On Juicing--from an expert
« More ZIPS | Main | Sickels »Brian Walton, at The Cardinals Birdhouse, has a fascinating interview with fitness expert/journalist (and also native St. Louisan and Cardinal fan) Lou Schuler regarding the recent Jose Canseco "juicing" revelations. Schuler has some interesting, and IMHO, sensible, observations on the whole steroid controversy in MLB, but check it out for yourself.
HOWEVER, for those of you who want an expert opinion on the ultimate question, "Was 'Big Mac' juiced?":
Specifically, how do we ensure athletes who are not users are not unjustly accused? After all, isn’t most evidence circumstantial, such as in the case of Mark McGwire?Posted by Len at February 11, 2005 08:47 AMYou can’t. You can only look at what we know to be humanly possible without drugs, and judge for yourself whether or not guys like McGwire exceeded it.
I loved baseball in 1998. I made my son come watch every McGwire at-bat with me, even though he was only 2 and couldn’t have cared less, just to be able to say he and I saw the record-breaking shots together.
And even at the time, I figured McGwire and Sosa were both juiced. I didn’t care. As a fan, particularly as a Cardinal fan, I was in heaven.
I can’t say with any certainty that McGwire took steroids – and andostenedione doesn’t count, since no studies have shown it works well enough to produce the kind of size and strength McGwire had.
Circumstantially, all the signs were there. He turned 35 right about the time he hit his 70th homer. That season he had an OPS of 1.222. Athletes typically peak in their late 20s. Mac’s highest slugging percentage in his 20s was .618, in ’87, when he was A.L. rookie of the year. He started that season at 23.
At 28, in ’92, he had a slugging percentage of .585. The next few years are screwed up, with his injuries and the strike, but then all of a sudden, in 1995, he jumps up to a .685 slugging percentage, then .730 in ’96, on up to .752 in ’98.
You just can’t find a precedent in baseball history for that. Ted Williams had an amazing season when he was ’38, in 1957, but it was amazing because it almost equaled his previous best season, 1941, when he was 22 and hit .406.
Henry Aaron is another one who had some great seasons in his late ‘30s, but they weren’t dramatically better than his best seasons when he was in his 20s. And in terms of total bases, they weren’t really close to what he did when he was 25. He had 400 that year, but in his 30s he never came close to that, even though he was hitting tons of homers.
The thing that bothers me about this issue is the idea that modern records are faulty because of steriods. How long have steroids been available to the average user? I have no idea, but I can guarantee that in the early 90's anybody could get them, and that's not to say the early 90's is when Steroids began to be available, It's just the first era in which I verified information. Which means that proffessional athletes had access for years (possibly decades) before that.
So why are steroids all of a sudden a big deal?
Posted by: josh at February 11, 2005 11:10 AMI don't think you can really attribute steroid use to either age or spiked statistical increases alone. Roger Maris only hit more than 40 HRs once in his career, and he hit 61 that season. Tony Gwynn had more than 100 RBI only once, and it was when he was 37. Unless there is some kind of notable evidence that McGwire used steroids, even if it was as weak as a leaked grand jury testimony, I think he should get the benefit of the doubt.
Posted by: Fitz at February 11, 2005 03:44 PMLooking at stats vs. age is not the end all, be all of steroid evidence, but it's a case worth looking at.
You cite Maris - yes, his 61 home run season was his high by far. But it happened when he was 26, not 36. Not to mention, his SLG that year was only 40 points higher than the year before, while his OPS+ was only 6 points higher. (He moved to Yankee stadium that year, which favors left handed hitters - hello Tino Martinez.)
And RBI's are a horrible measure of power. That has more to do with batting order and how good your teammates are.
Of course, power spikes at older ages shouldn't be looked at in a vacuum. But McGwires numbers at an older age are actually a cause for concern, as is the injury that caused him to retire. (Tendon injuries are a red flag in steroid users, as the muscle mass gets so large that the tendons can't keep up.)
I still hope he didn't.
Posted by: Robb at February 11, 2005 04:04 PMYeah, it's a complex issue. You can't say just because spikes happen without steroid use that steroid use therefore can't be considered spike causing. Uh, yeah, steroid use can cause spikes or else we would consider it in the same category as orange juice.
As for invalidating records, there are at least two perspectives on that. One is the league-wide effects that rampant use of steroids may have had. Of course, this is no reason to discount any records anymore than we would discount some record because it happened when the mounds were raised or the ball hardened.
But, the other perspective is more troubling: What if there is proof an athlete knowingly or unknowingly took MLB-banned substances? Then you have to exclude them from record consideration. Don't you?
I mean, there's lots of room for argument (and I'm NOT saying Canseco's book constitutes "proof"), but I would rather forgive a player for betting on a game he wasn't involved in, or for other illegal non-MLB related activities (like drug or alcohol use) than for actively breaking MLB policy in a direct attempt to gain advantage.
How long have steroids been banned by MLB?
Posted by: Ryan at February 11, 2005 04:49 PMyeah, but rejecting the records of known steroid users would take some balls from MLB. and Selig doesn't have them
Posted by: Fitz at February 12, 2005 01:37 PMI've always told myself that McGwire is innocent until proven guilty, but this guy makes a good point. I looked at OBP/SLG numbers for Bonds, McGwire, and Sosa, and there's a significant change for all of them (Bonds starting in '01, Mac and Sammy in the mid-90s). I don't think you can say that at age 30+, these guys are just finally figuring out how to work out properly. We're talking about lifelong professional athletes here. You don't get a significant jump in production like that from nowhere.
Anyway, it'll be interesting to see what happens this year, with a more effective testing policy in place. Will guys like Giambi and Bonds regress? Time will tell.
As for the records, we'll probably never have proof that any of these guys used steroids, and even if so, it won't matter. They weren't even banned by MLB until '02, after most of the records in question had already been broken. This is going to remain a topic of conversation for years, as some will complain that the records are tainted, and others will argue that the players are innocent until proven guilty.
Posted by: John at February 13, 2005 03:48 AM