tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13718554.post5832469273049130380..comments2023-10-10T03:21:23.580-04:00Comments on Motown Sports Revival: MLB needs to discount steroid-statsJakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16208921021297172480noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13718554.post-48196886670432096342009-02-15T22:55:00.000-05:002009-02-15T22:55:00.000-05:00Anonymous, I appreciate the comments.It sounds lik...Anonymous, I appreciate the comments.<BR/><BR/>It sounds like you're suggesting that cheating should be viewed in the same regard as being very good in a weak era? Of course Cobb wouldn’t hit .368 in today’s game. His numbers are clearly inflated because of the relative weakness of the era he played in. Defense was horrible which is why Cobb was able to get himself into “pickles” on purpose knowing he could get out of them. Pitching was weaker which is why pitchers hit much better than they do today. Equipment was much worse than today’s game which made fielding considerably harder than it is in today’s game; not to mention the significant improvements in training, teaching, and scouting. Baseball skill has changed significantly since the days of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Ty Cobb. Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and countless others cheated. They took steroids and, as a result, artificially changed the playing field. One example involves an evolution in skill the other involves cheating. One is clearly different than the other.<BR/><BR/>The skill level in baseball is going to remain fairly constant moving forward. It is unlikely that baseball is going to see anything near the improvements that were made in the first half of the 20th century. Preparation and training techniques may change a bit but thirty years from now, we are unlikely to see baseball players who are considerably better than the ones we watch today. All that means is that without the aid of drugs, the steroid records will never be broken.<BR/><BR/>Baseball has been on a fairly level playing field for a number of decades. For 50+ years previous to the steroid era, league leaders in HRs, RBIs, Doubles, Walks, and OPS+ have been pretty equal across eras. A stat in 1955 was pretty much equal to a stat in 1995. For 50 years, it was possible to compare players across eras. Sure, there were shorterm issues that skewed statistics like the mound being raised in the 60s. But, baseball statistics were in harmony across eras for 50+ years. Now, look at all the single-season leaders in runs, walks, RBIs, home runs. It’s littered with players who played from 1998-2003. Those numbers didn’t occur because of an evolution in baseball skill. They occurred because players cheated. <BR/><BR/>I can’t fathom how cheating could be equated to not cheating but it sounds like that’s what you’re saying. Baseball—above and beyond any other sport—relies on statistics to attract fans. The steroid era has destroyed that. Cobb, Ruth, and Gherig put up their numbers 80-100 years ago. Baseball has long since reconciled the numbers put up in those eras. That’s why many baseball statistics are prefaced by saying, “since 1950” or “since the deadball era” or “in the modern era”.<BR/><BR/>Whether Ruth and Gehrig would’ve “juiced” in today’s game—something that is impossible to know—is totally irrelevant. All that matters is that they didn’t in their era. As far as we know, the only era to cheat its way to the top of many of baseball’s single-season records is this one. What’s the point of even having records if you can just cheat to the top of the record books even if you end up getting caught?Jakehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16208921021297172480noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13718554.post-84145767756059982382009-02-15T19:47:00.000-05:002009-02-15T19:47:00.000-05:00If you wanna put an asterisk on steroid era hitter...If you wanna put an asterisk on steroid era hitters, than lets also put an asterisk on those inflated #'s before 1940; when 60% of pitchers finished their own games; the average fastball topped off at around 88mph; pitch selection was fairly weak; and of course a lack of minority pitchers in the game. I guarantee you put Manny or Pujols in the 1920's they hit 390 every year. Is Cobb a 368 hitter in todays game, i doubt it. And also lets say this, if Ruth and Gehrig and those guys played today, they would have probably juiced too.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13718554.post-79604096692282631482009-02-12T22:50:00.000-05:002009-02-12T22:50:00.000-05:00Mike,I agree that baseball’s past is nowhere near ...Mike,<BR/><BR/>I agree that baseball’s past is nowhere near squeaky clean. My problem is that these records are just going to sit there forever. <BR/><BR/>To your point about pitchers and hitters all taking steroids thus making everything equal…I agree, comparisons within the steroid era are equal. If everyone was taking them, then nobody had an advantage within the era. The problem is that players in this era have the advantage over other eras. Hank Aaron and Roger Maris hit their marks cleanly (as far as we know anyway). Players who beat those marks cleanly in the future will be robbed by the steroid era. I think it’s kind of silly to have “73” home runs as the single-season record when everyone knows that it took steroids to hit that many. The same goes with Bonds’s all-time home run record. <BR/><BR/>I don’t know how to go about doing it. There are flaws in virtually every idea. There have been so many players who have been outed in one way or another that I bet the majority of players who took steroids have been caught. If that’s the case, then putting asterisks on those players who have been caught might be the fairest idea. Again, though, Sammy Sosa hasn’t been caught. If we hand out asterisks to players who have been caught taking steroids, then Sosa becomes the single-season home run king. That’s no good.<BR/><BR/>50 years from now when nobody has even sniffed Bonds’s single season home run record, it’s going to get old looking at his name at the top of the list and it’s going to be a black mark for baseball as long as he is the record holder of its most famous statistic. The same will be true if/when A-Rod breaks the record. Maybe MLB can just reinstate records that have been broken as the “official” records instead of handing out asterisks or deleting stats. I don’t know. Someday, the idea that baseball has so many unbreakable records is going to be a big downer.<BR/><BR/>I’m with you on the idea that people will try to find the next undetectable drug. This is a problem that might never go away. MLB needs to make the punishment for failing drug tests severe to the point that nobody would even think of taking them. The system they have now isn’t good enough.<BR/><BR/>Thanks for the comments. This is a complicated subject. I wish there was someone other than Bud Selig who could make a decision on this. The fact that he’s even considering punishing A-Rod tells me that he’s clueless. If he punishes him, he has to punish half the league!<BR/><BR/>Take care!Jakehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16208921021297172480noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13718554.post-23131387520692864642009-02-12T14:13:00.000-05:002009-02-12T14:13:00.000-05:00I understand where you're coming from. Maybe I'm j...I understand where you're coming from. Maybe I'm just more cynical but the way I look at it, we're never going to eradicate Performance Enhancing Drugs from sports. <BR/><BR/>These people who produce and supply these drugs always come up with something to be one step ahead of testing. This isn't just straight up anabolic steroids we're talking about. They're creating this stuff to beat these tests, as I'm sure you're aware. <BR/><BR/>And honestly, it doesn't bother me much anyway. Records put up before integration don't mean a whole lot to me. Neither do these records being put up today. I think everyone understands that this era is tarnished. But to me baseball doesn't have a squeaky clean past anyway. <BR/><BR/>Also, if the best hitter of the era and the best pitcher of the era were juicing, and we can then assume most of the best hitters/pitchers were also, doesn't it all cancel out? <BR/><BR/>-MikeAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com