1990 totals, as mentioned in the Tank McNamara comics linked from that blog, can we really say that it's because of steroids across the board? Everyone in baseball can't be juicing, and yet there is an increase in offensive power for the entire major leagues by a substantial amount. Does this increase fall entirely on the shoulders of the minority of juiced batters, especially if one considers that a number of pitchers have supposedly taken steroids as well?

[ohms_law]

Unless you buy into the idea that nearly everyone at the MLB level has been using steroids over the last few years, then something has already been done (most likely to the baseballs, since that's much easier to control than bats).

[HoustonGM]

Hasn't there been debate for a few years about whether or not the balls were modified following the last strike, in order to boost offense across the board and thus draw in more fans?

Yes. I personally believe in that.

If we consider that home runs are up substantially over 1990 totals, as mentioned in the Tank McNamara comics linked from that blog, can we really say that it's because of steroids across the board?

Nope, not necessarily.

Everyone in baseball can't be juicing, and yet there is an increase in offensive power for the entire major leagues by a substantial amount. Does this increase fall entirely on the shoulders of the minority of juiced batters, especially if one considers that a number of pitchers have supposedly taken steroids as well?

Exactly.

People are so quick to blame the increased offense on steroids, but while there may be a slight connection, steroids cannot be the only reason that offense is at historical highs. Offense has generally always been trending upward if you look at history, with some, usually explainable, blips on the radar.

[Wassit3]

canseco says 85% of the players were cheating, if you beleive what he says...

[HoustonGM]

I'm not going to believe what anybody says about what percentage of players used performance-enhancing drugs because without testing, there is absolutely no way for anybody to know just how many people used drugs. Jose Canseco, no matter how honest he's being, can not possibly know exactly everybody who was taking PED's, so, I'm not taking his or anybody's word for how many players used.

[Wassit3]

I'm not going to believe what anybody says about what percentage of players used performance-enhancing drugs because without testing, there is absolutely no way for anybody to know just how many people used drugs. Jose Canseco, no matter how honest he's being, can not possibly know exactly everybody who was taking PED's, so, I'm not taking his or anybody's word for how many players used.

yeah but much of mitchells report seems to based on hear say, at what point do you draw the line and say ok enough people were cheating that it as nearly an even playing field overall therefore we aren't going to punish anyone or do you keep trying to punish retroactively??

[HoustonGM]

yeah but much of mitchells report seems to based on hear say

Definately.

at what point do you draw the line and say ok enough people were cheating that it as nearly an even playing field overall therefore we aren't going to punish anyone or do you keep trying to punish retroactively??

I don't think anybody should be punished retroactively, and I do believe that enough people were using to make it a nearly even playing field.

I'm just not going to believe any specific number or percentage of players that anybody says, unless there's actual hard evidence.

[robinhoodnik]

I don't think they should be punished retroactively by MLB either. I do think that the BBWA have a different job to do. If they put these guys in, knowing that they did, or having strong evidence that they did use PED's then they're doing a major disservice to our game.

[HoustonGM]

I don't think they should be punished retroactively by MLB either. I do think that the BBWA have a different job to do. If they put these guys in, knowing that they did, or having strong evidence that they did use PED's then they're doing a major disservice to our game.

What about the players that are currently in the Hall that did use PED's (amphetamines) or cheated in other ways? Is that not doing a "major disservice" to the game?

Or the multitude of Hall of Famers that broke the law, or were racist, or sexist, or otherwise bad people?


And also, how do we distinguish between a user and a non-user? Without positive tests, all we have is circumstantial evidence. I guarentee you that there are Hall of Fame caliber players that took PED's, where no evidence of it has come out. It would not be right to bar entry to some Hall of Fame players because there is some evidence of PED use against them, while leaivng the door open to other players from this era that may not have evidence against them. The entire era was riddled by PED use and there are going to be a lot of players that used that no evidence ever comes to light about. We cannot know who did take PED's and who didn't, barring testing, which isn't possible for the past.

Also, take a look at Mark McGwire. He's no doubt a HOF player based on his career. But he took a substance which, at the time he took it, was LEGAL and ALLOWED by the MLB. And the same writers that ignored the andro while he was chasing 61are now using it as an excuse to prevent him from entering the Hall. It's the epitome of hypocrisy.

[HoustonGM]

I request a citation from a study where it showed HGH didn't improve offense.

http://www.sabernomics.com/sabernomi...her-should-you

How would you 'know' we won't have another deadball type era? In fact with the trend toward specialized pitching and emphasize on defense, thanks to stats such a Range Factor, a downward trend seems obviously a very real option.

I don't "know." Nobody "knows" anything about the future. But the deadball era was the deadball era for a reason - dead balls. There is no way, barring changes to the balls or bats or something, that we are going back to THAT low level of offense. Decreased offense as compared to late 90s/early 2000s? Sure. But I don't foresee a drop to meager offensive levels.

[HoustonGM]

Yes - and there are innocent people locked up and guilty people walking free. The fact of the matter is, and you of all people show know this, is in life, if you don't get caught, you're assumed innocent. Its not hyprocrisy, its the fundamental building block of law. (Unless you think it's hypocrisy to place people in jail based on dna evidence because several people walked free before the tests were implemented into criminal science - but surely, only someone dense would think that.)

I do believe in innocent until proven guilty - which is exactly why I do not believe that people with some evidence against them should be barred entry to the Hall of Fame. Circumstantial evidence does not mean that they DID take steroids. Without a positive test, it is not possible to 100% for sure say that someone did something.

It is hypocrisy to ignore McGwire's andro while he's chasing the record, and then year's later villify him for it. Nevermind the fact that andro was a legal substance that anybody could go to the local GNC and buy and there were no rules by baseball prohibitting its use.

BUT, again, the only players that have been specifically barred entry into the Hall of Fame are those that have broke a rule that carried a punishment of a lifetime ban. Taking steroids when these players allegedly took them did not carry any punishment whatsoever. Now, 3 positive tests = lifetime ban. You cannot apply TODAY'S punishments to crimes from years ago.

This entire era was riddled with steroid use. The best players of this era should go into the Hall of Fame, just as it always has been.