A Question About The Potential Suspendees
Last night, ESPN reported that Major League Baseball was preparing to suspend 20 players associated with the BioGenesis clinic after convincing Anthony Bosch to cooperate with their investigation. In the report, they included a list of players that are potentially on the to-be-suspended list. That list of names:
Ryan Braun Brewers
Everth Cabrera Padres
Melky Cabrera Blue Jays
Francisco Cervelli Yankees
Bartolo Colon Athletics
Nelson Cruz Rangers
Fautino de los Santos Free agent
Gio Gonzalez* Nationals
Yasmani Grandal Padres
Fernando Martinez Astros
Jesus Montero Mariners
Jordan Norberto Free agent
Jhonny Peralta Tigers
Cesar Puello** Mets
Alex Rodriguez Yankees* Sources told ESPN that Gonzalez received only legal substances ** minor leaguer, not a member of the MLB Players Association
This is not an exhaustive list, as there are only 15 names there and ESPN lists that sidebar as names that they “have learned” about. However, these 15 players have been linked to the clinic through leaked documents over the winter, and each one has been aware of the fact that they are being investigated by the league.
Now, I don’t know about the psyche and motivations of these individuals, but I do know that when I’m speeding and spot a police car on the highway, I slow down. Knowing that they’re under scrutiny, my guess is that these players are probably less likely to be using PEDs this season, given that MLB is actively looking for evidence that would allow the league to suspend them. This is all just speculation, but I would think that most of us could probably agree that we’d be less likely to speculate that a player was currently using PEDs after it became public knowledge that the league was investigating him for PED usage.
Anyway, just for fun, here’s a custom leaderboard of the 11 active Major League players named in the ESPN report, which allows us to compare their overall season totals from 2012 and 2013. First, the hitters.
| Season | PA | BB% | K% | ISO | BABIP | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA | wRC+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 3765 | 8% | 19% | 0.175 | 0.320 | 0.278 | 0.341 | 0.453 | 0.342 | 116 |
| 2013 | 1429 | 9% | 19% | 0.157 | 0.323 | 0.277 | 0.341 | 0.435 | 0.336 | 113 |
And now the pitching, while noting that this is just Bartolo Colon and Gio Gonzalez, and that Gonzalez has not been linked to the purchase of any PEDs, as all the reports have indicated he just purchased legal supplements from BioGenesis.
| Season | IP | BB% | K% | HR/9 | BABIP | LOB% | ERA- | FIP- | xFIP- | xFIP | tERA | SIERA | FBv |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 351.2 | 7% | 20% | 0.67 | 0.276 | 75% | 79 | 82 | 93 | 3.72 | 3.54 | 3.75 | 91.8 |
| 2013 | 142 | 6% | 19% | 0.82 | 0.267 | 73% | 89 | 89 | 96 | 3.82 | 3.77 | 3.91 | 91.4 |
The hitters have dropped from all the way from a 116 wRC+ last year to a 113 wRC+ this year. The pitchers have gone from a 93 xFIP- to a 96 xFIP-. Basically, what they were last year, they’ve been again this year, despite the fact that they were publicly linked to PED usage over the winter and likely know that they’re under heavy scrutiny at the moment.
If PEDs were as effective as we’re told, and these players were using PEDs last year and are not using PEDs this year due to the investigation, wouldn’t it show up in their performance? This doesn’t prove anything, of course, and we don’t actually have any idea whether or not these players used PEDs in the past or are using them now. I just find it kind of interesting, considering all the assumptions about how PEDs are a magical elixir that turns scrubs into stars, that their 2012 and 2013 performances are almost exactly the same.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
And the question is…
“If PEDs were as effective as we’re told, and these players were using PEDs last year and are not using PEDs this year due to the investigation, wouldn’t it show up in their performance?”
If PEDs were as effective as we’re told…
By pitchers who have admitted using and seeing their velocity go up by several mph, by countless clinical, anecdotal, and laboratory studies. The effects and mechanisms of steroid use are pretty well established in increasing muscle.
and these players were using PEDs last year and are not using PEDs this year due to the investigation…
Which is an untestable and suspect assumption.
wouldn’t it show up in their performance?
Small sample size.
Can you name any pitchers that have admitted using before their velocity went up?
Obviously it is a tiny sample size since it is very rare for a player to come clean. But to answer your request for a pitcher’s name who admitted just that: Dan Naulty.
“The effects and mechanisms of steroid use are pretty well established in increasing muscle” =/= better at baseballing
Actually, the main benefit of steroid use for baseball is not in muscle bulk. It is in recovery. What this means is that a player can play a game, work out afterward, and feel as fresh as a daisy in the morning. I remember some quotes from Matt Lawton, shortly after he got traded from the Mariners to the Yankees, when he got busted for steroid use saying words to this effect. Because of the recovery effect, I would think that the steroid effect would work best for sustaining the players’ elite performance late in their careers (think Bonds, Clemens etc). It is not a coincidence that that rosters are getting younger…
Phew. Long post.
So Iron, agreed. The fact that PEDs manifestly affect performance is amply demonstrated in multiple sports over the last 40 years. Those who continue to argue against the evidence of that have an agenda, but not a case.
The ‘methodology’ of the comparison in this post is thoroughly spurious. There is no basis to determine that 2013 is a season in which any of the individuals listed is _not_ using. Sure, that would be an interesting hypothesis, but there’s no way to confirm it. I for one, don’t believe that Braun is clean. Even ONE guy still on stuff would be enough to skew the assumption of ‘2013 as a control.’
Lumping all eleven hitters into an aggregate line is a completely bogus approach. It hides large dropoffs for several guys—Melky, Montero—from the year before, for instance. Normal variation? How do I know?? Which is the point: there’s no way to draw a valid conclusion from this method, but the approach papers over some apparent declines which counter the hypothesis.
Using 2012 as the *sole year* to compare to is absurd. The ‘odd looking seasons’ for Nellie Cruz and Jhonny Peralta were prior to that, so obviously using 2012 alone ‘disappears’ their drop off seasons from the comparison.
Another major aspect of PEDs, especially testosterone analogs: when a guy uses, his own hormone synthesis attenuates so that when he quits the sauce his performance *crashes through the floor*. There is a way go get around this, though, by moderate usage of the stuff post peaks, together with other replacement substances. These are all illegal, and performance distorting, but do NOT produced big numbers, only allowing the person to simulate ‘normal’ functioning. It can be several years before a player’s own hormone functioning returns to a natural, long-term baseline. It is entirely prossible, indeed probable, that in either or both of 2012 or 2013 several guys getting illegal assistance from Biogenesis were using not ‘boosters’ but ‘coasters.’ But their numbers would be nearer their performance baseline. This potential is in now ways accounted for in the methodology of this crapulous study in the post.
The largest single problem for the owners with PED use, the real reason they are now looking to crack down hard, is that guys boost to get a contract, then go off and their performance crashes, taking the team into the crapper. I can’t prove that Mo Vaughn, Greg Vaughn, Jeff Cirillo, Chone Figgins, Alex Rodriguez, an Albert Pujols all went that way, amongst many others—only that their ‘sudden [otherwise] inexplicable declines’ exactly fit the performance profile of guys coming off the stuff cold. If I write a bad check for $100, I’m a felon, but if guys like that sign a contract they got by juice and go off, they walk away with $100 million guaranteed. Anyone see a problem with THAT? The owners seem to have figured out that the fraud is on them whereas they used to be only to happy to have a big booster or two on their squad to get the wins thereby.
Dave, the whole study is bogus as monopoly money, and you have to know that. You’ve done this before, using aggregate numbers which mask glaring bulges in performance. I’d like to think this stuff is beneath you, but the evidence doesn’t fit that assertion . . . .
IIRC, I remember reading that the benefits from steroids or PED’s don’t just leave the body after stopping ingestion. The benefits will slowly erode, but the body can still retain some of the gains from the PEDs.
Can anybody else verify this?
There’s only one question in the entire article. Everyone here is smarter than you LOL
However, the entire difference from the hitters does seem to come from a power blip. Probably nothing. Probably statistically irrelevant. But there.
That power blip is probably what, a home run’s worth of difference? A game against Phil Hughes or Chris Tillman and the trend could change direction.
I did a back off the envelope calculation and came up with a difference of around 62 TB if the players were still slugging like last year. However, how much of their power production came in the warmer yet to come months isn’t readily apparent here.
the power blip between 2012 and 2013 is named Francisco Cervelli.
Dave,
I would just have written “Jesus Montero” and concluded the story with that. As it turns out, I prefer your method better.
Gio Gonzalez reminds me of my perennial fear of walking into a mafia-owned pizzeria because I just want a pizza.
Am I the only one who thinks about these things?
No, the pizza analogy is perfect.
This is essentially the response I’ve been searching for trying to defend against the guilt-by-association arguments people made about Gio when the story broke.
Essentially, brilliant minds on the internet claim that beacuse Biogenesis allegedly sold substances banned by MLB, and Gio Gonzalez is alleged to have been a customer of Biogensis, therefore Gio Gonzalez bought banned substances from Biogenesis.
This not logically sound. It fails to account for the fact that Biogenesis definitely also sold substances NOT banned by MLB, and that Biogenesis was a clinic used by people other than MLB players for reasons other than cheating at baseball. Not to mention that Gio’s only link to the clinic was specifically for legal substances.
Maybe he used, maybe he didn’t. There’s certainly nothing whatsoever in the Biogensis reports, or anywhere, to suggest he did.
Based solely on his mound presence, Gio is *absolutely* the kind of person who would walk into a shady strip mall and buy supplements from a shady not-doctor that aren’t banned by MLB because they’re ineffective voodoo horseshit.
I think about pizza all the time!
I wish, as a Jays fan, that Melky might have swung by and grabbed a few ‘slices’ earlier this season…but maybe some all-natural tiger scrotum shavings will get his OBP back into the .380’s!
C’mon Dave, everyone knows Barry Bonds actually sucked at baseball before he started taking that unicorn testicle extract.
I’m a big fan of Bonds, but he wasn’t Babe Ruth until he was 37 years old.
We always here that, and I’m not defending him, but let’s just be totally honest here for a second:
AB per HR (AB/HR)
12.0 – Bonds 27-29
13.5 – Bonds 30-32
11.2 – Bonds 33-35
7.9 – Bonds 36-39
14.8 – Aaron 27-29
17.4 – Aaron 30-32
15.7 – Aaron 33-35
11.6 – Aaron 36-39
Aarons late peak was actually a bigger jump from the preceding seasons then the one Bonds saw after 36
It’s something that I never, ever see mentioned or talked about anywhere, but the reality is the two have an unbelievably similar (borderline spooky, really) career path with the bat
I think Bill James mentions it when talking about Aaron (I forget where though…). He attributes part of Aaron’s late HR spike to the hitter-friendly Turner Field.
I agree, spooky. There’s only one explanation: Hank was juicing.
Turner didn’t open until 1997.
What he is talking about is the moving in of the Left/Right-Center fences (straightaway Left, Right and Center stayed the same) from 385 to 375 in 1969 (his age 35 season).
The problems with that are a couple. First, at 375, they were still equal to, to even farther back then, most parks in the league. For instance, post move the dimensions were identical to those at Three Rivers Stadium in Pitt (which was just opening) and further back then those at Milwaukee County Stadium (the park he played at until 31, that the Brewers were then occupying). Second, it didn’t seem to help him at all seasons, so it wasn’t an every season post move change – that puts into question how much it was really helping overall. Then, the seasons when he was really spiking in Home HR totals happen to be the only ones where the team was also winning, plus he was getting awfully close to the record – that may have had an impact on play at home.
The move likely helped a little bit, but I’m not sure it should be used as a catch-all like that. In the end, it might only mean his late spike merely looks closer to the one produced by Bonds (and Bonds had help himself) instead of being greater
It wasn’t a bigger drop percentage wise.
Not sure why everyone is missing the obvious with Aaron
In 1969 MLB lowered the mound after a decade of pitching dominance. Aaron turned 35 that year and enjoyed the benefits thereafter.
What Jonathan said appears to be pretty important. I don’t have historical run environments in front of me, but per Aaron’s FG page…
wOBA (where league average is league average OBP, so it basically isn’t era-adjusted), 5 years before (with ranks among the 10 total seasons):
.396 (8), .406 (6), .383 (9), .410 (5), .376 (10)
And 5 years after:
.435 (3), .412 (4), .466 (1), .403 (7), .449 (2)
Looks like a huge jump. But use wRC+, with its park/era adjustments, and 5 years before:
156 (6), 160 (5), 142 (10), 163 (4), 151 (7)
And 5 years after:
170 (3), 146 (9), 190 (1), 147 (8), 177 (2)
The 5 years after are still better relative to the league, but it’s not nearly as crazy looking. Given what changed, Aaron could well have gained more from the mound and park changes than other players.
Random trivia: Aaron posted ISO > BABIP every year from ’69 through ’73 except ’70, and nearly did in ’70.
Bonds was always focused on playing like Mays and Bobby. He wanted to be the best player in MLB. When Sosa and McGwire started getting more attention for the long ball and Bonds was getting older legs, he said fine, I can do that. Plus, being older meant more injuries and that is where these drugs come into play. They help you heal faster, performance enhancing is a misnomer as that effect is marginal. I will concede that healing faster means more time in the gym, however. The cost? Suspensions and heightened risk of new injuries with continued use. Go figure.
I’m curious about Bartolo Colon’s case. If the substances and timing line up between what he received from the clinic and his positive test, could he be suspended again for what could be the same offense?
I thought the same thing regarding Melky Cabrera, would be curious about the answer.
This might apply to Yasmani Grandal as well.
Ditto Grandal. There’s got to be some kind of double jeopardy thing here, right?
Take this for what you will, but I don’t think the concept of double jeopardy as we understand it applies to drug testing. I have heard players say that they are told if you (for example) take a substance that lingers in your body for a month, and happen to take 2 drug tests during that time frame, you’re busted for each test, not once since it was one incident.
So MLB may have the ability to look at it as two separate instances of breaking the rules, even if it was caused by just one action.
Stay tuned.
Maybe part of the reason that I read that MLB wants to suspend these guys 100 games?
Michael Morse was suspended three times for the exact same drug use. The third time, the arbitrator even admitted in the decision that he believed it was unfair to suspend Morse again for the same PED usage which had already incurred two punishments.
Honestly, with a player Colon’s age, I wonder if he got dinged for crossing wires.
It’s common for men at 40 years, even younger, to take replacement therapy testosterone. I obviously don’t know the details of Colon’s situation, which to my knowledge was kept quite private in comparison to the Cabrera case, but I would not be surprised if there was some overlap between the desire to enhance performance and the clinical need to replace lost testosterone production generally.
You can read “enhance performance” in any form of double entendre you wish.
Their first violation was the positive test. According to MLB logic, they made a second violation of the policy when they lied to MLB about Biogenesis. It apparently is mot just positive test results.
I’m not sure I believe that they have or would likely stop using PEDs because of an investigation. The players are basically under investigation at all times by default anyway and a significant component of the PED industry related to that fact (e.g. concealing usage, avoiding detection).
In other words, PED use is always about at least two things: enhancing performance *and* subverting active investigations. The current situation is a new and perhaps increased level of investigation, but does that change much? Are they actually watched any more closely? Are the penalties higher?
And even if they were, I’m not convinced this would deter players who have used PEDs habitually. They may very well believe their careers depend on them.
And, from what I understand, there are super-short acting testosterone cremes that are *fantastic* for recovery, and clear the body within 24 hours. If you have just been tested, use away, knowing that you probably won’t be tested again for a while. In fact, I understand that the super-short stuff was what Braun was taking when he got busted.
So I can trust strained, convoluted logic or I can look at the many, many players themselves who have risked suspension (I know this because they’ve been suspended) to use PED. Also, who says the effects of PED use immediately go away? Maybe that is the question. If I can use PED to make myself a dramatically better athlete, and even if I get caught and stop using, I’ll still come off suspension a better player, why wouldn’t I use?
To me, the better storyline is that if these guys get suspended the old “science will always be one step ahead” takes a huge hit.
This.
Nice and concise.
Thanks for adding to the discussion!
Nah, Biogenesis was the first hint any of these guys got that MLB was looking into the whole PED thing.
Yeah, what dumbkopfs we were to use all those PEDs, when Cameron just demonstrated they did nothing to enhance our performance. If only Fangraphs had been around in the 70s!
Also, at least some are using PEDs to recover from injuries and general wear-and-tear faster rather than boosting actual talent — although I suppose one can define talent to include ability to recover as well.
With only 1/3 the season gone, maybe some/most of these players have not reached the point of needing that aspect of certain PEDs yet. If so, that would help explain the lack of evidence in comparing the 2012 overall numbers to 2013 YTD numbers…
As someone who hates how conventional media strawmans the position of sabremetricians, I think it be careful that we do not do it on this issue. Does anyone really believe the PEDs turn scrubs into stars? I don’t think anyone is making the argument that if you gave Endy Chavez PEDs he would suddenly become Babe Ruth (or even Ryan Braun). Only that it may give them some advantage; perhaps years of extensive useage turns 1st Ballot Hall of Famer Barry Bonds into Top 3 player all time Barry Bonds.
Now, this particularly analysis provides small sample, speculative evidence based entirely on nontested assumptions that there is no effect. But even if this evidence is correct, it is unfair to assign critics the position of saying that “scrubs” get turn into “stars” if none actually believes that. I think it is reasonable to try to figure out what effect, if any, PEDs have. But it is unfair to say that “because you thought PEDs made you 100% better, anything less than 100% proves that there is no effect.”
And yes, I am aware that this evidence is not just less than 100%, it is 0. But I still think the point is worth making.
And this.
Is that you lolPhillies?
Except, ironically, PEDs have turned 1st Ballot Hall of Famer Barry Bonds into 3rd Ballot (or Worse).
Well played.
Well, Melky Cabrera would be an argument that PEDs sometimes CAN turn scrubs into stars
An argument, perhaps, but not an especially strong one. Melky Cabrera always had plenty of talent – hell, he was in the big leagues at 20 – and he’d shown flashes of, if not greatness, at least above-average performance before. He took a big step forward in his age-26 season with the Royals, right about the time we’d expect a hitter to be hitting his prime.
I’m not saying PEDs didn’t help. They probably did, some. But Cabrera was in a position where you could very reasonably expect a breakout even without them.
Obviously a single case study doesn’t prove or disprove anything, and it effects everyone differently. And it’s not like you can just take steroids and automatically get stronger, you still have to put hard work in, it just increases the benefits of that hard work. The fact of Melky hitting for a lot more power in the year he was busted and the year before he was busted, and then is back to no-power replacement-level Melky, indicates it had a pretty strong effect with him.
I see a lot of arguments though about why “such and such wouldn’t use steroids because of past suspension/scrutiny/etc”, or assuming they weren’t using at a particular time because they didn’t get busted during that particular year, and I think that demonstrates a lot of naivete about drugs, addiction and psychology, as well as the effectiveness of testing.
A-Rod already admitted to past steroid use, has been under scrutiny because of it, and was never caught through testing, but if Anthony Bosch and his records are to be believed, he’s been going to Biogenesis and was still using PEDs. Analyzing past and present productivity is pointless other than as a fun exercise, because you don’t know whether players on that list used for 1 year, or have been using since they were 18 and are still using (the latter actually may be the safer assumption). People are often illogical.
I think the gains are a lot more marginal than most people assume, but at the same time, I’ve wondered, how much money does a given player stand to earn based on each extra homerun they hit. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s something like 200k per homerun when talking about a free agent contract.
It doesn’t automatically translate into being a star. What it does do is allow you to train harder, longer and still feel 100%.
If you take PEDs and sit on the couch you won’t get better.
A guy who works hard to keep in shape…now has the ability to push themselves even harder to improve.
“Does anyone really believe the PEDs turn scrubs into stars?”
Short answer…yes. There are many, many people who think if I started using steroids or HGH I could crack a major league lineup next season. They’re not the ones worth talking to on this issue, but they exist in droves. Read the comment section of a non-fangraphs article sometime.
Melky Cabrera, a scrub in orange shoes starring at the All-Star game
There are a lot of very below average hitters on that list, doing an average across them all assumes that PEDs would affect everyone the same way. This is complete speculation, but I’d find it plausible that the extra boost would be much more likely to bring a hitter from ‘very good’ to ‘great’ instead of dramatically help someone who’s not very good in the first place.
Take a look at Melky and Braun’s change in wRC+ from last season. They’re 2012’s two best hitters on that list.
Well you’d expect those guys to be worse anyway due to regression to the mean. Both had career seasons last year (well it was Braun’s second best year).
Hmmmm… OR maybe Melky and Braun are bringing the aggregate down to match between years after getting caught not long ago (even though Braun got off on a technicality) and have this Biogenesis link going on so far…
Does anyone know how long it takes for the effect of “PEDs” to wear off? Put another way, imagine two scenarios:
Scenario 1. Player X takes PEDs in 2012, but not in 2013
Scenario 2. Player X does not take PEDs in 2012 or in 2013
If we compare Player X in 2013 under Scenario 1 to himself in 2013 under Scenario 2, would we expect to find any difference in his body/testosterone/whatever?
I would hypothesize that Player X would be bigger/stronger/whatever in 2013 under Scenario 1 than under Scenario 2, but who knows…
Well, seeing as it is generally used to artificially help generate actual muscle tissue quicker, it would “wear off” when the added muscle atrophies. Considering how baseball players talk about losing so much weight during a long, grueling season, it could be a season or two’s worth of play, assuming they don’t sustain the weight gain through more strenuous workouts.
Frankly, once you bulk up, you can keep it there without PED usage. It just isn’t easy. This is assuming that the PEDs used were for strength increasing purposes, and not other things like Adderall or other amphetamines.
Way to many assumptions to draw any conclusions. The biggest being that all these players were using PEDs for all of 2012 and stopped in 2013. Some may have stopped before, some may still be using, some may never have used at all.
Then you have a pretty small sample size. Ignore the pitchers in general since that sample set basically consists of just about the oldest, fattest man in MLB which makes him an outlier to start with.
I agree with the overall premise, but now we’re supposed to forget about small sample sizes when it confirms our suspicions?
If the numbers are all the same, though…isn’t it just more data that fits the expected?
Put another way if player X has a .280/.330/.475 slash line for one season, and then starts the next with two months of .285/.330/.480..does it really make sense to throw away that data as SSS or unrepresentative? It matches with what we expect. True, we can’t know what the rest of the season will be…but it’s hard for me to see how SSS really applies except in the most technical sense.
Among the hitters, there is a very noticeable falloff in ISO, with everything else being virtually unchanged. Among the pitchers, there is a noticeable jump in HR/9, with everything else virtually unchanged. Either or both could just be noise, but they look suspicious enough to examine more closely.
Also, the difference between the players last year & the players this year (assuming the players were enhanced) should be smaller than the difference between a player who has never used & a player who is actively using. A player who has previously used PEDs, but is no longer using, is still benefiting from the improved training/recovery that was possible with the PED use, even though they are no longer actively benefiting from the substances themselves*. How much of a residual benefit remains from the training, I have no idea.
*This would still be true even if the only benefit of the PEDs were from the placebo effect. A placebo effect is still an effect.
“magical elixir that turns scrubs into stars…” Lance Armstrong disputes this vehemently.
How exactly do you know that Armstrong would have been a scrub otherwise? And it’s not like he was the only guy in the race doping.
Steroids don’t turn scrubs into stars. They make the tiny, marginal differences in performance possible. Dave Cameron’s falling to the fallacy that afflicts people for some inexplicable reason that steroids are magical elixers. They’re not. We know they’re not.
Steroids might make a 3% difference in performance, but that might be the difference between AAA and the majors, between slugging .440 and .450. An extra homer or two clearing the fences.
“Tiny, incremental differences …”
So Bonds would’ve hit like 70 home runs with a .530 ISO when he was 36, if he hadn’t been on the ‘roids?
Bonds (like Lance Armstrong) was historically good at using drugs to improve his performance in his sport. Why? His other baseball skills didn’t hold him back. He had great quickness and speed that faded as he aged and bulked up, but he also had once-in-a-generation coordination, pitch recognition, discipline, and a sense of baseball timing. Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco probably increased their strength with drugs but still limited themselves with strikeouts, defense, baserunning, etc; their strength was already their greatest strength. Bonds’ ludicrous hit tool, quickness, and discipline allowed him to take full advantage of the extra strength.
And then Bonds’ intelligence, will, and determination put him above anyone else at taking advantage of drugs. This is a guy that had already successfully transformed himself, while playing at the highest level, from a free swinger into a patient hitter that lived on base. And when he became determined to hit lots of home runs, and beat up on MLB pitching like a video game on “easy” mode, he made that transformation. He understood his abilities, and developed a unique hitting approach (the whole light-bat, plate-crowding, armor-wearing thing) to turn his talents and newly-developed strength into silly numbers.
As someone mentioned above, there’s the irony that Bonds hurt his legacy by doing drugs so well. And the further irony that he reportedly decided to become a slugger out of bitterness that he wasn’t being appreciated while big sluggers were; because ultimately he was reviled for all the clever things he did, not just the drugs, but the way his plate approach and equipment took advantage of the game and its rules and umpiring practices. He was a man with the intelligence and drive to game the whole game, but without another sort of intelligence that could tell him that if his goal was to be loved, he’d never achieve it through bitterly making a mockery of baseball.
*Ahem*
So, yeah, if most players didn’t do drugs, and the few that did were physically and mentally equipped to do it like Bonds did, they, too, could see great gains. Because in most cases (including Bonds’) we don’t and can’t know when they started using drugs, it’s hard to judge how good they were at using them. With Bonds there’s at least a documented change in focus; not so with, say, A-Rod or Braun.
Prior to 1995, which is when he allegedly began steroid use, Armstrong was a very good rider. He won a stage in the Tour de France and retired in 97th place. He was diagnosed with cancer in 1996. When he came back, he was superhuman. Ben Johnson ran 10.22 in the 84 Olympics, 9.79 in ’88. I wouldn’t classify that as incremental. You are talking the difference between solid performers, journeymen and bronze medal winners, and all-time greats.
I think part of the point is that the difference between a solid ML regular and a star (talent wise) is pretty small.
I believe (though am not certain) that as a member of the Mets 40-man roster Puello is in fact a member of the MLBPA. Otherwise, he likely would have been suspended already as Carillo was, no?
If Braun and A-Rod are being suspended 100 games for two different penalties, didn’t Gio Gonzalez commit at least one of the same penalties? Apparently they’re being penalized for one offense of the policy by lying about being connected to Bosch. Even if Gio obtained legal substances, he denied a connection to Bosch in February. Would that not warrant at least one offense?
Perhaps, but I don’t think anyone really believes the “let’s punish them twice for lying!” road that the MLB is travelling down will prove fruitful. Whether folks think MLB has a compelling case or not for the drug-related suspensions (and I’ve seen and heard differing opinions from MLB legal writers), the “lying suddenly equates to a steroid offense!” tack is just not going to stand up.
I don’t understand why some people prefer to believe that performance-enhancing drugs don’t enhance performance…
This is a tautology. Of course performance enhancing drugs enhance performance.
The article is trying to decide if we are appropriately calling these things performance enhancers. (Note: just calling them performance enhancing doesn’t mean they do.)
Or in a way you understand better…If drugs don’t enhance performance, we should’t call the performance enhancing.
This is a really lazy and loaded analysis attempting to suggest the non-impact of PEDs. In your list of 11 players, 1 (Cervelli) barely played in 2012 and 3 (Cervelli, Martinez, and Grandal) barely played in 2013. Eliminate the pitchers and those 3 and you’re left with 6 players, 3 of whom (Braun, Melky, Montero) who have been worse in 2013 and 3 of whom have been better (Everth, Peralta, Cruz). As John noted, the 3 worse performers have seen a dip in ISO. But what does it mean? Nothing. There is nothing meaningful here in a sample size of 6 players. We don’t know if they continue to use PEDs, and although you suggest that they are under the type of scrutiny that would make it unwise, baseball players and people have shown time and again to to be willing to make the same wrong decisions when dollars are at play. Also, we don’t know whether the players in question are/were using testosterone (whose effects in a post-pubertal body are short-lived changes in strength training ability) or HGH, which may allow long-lasting changes in lean muscle composition to occur without continued administration, negating the “if they stopped using and drugs worked we’d see a year-over-year performance change” hypothesis.
Agreed for the most part although it’s pretty clear that Melky and Braun would receive the highest scrutiny and might well be why their numbers are down. Certainly, Braun has more to lose than any of these other players if he continued taking and gets caught for real. Melky was already caught, so…
The rest (of those non-pitchers) probably have less to lose and more to gain, if they continued…
You’re right, especially with Braun. Financial incentive now exists to be clean, as 100 games at $8.5M/year (this year’s salary) would be $5.25M lost. As his salaries escalate yearly and he’s under contract til 2020, he could regress to merely being a very good player (or less than that) and lose nothing financially if he stopped using. On the other hand, A-Rod serves as a reminder that for some, hubris can outweigh the threat of lost income. Braun’s smug reaction to having his suspension overturned on a technicality last year make me wonder if this isn’t the case for him too.
I’ve heard of torturing logic, but this is like John Wayne Gacy-ing logic.
I think we are forgetting that PEDs aren’t a catch-all for future performance, it simply allows a person to a)work out harder and longer than they normally would without the drugs, and b)help in the healing and recovery process of the muscles after a workout. Unless a player is a gymophile (is that even a word?) like Lance Armstrong was famous for (I recall on multiple occasions reading articles about how he worked out harder than everyone – well, there is a reason for that), there may not be a huge performance trend, it could just be a maintenance thing.
I’d be more curious to see how second half performance compares to first, and then compare the alleged PED season to previous second half seasons. My guess is that’s where it shows up (i.e. no noticable falloff).
many times PED use isn’t for max strength, but for longevity or recovery from injury, like with Pettitte. that’s something we wouldn’t see with this methodology, and can’t distinguish from just the classification PED.
Dave,
As others have mentioned, I think the assumption that these players used in 2012 but not 2013 is wrong. For example, given that Braun’s whole thing played out after the 2011 season, it’s fair to assume that 2011 was his last season (and may have been several other guy’s last season).
Moreover, the numbers show a much greater gap if you just roll back one year and look at 2011. For 2011, you can see a significant increase in all numbers for your table of players. So, to answer your question, yes, it showed up in the performance…you just may be wrong about when they were using PEDs.
2011 ISO .207 BABIP .327 AVG .299 OBP .348 SLG .506 wOBA .369
I get a kick outta every steroid apologist who fails to understand that if it wasn’t helping, the players wouldn’t risk taking them.
Beyond foolish
Great point. I’ve got some Phiten necklaces to sell you. The more you rope together, the better they work!
Players have also been known to cork bats and that doesn’t improve performance.
Look at this: http://www.powerbalance.com/PB-team
Read this: http://www.skepticblog.org/2010/09/23/power-balance-magical-energy-bracelets-or-nonsense/
Players believe all sorts of magical and pseudoscientific nonsense that does nothing. And this is before we even consider the incredible superstitions like refusing to step on the foul lines on the way off the field or wearing the same underwear for every start.
This argument is indeed “beyond foolish.”
Personally, I believe that steroids may have a marginal placebo effect and give players the ability to heal quicker from injuries therefore padding career counting stats.
PEDs help keep players on the field too. Taking drugs to simply maintain your status is also cheating. Just because records aren’t falling doesn’t mean players aren’t trying to prolong their careers.
Questioning the effectiveness of an effective PED regimen is like believing immunizations give you autism — dopey belief motivated by some personal thrust of wayward ideology deployed laughably against science, thoughtfulness and erudition.
Go get your fucking shine kit, Dave.
You must not be aware that clinical studies have proven that the heavy metals included in some immunizations do increase the risk for behavioral disorders, such as autism.
You wanna know why measles outbreaks keep happening in schools? Because dumbasses like Bob M aren’t willing to accept the evidence.
If only we could immunize against stupidity.
Completely untrue. You must not be aware of reality.
http://skepdic.com/antivaccination.html
That was a good read.
It’s irrelevant if they work or not (though does anyone remember 90’s?). It’s against the rules, you can’t do it regardless of the effect. What if in real life the same thought process was applied, 1) man gets caught using cocaine 2) “it’s okay officer it’s not very good stuff I hardly even got high 3) “Oh, we’ll that changes everything, you’re free to go, have a good day sir”.
Excellent point. But that’s not really what is being discussed here. Nowhere does the author say these players should not be suspended. You’re shadowboxing with this argument.
This article is challenging the assumptions that inform the rule, which again, he never once said shouldn’t be followed.
Jesus Christ this was awful.
What a pointless exercise in attempt to make a proofless point.
I honestly can’t tell if this is supposed to be sarcasm or taken seriously. It’s one of the dullest attempts at proving a point I’ve ever witnessed. Are you trolling for views or do you honestly believe this passes for investigative journalism?
You’re assuming:
* That all the above players actually used PEDs throughout 2012 and stopped promptly in 2013
* That PEDs have an immediate effect that disappears as soon as a player stops using
* That PEDs have the same positive effect in every individual
* That SSS concerns don’t apply
PEDs are illegal and dangerous to the health of the individual. It shouldn’t even matter if they affect performance or not. Besides, there are countless medical studies with real statistic tests, not back-of-the-napkin scribbles, that definitely show the impact of PEDs on performance.
Seriously?
wRC+ of 116 vs. 113.
You wouldn’t cheat for a 3% improvement? Success at the highest levels is all about the marginal differences that separate players. Being 3% better than the pack in the Tour de France every day guarantees a victory.
Since this is a statistical site, it would’ve been great to have an actual statistical analysis of these raw numbers.
You just plop numbers down, say they’re similar enough, and move on. But that’s not how this should work. Sometimes small number differences ARE significant, insofar as theyre unlikely to happen by mere chance. Are they in this case?
Unfortunately, with this simplistic analysis, I don’t know.
On top of being lazy, we can throw biased in there too. the author fails to mention the only two noticeable hitting statistics that declined from 2012 to 2013, which were ISO* and SLG. Coincidentally we tend to associate these most with PEDs. Instead the author presents a 3 point decline in WRC+ and declares there is no difference. Well done.
*Not to say the ISO decline is all that relevant in the first place, look at the sample size
While the emphasis on PED’s is the the performance. There’s also the decreased rate of injury and sped up recovery time. So it’d be hard to state without careful analysis of what exactly was taken to say that these putative drugs didn’t have an effect.
I feel like the first thing to admit with any analysis of the effects of PEDs is that we really just don’t know WHAT they do.
The premise of this article seems to be that if they were using in 2012, and not using in 2013, then what they were using had no effect. While this is a very real possibility, it’s also a very real possibility that the physical gains the players got while using in 2012 remained even after everyday usage stopped in 2013. For example, if I diet and lose 30 lbs, I can stop dieting and will eventually gain that weight back. But it won’t happen overnight, and in the interm I’ll still be at a significantly lower weight than I was when I started dieting.
To me pointing out stats like the ones Dave uses above are better used as starting points to ask questions, and should not be viewed as conclusive evidence of anything.
You’re totally right…if they knew they were under investigation they totally wouldn’t use PEDs.
Because they’re baseball players, not bicycle racers. It’s totally, totally different.
Right?
PEDs basically just make you stronger faster with less work. Or make you heal quicker. Its all about quickening muscle growth. That muscle doesn’t just disappear once you quit taking them.
I just don’t understand how smart people like Dave Cameron can be so intentionally obtuse when it comes to steroid usage. There are dozens of studies that show steroids unequivocally are effective at increasing muscular capacity (unlike HGH, which so far has only been shown to increase the SIZE of muscles, not the capacity). Higher muscular capacity translates directly into a high velocity swing of a baseball bat. Doesn’t make it a BETTER swing, just faster. Higher swing velocity translates directly into higher velocity of the ball off the bat. And Mike Fast proved that any increase in the horizontal component of the velocity of the ball off the bat leads to higher HR/FB rates and higher BABIPs. So, without question, using steroids will increase performance of a hitter.
Now, not all players start from the same skill level. No, if I take steroids, I’m not going to become Barry Bonds. But… I might have been able to make the freshman baseball team in high school. And if the kid who beat me out took steroids, he might’ve made the varsity team. And the varsity 1st baseman might’ve gotten drafted and played a few years of low A ball… Etc, etc, all the way up to inner circle Hall of Famer Barry Bonds became the second greatest hitter of all time.
Yes, this is a very nice comment.
Dave Cameron is intentionally obtuse because he is a minor-league warlock/practitioner-in-training in the dark art of negative sports writing. He knows he is taking an ignant position, but regrettably for him he doesn’t weigh the PED in sports question well. He returns to the subject from on high over and over again. This makes him sort of a tool.
He is writing these pisser-offer columns, totally tone-deaf to the idea that mainly people are not into PEDs in sport.
That’s the deal, Dave – people don’t want the PED drugs in sport.
—
Apologists, and deniers? That’s supposed to be the most whatever consensus stand of the informed sports fan?
No.
This article gave me AIDS.
So PEDs are no big deal?
LOL at Everth’s power spike. Knew there was something suspicious going on…
This post belongs on bleacher report.
Who is claiming that steroids are a “magic bullet”? Yeah, maybe 30 years ago there were lots of stories about “east german swimmers” and Ben Johnson in those terms, but I don’t see anyone out there claiming that with baseball these days. So basically Dave is arguing against a fictional, made up claim. Then, with his straw man in hand, he uses a small sample size and wildly speculates that they are NOT on steroids (because baseball players are rational actors?), and then concludes the lack of improvement as some sort “evidence”.
Have you read many Fangraphs comments? There is always someone who implies that a sudden power or performance surge in general can be attributed to PED usage.
I would think that most of us could probably agree that we’d be less likely to speculate that a player was currently using PEDs after it became public knowledge that the league was investigating him for PED usage.
I like how this logic somehow applies to Ryan Braun in 2013 (after Biogenesis was reported) but not Ryan Braun in 2012 (after Braun pissed off MLB by winning his appeal).
BREAKING NEWS: Gio Gonzalez irrefutably caught cheating – illegible scribbles on a napkin clearly indicate that Gonzalez’s father may have purchased a soda in Miami in 1985.
BUSTED.
I think everyone is pretty on point about how the limited data in this post doesn’t constitute evidence that these players aren’t using PEDs.
Maybe the better point to make is that there isn’t any evidence being presented that they have used PEDs either. The “case” espn reported is based on some douchebag being offered immunity in exchange for naming some high profile athletes to whom he may or may not have sold PEDs.
Not saying I think none of those named above have used. But I think this is also being intentionally blown out of proportion by the media.
I would assume that Bosch would be expected to provide evidence, not just name names, right? And if he has sold PEDs to those players, he could certainly prove it. I don’t see how his cooperation makes it a “my-word-against-yours” situation. If he actually is cooperating, he’ll be providing proof of his claims, I would assume.
What an ignorant article.
Completely disregarding what is known about AAS properties. AAS has been shown to in some instances create a 30 percent strength gain.
If players are using supplementation that improves their strength by up to 30 percent, you really don’t think they would hit the ball longer, throw it faster, run the bases faster, swing the bat with more ease?
Dave Cameron, there are three types of lies according to the great Mark Twain. Lies, damn lies and stats.
Here you choose to use certain stats to determine if players are on the juice.
Why not actually get their yearly physical test profiles (every MLB team has one) and compare those?
This is how a high-school freshman might tackle proving or disproving the effects of PEDs in an assignment for an introduction to statistics class.
So is Dave trolling the Fangraph audience with this article to get hits and comments or do folks really think he believes this is objective and meaningful analysis?
I get that he has desperately clung to the idea that PED’s don’t help all that much, but he seriously can’t be passing the #’s he put together as objective and meaningful analysis, could he?
He has to be trolling. And to be honest, that’s kind of pathetic.
Baseball contracts are guaranteed, yes? Ryan Braun could’ve signed his deal, broken his leg, and made the same amount (excluding relatively minor incentives) as he would for posting a 10 WAR season.
One of the only ways to LOSE that money, is to get suspended for PED usage. So, Dave, if PEDs weren’t that effective, then why would players like Ryan Braun risk using them?
Of course PEDs can’t make a scrub into a star. But they must have some effect- how much WAR per year? I doubt it’s the difference between a replacement level player and a 5 WAR All-Star- but who really knows? Maybe only 0.5 wins extra/year- but even that would be a significant amount – about $2.5 million worth of wins(assuming 5mil/win).
Hey Dave, you’re wrong about Puello. As a member of the 40-man, he’s MLBPA.