I think the Goose is a Turkey.

Goose Gossage vs Michael Jack Schmidt in a monkey knife fight for the integrity of the hall...who ya got?

[1] Yeah he is. This is so hilarious: "The integrity of the Hall of Fame and the numbers and the history are all in jeopardy". What-the-fuck-evah!!!

[1] The Goose was a great relief pitcher. I'll stop there.

But what do you do about players who not only broke the law but violated the US Constitution by buying & drinking alcohol during Prohibition?

Most likely alcohol did not help any player (though Bill James' historical Abstract does recount a story of Leo Durocher - IIRC - giving a player a bit of whiskey to settle his nerves) but it was a clear violation of the law.

I don't necessarily disagree that these men should be left out. Like I said, actions have consequences, and the Hall of Fame isn't a right.

But to say that its built on integrity is ludicrous.

Cap Anson, Ty Cobb, John McGraw, and Kenesaw Mountain Landis would like to speak to you about "integrity", Goose. And so would Gaylord Perry and Whitey Ford. Sheesh.

[5] But that wasn't about the home run record being broken - that would about the home run record being set!

99% of the sanctimonious whining about PED use in baseball seems to be in relation to the breaking of Maris's record and the breaking of Aaron's record. Funny, isn't it, that most of the sanctimonious whiners among the former players are the guys who played in the same era as one or both of those two? Part of me thinks, with the explosion of offense and popularity that's come over the last 15 years or so, these guys feel like their generation is being slighted and forgotten, and so are they - hence the sanctimonious whining.

And as horrible as this is to say, in 15 to 20 years, when most of those guys have passed on, I don't think PEDs will be viewed in the same light.

The story about Beltran getting knee surgery on his own is fascinating. It’s been popular to contend that not signing Beltran was a major blunder by the Yankees, but more and more that is proving to be a wise decision.

[7] I agree with you about how history will view PEDs. When someone finally gets around to actually studying these substances and their link to performance enhancement, I think we’ll realize just how much we have blown this issue out of proportion.

Also, if we really want to strip Bonds of the HR record, shouldn’t we just give it back to Ruth. After all, not only may Maris have benefited from amphetamines, which were prevalent in the era, but he did get 8 more games, which in terms of a record, has to be considered a significant performance enhancer. Ford Frick was wise in deed.

[8] Some of those studies have already been done! If you look through JC Bradbury's archives over at Sabernomics, you'll find that hGH is useless for enhancing a ball player's performance.

As for Beltran, given the Mets' medical staff and their record for dealing with injured players, especially over the past year, I understand why he seemingly went out on his own. I'm not saying he was right to do so, or that I would have, but I understand his actions.

[9] HGH seems to have been more extensively studied. Before the infamous Clemens testimony, there was a panel of doctors whose basic conclusion was HGH does not enhance performance or even build muscle mass. Here is a link to an interview with one of those doctors: http://tinyurl.com/ybrwuju.

So, in the face of this information, the logical conclusions might be: (1) educate athletes, especially young ones, that HGH doesn’t work, so by taking it, they not only put their health at risk, but are likely to receive no benefit; (2) stop fretting over the impact that HGH has had on the record book; and (3) stop wasting money trying to devise a blood test when it could be better used toward combating other substances more likely to enhance performance.

Of course, the MSM has decided to treat the eradication of HGH as a holy crusade, so we are treated to another round of sanctimonious whining.

I think that you guys are taking Goose's use of the word "integrity" out of context. I don't think that Goose means that all of the men in the HOF are/were good, morally upright people. It's pretty clear that he is talking about the integrity (i.e. validity) of the numbers and records, upon which any HOF case is built.

In any case, this whole topic is getting to be a bore. I will, however, sit back and read numerous sanctimonious posts complaining about sanctimonious whining!

but he did get 8 more games, which in terms of a record, has to be considered a significant performance enhancer.

I agree entirely. That is why there SHOULD be an asterisk (or whatever indicator one prefers) identifying single-season records achieved during 154 v. 162 games seasons. After all, we differentiate single game records based depending on whether they were nine innings v. extra innings. As I wrote here a few days ago, I never understood what the problem was with the whole asterisk thing.

[11] Sanctimony - we live for it!

Wait, that's wasn't quite right . . . ;)

If you are right, monkeypants, let us not forget that the "integrity" of the record books is itself in some question, particularly for older records - recall Hack Wilson's lost RBI and (IIRC) Ty Cobb's missing hit(s?). One would hope there are no such similar questions with today's records, but mistakes do happen . . .

[13] No doubt about it. At least baseball, to its credit, has worked pretty hard (dnd has a long history of doing so) to try to recapture as much old data as possible, in some cases even going back and recalculating stats in some cases. Baseball is certainly way ahead of football in this regard. I think this is because history is so intertwined with baseball. This is, of course, why baseball fans so often consider these records as "sacred" and get so worked up about the things that Goose is yammering on about, etc. etc.

[14] Note though that its often individual researchers, not Elias (the "official" recordbook keeper designated by MLB) or MLB, that find these errors. But yes, you're very right. Though I remain convinced the only "record" that gets people up in arms is the home run record (single-season and all-time). Rob Neyer's line from the other day is, I think, exactly right: if neither McGwire nor Bonds nor Sosa had ever hit more than 61 home runs in a season, and if Bonds had never hit more than 755 home runs in his career, we wouldn't be hearing much about this whole thing.

In fairness to the Goose, he's been consistent on this since before he was in. Also, in fairness, it seems to me worth at least noting that the guys who played clean against the guys who cheated with drugs have a greater grievance than anyone else. Their performance suffered in comparison, and their income levels and job security (and maybe even, at the highest levels, their HoF chances) were affected.

Having been fair (kills me!) I agree that to cite the HoF of baseball as a repository of integrity gets too funny.

Getting back to cranky mode, seems to me it is too easy to equate the HGH data to steroid data. I linked yesterday an observation that seems to me to be valid: for McGwire or others to now say steroids did me no good, didn't help my game is a deeply worrisome message to send young people. It feels, essentially, like a credibility shattering lie, and young people will treat it as such. Like if you tell a 13 year old, pot will have ZERO effect on you, don't bother.

I linked the stats on McGwire pre-93 (pre-roids) and post, where the only comparison player for McGwire post-93 is Ruth, and he doesn't measure up in power. I refuse as a matter of ostrich-aversion, to credit this to a shorter stroke, suddenly smaller ballparks, all bad pitchers flooding into his division.. And Bonds' numbers show the same SHARP change if you accept (and I pretty much do) that his entry to steroid use followed watching McSosa get all the love.

[14] The records are sacred, in my opinion. If I thought steroid use damaged their integrity, I would also be disturbed. I am not, however, and have seen nothing to convince me otherwise. I can understand someone having the opposite opinion, but only as long as they acknowledge that they could be wrong.

Also, if the Goose is only referring to statistical integrity, then there is no need to keep every steroid user out. Instead, he should be advocating that voters consider the extent to which steroid users were augmented by the substances. Otherwise, you are taking a moral stand on cheating, which obviously opens up a whole can of worms.

[16] I absolutely agree that HGH and steroid data should not be linked. They are very different substances. However, the main stream media and many fans seem to act as if HGH is worse than steroids, when in reality the substance isn't as harmful, nor as successful in building muscle. Ironically, the anti-PED crowd is the one guilty of the linking the two.

I also seriously disagree with you about what message testimony like McGwire’s sends to the youth. The strongest don’t do steroids message that an athlete could send to youth is “this stuff doesn’t even work”. Using your pot example, I am sure teenagers would be much less likely to try it if someone convinced them spending all that money would be a waste because there is no high. Unfortunately, the science backs up the intoxicating effects of marijuana. The same can not be said for the performance enhancing effect of steroids.

I am not sure the specifics of the observation you cited, but McGwire’s post 1993 is not only surpassed by Ruth, unless you are simply referring to HRs. You keep using the ostrich in the sand metaphor, but at some point skepticism requires some proof.

first of all, i honestly don't care that much about the hall of fame. we have enough resources to look up who actually were the best players, or, better, who were the best players at doing certain things, that the opinion of a few voters should be irrelevant.

but i still think it's absurd to deny the impact of steroids on performance. we've seen it. if it isn't clear to you that there's an impact, you are in deep denial. regarding performance, the only real question is whether, all things considered (the fact that both pitchers and hitters were using, the fact that there are plenty of other performance enhancers out there, etc), steroids have changed who would be the best players in baseball, or if they've just exaggerated stats. the more interesting question to me is whether it matters at all that they impact performance, or they're just another of many things that affects play.

[17] "The strongest don’t do steroids message that an athlete could send to youth is “this stuff doesn’t even work”. "
sure, that would be the strongest message if it were true. but as you acknowledge with your pot example, it's meaningless if it's obviously not true. and here it is obviously not true. steroids do work, and there's no one who argues that they don't. as with pot, science shows that steroids have a particular impact on the human body: they build and repair muscle. that is indisputable. what is disputable is whether on balance that helps baseball players, or merely exaggerates certain statistics. but i think the point hoss is making in [16] is that no one would take mcgwire seriously, so it's absurd for him to be saying it.

[18] Stating your opinion as fact isn't very persuasive. If your belief that steroids have an impact on performance, then it should be easy to cite a credible study supporting your claim, right?

I am not trying to convince anyone that steroids have no impact because I don't know the question to that myself. In the absence of evidence, however, I don’t see the point in vehemently insisting that something is true.

[19] if you contend that steroids have no impact on playing baseball, or even just that steroids might have no impact on playing baseball, then do you also contend that increased muscle mass/ quicker recovery times in general have no impact on playing baseball? you want a study that definitively says that STEROIDS IMPACT BASEBALL PERFORMANCE. but why is that so necessary? we know that steroids impact muscle mass and recovery. it's intuitively true that muscle mass and recovery impact baseball performance. i just don't see how you can doubt that. the question then is HOW, on balance, steroids impact performance. it's just not realistic to pretend that they don't impact performance at all.

{15} if neither McGwire nor Bonds nor Sosa had ever hit more than 61 home runs in a season...

I think this is exactly correct, on two levels: it is accurate, and it makes a good deal of sense. Since the records (or perhaps only certain records) are considered sacred, activities and individuals that seem to threaten the integrity of those records are put under greater scrutiny. If Joe Shlabotnik is caught juicing, no one is going to be overly concerned that he *might* have raised his career from .003 to .004. Folks would still consider what he did was "wrong," but they would not be as bothered because it would not be perceived as having compromised the sacred numbers.

To be honest, I feel somewhat the same way. Knowing that some middling performers "cheated" (or whatever) bothers me, but only a little. Scanning the HR leaders, however, and seeing so many of the top spots occupied by juices does piss me off.

I'm not going to spend hours today arguing the point, or trying to convince anyone, or running through the same debate. But I do think that this reaction is at least understandable.

[20] you want a study that definitively says that STEROIDS IMPACT BASEBALL PERFORMANCE. but why is that so necessary

I don't know why William demands this, but I suspect that for some (many), they on some level that such a study will NEVER be done. Thus, by establishing this as the bar for identifying legitimate evidence, they effectively eliminate all evidence for the relationship between PEDs and performance in baseball (generally), and thus between PEDs and the specific performance of individual players.

I tend to choose a different hermeneutic: in the absence of this definitive scientific study, I am open to other forms of evidence and argumentation.

[20] Alex Sanchez. Felix Heredia. Matt Lawton.

And, since we can't have a thread this offseason without mentioning him, Sergio Mitre.

All suspended for PED use. And yet none of them were ever superstars. Or stars (well I guess Lawton kinda was once upon a time).

Seriously, go look at this list of guys who were suspended for PED use, and tell me how many names you recognize.

I think you two are much closer than you realize.

In any case, getting to the "how much" question: If PEDs help a lot, then logically the vast majority of these guys should have seen major spikes in their performance. But that didn't happen.

Maybe PEDs help only "somewhat", then logically the vast majority of these guys should have seen some moderately-sized spike in performance. But that didn't happen either.

Or maybe PEDs help only a little bit, then logically it may be impossible to detect a tiny spike in performance from the noise that surrounds everyone's performance. In that case, why are we so upset about PED usage again?

To me, I think reality is probably closest to the last scenario. IMHO, the aid from extra muscle mass and recovery time is simply not enough to make a difference in a sport like baseball, where you need a lot more than muscle mass to be able to succeed, and recovery time is (to a degree) minimized by the 162-game schedule.

[15] A further thought about the sacredness of the HR records. Obviously the HR has a certain magic---including its association with giant figures like Ruth---that explains fans almost obsession with this one stat. But also I wonder to what degree the importance of the HR records has to do with the fact that from Ruth's day until the 1990s the maximum total of HRs a player could hit (for a season or for a career) remained fairly stable (or so it seems). Guys could hit in the 50s of HRs, so 60 or 61 remained the tantalizing, elusive limit. For a career, if you hit a lot of HRs and played along time, 700 or so was the maximum: Ruth, Aaron, and Mays and Williams (had they not lost playing time for military service) all reached that level.

But other records don't work that way, especially pitching records. Wins (career, season) will never be broken because the game has changed so much. No one is going to hit .420 or .430 again, and probably never .400. Strike outs (career) may be challenged, but very unlikely since pitchers pitch less. Season strike outs, never.

Maybe career hits will become the new sacred record?

[23] I think that from what we know now, it is moderately unlikely that steroid use has a large impact on performance. It might have a very significant impact on recovery time, and thus on 'counting number' records over the course of a player's career.

[22] I don't understand the point about a demand that's impossible to meet. Suppose you could show that during the period that all known steroid-users was using, their homers and slugging were 10% higher than expected, taking into account age, park, etc. That would be pretty good evidence -- maybe not conclusive (without a large sample it would be hard to be conclusive), but damn good evidence. But nobody has been able to find anything like that, and some pretty smart people have looked. That's why I think it's reasonable to be skeptical.

[23] since i have little faith in the integrity of mlb's testing policy (don't trust that more big names haven't been caught and given a warning or excuse such as minor hip surgery, or something to that effect), i don't see the relevance of those names. furthermore, i don't think it proves anything even if most steroid users aren't very good at baseball. i don't think anyone would argue that steroids alone can make an average person into a superstar. the question is what impact they have on players who are already good at the basic skills of baseball (hand eye coordination, reaction time, control, etc). if steroids allow a hitter to hit the ball harder, or wait a fraction of a second longer before he has to start his swing, or throw the ball harder or with more spin, then they impact the game. oftentimes that doesn't help the lower end talent, since you obviously still need to have good baseball skills.

[23] Or maybe we can't simply compare Mitre to McGwire to X to Y, because we will never know the individual regimen of each of these players.

Or maybe the benefits of PEDs help certain kinds of players more: i.e., maybe extra muscle mass benefits sluggers more than pitchers.

Or maybe Mitre's tremendous Luck earlier in his career can be attributed to PEDs, while his tremendous Unluck™ is the result of his coming off PEDs. (You know I just had to).

But seriously, there will simply NEVER be a way to evaluate how PEDs affected individual performances---if at all. This will tend, I think, to yield two divergent reactions:

1. We'll never know, the evidence is murky, it doesn't seem like there is much proof for a major impact, so don't worry about it too much.

2. We'll never know, the evidence is murky, and so the entire era---every player and all performances---is suspect. The well has been poisoned, possibly forever.

I unfortunately tend toward the second reaction.

[25] how can you do a legitimate study like that without knowing who was on steroids and when? so far we know very little.

[25] I don’t understand the point about a demand that’s impossible to meet.

Because we will NEVER know how many players used, what they used, for how long, etc. So there will never be enough evidence to draw the sort of hypothetical conclusion that you present. Moreover, no one is ever going to do a specific baseball-PED study (how would such a study be done, under scientific conditions?). Thus, if an individual demands this level of evidence, the bar will never be met: all other evidence will be written off as anecdotal, unscientific, etc.

[28] [29] Wait, we already know several players who used steroids. It's true that we'll never know exactly which ones did, but why would we need to know that? Just study the performance of the ones that we do know about.
The problem with doing that right now (and with the studies that have been done so far) is that the sample size is small, so the conclusions aren't very significant. But I'd expect that will change.

Another good piece of evidence, now that I think of it, would be to compare the average career trajectory of players from 1985 to 1995 with the average trajectory of players from 1965 to 1975. If the former have a lot of 'extra' homers late in their careers (over 34, say) compared to the latter, that would strongly suggest that steroids help. Of course, it wouldn't prove conclusively that steroids help, since there might be alternative explanations, but it would be good evidence.

[20] I don’t contend that because if I did, I would have no evidence to support such a claim. There are so many layers to the question than simply does increased muscle mass and recovery time aid baseball performance. For starters, we have to know from what point the player is starting. If increased muscle provides declining marginal returns, then a 120 pound weakling is likely to gain significantly from increased muscle mass, whereas someone already as strong as Mark McGwire would gain much less. Furthermore, I think we can agree that there is a such thing as too much muscle, so it is possible that an athlete who uses steroids might actually exceed the optimal strength level by adding to much muscle mass (imagine a body builder trying to swing a bat). In addition, steroids have been known to increase upper body strength, but physics studies have suggested that bat speed is generated by rotational movement in the lower half. Could an inflated upper body actually inhibit this rotational movement? These are just some of many questions that I have. I wish I knew the answers. Absent that knowledge, I don’t think it is intuitively true to assume that steroids lead to significant improvement in baseball performance.

[30] But we still don't know how much these few individuals used, or what they used. So I think that my point stands---there will never be enough evidence to satisfy the "show me the scientific study" crowd.

[32] But we know that they used. So there ought to be some evidence that the use improved their performance, don't you think? Not conclusive evidence. Some evidence.

[31] well i don't think we're really arguing. if your point is that steroids might only have a very small impact on performance, and might in some cases have an adverse impact, i don't disagree (though i think the impact on some facets of the game is likely greater than you think). but even your response suggests that they do in fact have some sort of impact. the question is how/to what extent is performance impacted.

[24] Here’s another thought. If advanced equipment technology can lead to athletes in other sports breaking records (like the fastest serve, for instance), why wouldn’t the leading cause of increased HRs likely be the result of bat and ball technology? These factors, more than steroids, would seem to be a more plausible explanation for the spike in power and the seemingly one-sided benefit to offense.

[27] I think both conclusions are valid. What I object to is coming to one conclusion and stating that the other is certainly wrong (an assumption you have to make if, for example, you are going to claim that McGwire can’t possibly believe PEDs didn’t help his performance).

Also, to be fair, I think you have to be seriously concerned about the impact that amphetamines have had on the game. I remember reading an article by some doctor stating his belief that amphetamines had a bigger impact than steroids, and that the beginning of a statistical decline in offense will be more easily linked to the amphetamine testing than the steroid testing. So, you can basically set up the same dichotomy for every era since the 1950s.

[33] aren't the home run totals put up by some of these known users "some evidence"? not conclusive, but definitely noteworthy.

[35] no one thinks that steroids are the only thing that impacts performance, and lighter/harder bats and harder balls certainly have an impact (although i haven't seen a definitive study on that).

[33] We also know that smaller ball parks and juiced balls showed up around the time the "steroids" era started. Maybe these are better culprits.

For example, in our Epidemiology class, we were given a data set where a bunch of people who went to bars over many years developed lung cancer. So the simple explanation is that going to bars leads to lung cancer. But when you looked at the data (between smokers and nonsmokers), the evidence showed that the smokers had most of the lung cancer cases. Thus we learned about confounding factors.

In the same way, I would say that if we are going to point to the main cause of HR jump, look to the juiced ball and smaller ball parks first.

[37] Now you have:
http://www.uri.edu/news/releases/html/00-1025.htm

"[T]he researchers found that pills [ball cores] from the 1995 and 2000 balls bounced an average of 33 percent higher than their 1989, 1970 and 1963 counterparts. One of their conclusions is that Rawlings Sporting Goods Co., the maker of Major League baseballs, doesn't follow its own specifications for some of the windings used in the balls."

[37] Or how about this one:
http://www2.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/01-03-2007/0004498891&EDATE

"McGwire's 70th Home Run Ball Juiced, CT Scan Finds"

[35] an assumption you have to make if, for example, you are going to claim that McGwire can’t possibly believe PEDs didn’t help his performance

I don't see how this follows logically, except in the strictest semantic sense. That is "can't possibly" is pretty strong; I think that it is remotely possible: he might be mad or completely deluded. But this is not really what most are arguing with regards to McGwire.

I pretty much do not believe that McGwire really believes his usage didn't help him: he has little credibility given his past dishonesty on the subject, it is self-serving for him to make the claim, and it doesn't make sense that he would have continued to use if he didn't think it helped him. I do, however, leave open the *possibility*, albeit highly implausible, that he really believes what he was saying on that particular subject.

In any case, I'm not sure I see the connection between the two conclusions that I posited and the credibility of McGwire.

[34] Exactly. The extent to which performance is impacted is the million dollar question. If the impact is small, then we don't have to worry about the integrity of the record book (as opposed to a sport like track where records can be set by fractions of a second).

I agree (I started this!) that HGH needs to be clearly distinguished from steroids. William and I are buddies there.

I agree that being upset turns more on the stars and records than on middling players. Human nature. Not pretty, but ...

William missed the stat I posted abut McGwire/Ruth and his steroid timing yesterday. Here it is. It is possible to say that this carries no value and that McGwire 'means it' when he says they didn't help his career. I do not believe it, nor do I believe him.

__________

Here’s Heyman:
He said he really started to get serious about steroids after the 1993 season, after dabbling in them for several years before that. Take a look at his baseball card. That is precisely when McGwire became superhuman. A coincidence? Highly doubtful.
Assuming that is the truth, that makes it clear just how much the steroids mattered. Through 1993, McGwire’s numbers were these: .249 batting average, .359 on-base percentage and .509 slugging percentage — very good numbers but not Hall-of-Famer material. As Joel Sherman from the New York Post pointed out, the comps for McGwire through ‘93 are Jay Buhner (.254/.359/.494), Troy Glaus (.255/.359/.497), Darryl Strawberry (.259/.357/.505) and Carlos Pena (.247/.355/.502).
But from 1994 on, there was only one comp for McGwire, whose numbers in his later years were .277/.429/.674. That one comp was Babe Ruth.
Ruth is the only player whose career on-base percentage was over .420 and whose career slugging percentage was over .670. But even Ruth wasn’t close to the juiced-up McGwire when it came to hitting home runs. McGwire hit 11.88 home runs every 100 at-bats from 1994 on. As Sherman pointed out, Ruth never had even one season in which his home run percentage was that high.

[36] No, it's not evidence that some of them put up higher numbers. Take a group of non-users, and obviously some of them will put up higher numbers in any given period. What would be evidence is if users hit more homers (after correcting for parks, age, etc.) on average

[38] I believe there's a big "power jump" around 1993, which seems likely to have been a "juiced ball" jump that MLB officially denied. Aside from that, I don't think there actually is a big power jump in or around the 'steroid era'.

[41] Fair enough...and the credibility of McGwire is really irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. If you doubt his statement based on his own credibility, I think that's reasonable. If you doubt it based on the plausibility of the claim, that would be unreasonable.

[42] But wait, the difference between a McGwirian HR and a Garderian pop-up is a fraction of a second. So if you accept that PEDs undermine the integrity of track and field records, then you must at least be suspicious of the same impact on baseball records!

[45] If you doubt it based on the plausibility of the claim, that would be unreasonable.

It would be unreasonable. Indeed, that would be a very foolish argument to make, since many people believe things that are not true (and don't believe things that are true). For the "moralist" position, what is more important is whether McGwire thought he was gaining an advantage---the same way people who cork their bats do, regardless of whether it works or not.

[36] Here is a study looking ONLY at steroid users:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/22/opinion/22cole.html?_r

For the 48 batters we studied, the average change in home runs per year “before” and “after” was a decrease of 0.246. The average batting average decreased by 0.004. The average slugging percentage increased by 0.019 — only a marginal difference. So while some batters increased their totals, an equal number had falloffs. Most showed no consistent improvement, several showed variable performance and some may have extended the years they played at a high level, although that is a difficult question to answer.

So these studies are as you say "not conclusive, but definitely noteworthy."

[39] [40] ah but that the ball is definitely different doesn't necessarily mean it's impacted baseball players. maybe a pitcher can throw the new balls harder than the old ones. maybe they're harder to see. maybe they're more slippery so you can only hit them hard if you hit them exactly right.

i am just kidding. i was kidding about the lack of a definitive study also.

[46] That assumes hand eye is benefitted by steroids. If it's just strength (when ball meets bat, ball goes further), it wouldn't be a fraction of a second difference. If that's the argument, I think it is even more slippery.

[44] likewise, it's not evidence that some (the ones we know of) did anything. the stats of all known users are just as anecdotal as the stats of all known superstar users. we have no idea who else did or did not take steroids, and i think it's reasonable to suspect that mlb would prefer to cover up more big name users than matt lawtons. and, as has been suggested many times, it's likely the case that steroids impact some aspects of the game more than others, or some types of players more than others.

[46] No. Because PEDs impact baseball players' ability to perform differently than track and field performers' ability.

And you seem to think that a McGwire HR had the same power as a Gardner pop-up. They don't. It's not just a matter of timing, there is bat speed and power generated by the lower torso, hips and legs. Note: PEDs disproportionately enhance upper body musculature. So if McGwire gained 20 lbs of muscle thru PEDs, most of it went to his upper body where it doesn't help HR power.

So even if both McGwire and Gardner hit the ball on the sweet spot of the bat, the McGwire's ball will fly further.

[50] that's not right. let's say player A and player B have the same hand eye coordination. player A takes steroids, has greater muscle mass, and can therefore swing the bat harder (let's assume). player B doesn't take steroids. all other factors (other enhancers, etc) are equal. player A can wait a fraction of a second longer to start his swing than player B.

[51] Like they covered up Arod...

FYI, the players studied in [48] were names from the Mitchell Report.

[52] "It’s not just a matter of timing, there is bat speed and power generated by the lower torso, hips and legs. Note: PEDs disproportionately enhance upper body musculature. So if McGwire gained 20 lbs of muscle thru PEDs, most of it went to his upper body where it doesn’t help HR power."
perhaps it's true that most bat speed/power (same thing) is generated from your lower body. that absolutely DOES NOT mean that upper body strength is irrelevant. all things that contribute to bat speed have an impact. if player A and player B have equal lower body strength but player A has greater upper body strength, player A will be able to swing his bat faster/harder.

that absolutely DOES NOT mean that upper body strength is irrelevant.

Right. It just means it's not obviously relevant. We need to look at the evidence; we can't just go by our intuitions.

[50] [52] Um, my invocation of McGwire and Gardner was meant to be humorous. The main point stands that the difference between great success and great failure in hitting is a matter of fractions of seconds and/or fractions of inches.

Surely stronger players are more likely to have greater bat speed than weaker players. Again, if the difference between a HR and pop-up (or even swing-and-miss) is a fraction of a second, even a marginal increase in bat speed will have an impact. Thus, the comparison b/t track and field and baseball is not irrelevant.

You would be on stronger ground arguing that in track and field a world record can be set in one more or less discrete event (say a sprint lasting a few seconds), whereas in baseball a season or career HR record is set over the duration of hundreds of discrete events---that is, the accumulation of hundreds of fractions of seconds.

[56] this is not just intuition, although it is also intuitive. anything that can move (hands, wrists, arms, shoulders, back, hips, legs) can contribute to bat speed, which is generated by circular hand path (rotation) and torque (basically the flick of your wrist). rotation is generated by your whole body but more your lower body than upper. torque is generated by your upper body.
http://www.batspeed.com/research10.html

[58] Right, but the point (I thought) was that what generates home runs is lower body. There's some thought that when a batter gains upper body strength, he may start relying on that to the detriment of the rotation, and actually lose power.
But I admit I don't know much about the biomechanical aspect.

[58] Fine. We agree that it is much more the lower body than the upper body. So if Bonds gains 20 lbs of muscle, due to the specificity of PEDs (steroids w/HGH), most of that muscle will be in the upper body: shoulders, arms, etc...

So there will be some benefit to that for bat speed. So assuming a 3:1 upper/lower body ratio, the lower body will gain about 5 lbs of muscle which would translate to 45 inches of additional distance for a maximally hit ball. Calculations based on formulas from:
The Physics of Baseball by Robert K. Adair (Sterling Professor Emeritus of Physics, & Senior Research Scientist in Physics, Yale University)
and
http://webusers.npl.uiuc.edu/~a-nathan/pob/batspeed.pdf

So a 200 lb guy bulks up by adding 10% of body mass to 220lb and gains 45 inches of ball distance. I don't know if I can give you more besides that. The physics formulas are in the links provided above. This suggests that impact of steroids on baseball skills are nominal (though not nonexistent) and that the greater objects of scrutiny should be on the juiced baseballs and smaller parks.

Here it goes into gory details how your lower body generates power for the homerun swing.

From batspeed.com:
http://www.batspeed.com/messageboard/24818.html
"The whiplike motion I refer to is the kinetic chain. If half the body weight of a 200 lb hitter travels at 3 MPH, even for a few inches, he is creating momentum (mass X velocity = 300). A 32 oz bat (2 lbs) would be swung at 150 MPH (2 X 150) if all that momentum were converted into batspeed.
The kinetic chain works from the bottom up - legs turn hips, hips turn shoulders, shoulders turn arms, arms/hands turn bat. The body is not 100% efficient but the wave of energy travels up the body and out through the bat (measured as bat speed). Larger slower moving parts start the swing. Smaller, lighter faster moving parts (bat) finish the swing. In this way, if energy is conserved, heavier slower parts transfer energy to lighter parts that have to move faster (mass X velocity is equal). A whip works in a similar way as the slow heavy handle's movement is transferred down the ever tapering whip. As mass decreases, speed increases. A 5 MPH handle movement can create tip speeds of hundreds of MPH. A less efficient whip-like energy transfer from forward hip slide through the kinetic chain seems to translate to about 90 - 100 MPH in the best case scenario (best ML hitters).
Yes, bat speed is generated through powerful rotational forces. I am suggesting that the linear body movements that precede this are 'fuel' used to jump start this rotational activity.
Coach Tom, the lower body actions of pitchers and hitters is similar in the sense that the hips lead and linear momentum is converted to rotational/angular momentum BEFORE it travels up the body (kinetic chain) and is converted into incredible hand speed/ball speed."

[60] That suggests that a maximally hit ball would only travel marginally farther. The discussion does not, however, consider whether the (marginally) greater bat speed allows a hitter to make hard contact more often.

[62] Then we would be discussing why so many people have hit .400 during the steroid era. Oh wait...

It seems reasonable that McGwire hit as many homers as he did without major PED assistance. This was a guy who as a 23 year old in a pitcher's park hit 49 homers in his first full season in the bigs. No one is accusing him of juicing then. As he matured, he moved to a more hitter friendly park and went crazy hitting the juiced baseball. Isn't that a more likely explanation than a bunch of chemicals that arbitrarily affect some players and not others (see Jose vs Ozzie Canseco)?

[63] Why .400? It is interesting, though, that league BA seems to spike in the 1990s, reaching or exceeding .270 four times in the decade.

As for the more likely explanation---maybe you're right. But again, we'll never know, and there will always be suspicion. That's the real tragedy: every performance is suspect.

[64] Sorry. Because so much of the discussion here was about outliers like McGwire, I assumed that the thesis was that PEDs would lead to more outstanding performances in batting average as well.

The overall trend you are talking about could be explained by addition of 3 teams (dilution of pitching with existing teams feasting on crappy new team). It could also be smaller foul territories in since more teams are using the foul area for expensive seating. I would still rank PEDs lower than these two possibilities in terms of likelihood.

[65] You mean like a guy with a .298 BA for his career hitting .370, .341, .362 at age 37, 38, 39...despite getting very little to hit (249 IBB over the same three years)? Also, McGwire's BA improved from 1993 (when he claimed to start using), though not as dramatically.

Again, we'll never know...

[66] McGwire's BA is .333 in 1993 was based on 27 games. And in 1994 for 47 games, it was .252. Did the PEDs stop working in 1994? Or is there something else in play here besides PEDs?

FYI, here is the NYTimes coverage of the Mitchell report. They highlight the stats of the players before and after PED usage. They let you scroll thru the players. You can see for yourself: for ever Jason Giambi who prospered during PED usage, there is a Jeremy Giambi who didn't or a Jay Gibbons, or a Wally Joyner...

Ooops forgot the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2007/12/13/sports/20071213_MITCHELL_FEATURE.html?