Comments on: Pictures and Steroids

By: Conservative Politics | Conservative Political Blogs | News Web Blog | Latest News and Politics

Tue, 23 May 2006 15:02:35 +0000

[...] ;t used steroids–how could I know?–only that his use of them is only alleged. Here’s an interesting, thoughtful piece about baseball and stero [...]

By: MajorLeagueBlog.com » When Bigger Isn’t Better by Les Grant

MajorLeagueBlog.com » When Bigger Isn’t Better by Les Grant — Sat, 20 May 2006 22:29:18 +0000

[...] things homerun related in MLB over the past decade. Jon Carroll references an insightful post by John Charles Bradbury on his excellent blog Sabernomics. T [...]

By: Paul Deuter

Paul Deuter — Fri, 19 May 2006 22:53:22 +0000

If the difference is skill and not strength, then we should see an increase in batting averages too. And perhaps more hitters flirting with .400. If anything, batting averages seem to be down. I agree however that the effect of steroids is overblown. In recent years, hitters have been pumping iron, eating much more nutritious food and benefitting from improved equipment. Using steroids is a part of whole regimen and it is near impossible to determine the isolated effect of one part of the regimen.

By: Roy Henninger

Roy Henninger — Fri, 19 May 2006 17:19:09 +0000

So now that MLB is testing for steroids, and the influence of steriods is presumably diminished, we can continue to look forward to further assaults on the single season home run record?

By: Bob Loomis

Bob Loomis — Fri, 19 May 2006 14:48:41 +0000

It would be interesting to track Bonds’s home runs by pitcher during his record season. Who were they and what were their records that season (compared with their pitching in other MLB seasons, if possible)? The same could be done with other power hitters … It’s possible in my view that Bonds’s greatest strengths are his eyesight and his bat speed … seems like steroids might have helped that bat speed, judging from steroid use by top sprinters? Or am I on the wrong track there? Seems to me he’s swinging the bat a bit slower this year, but that could be just my perception or a factor of aging.

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 15 May 2006 16:21:15 +0000

Per Bob’s discussion points … I think he is on to something. Strikeouts have spiked in the HR era, too. Stolen Bases have plummeted, as well. The nature of the game has changed from “small-ball” or “Billy-ball” (from the days of Billy Martin managing the A’s) to “Chicks dig the long-ball”.

Smaller parks, expansion, HBPs, all have their place. Does anyone track broken bats? Bats have improved in technology tremendously over the years.

All very interesting!

By: Bob

Bob — Thu, 11 May 2006 18:52:50 +0000

It seems to me that taking a (reasonably) outlying stat like HBP and using it to decide that pitchers are worse is a real stretch.

If you want to decide whether or not pitchers are better or worse, why not use the things that they control: walks, strikeouts and HRs (and maybe not even HRs due to the smaller modern parks)? I’d bet that the ratio of strikeouts to walks has shown an increase since the 20s.

By: Baby Got Books » Built to Win

Baby Got Books » Built to Win — Wed, 10 May 2006 23:09:34 +0000

[...] aphs that gets Moneyball can be found over at Sabernomics. Check out this amazing post regarding steroids and their ef [...]

By: James R

James R — Wed, 10 May 2006 13:49:45 +0000

The steroids doesn’t help you hit home argument never made sense to me. I’m not a scientist but logically it seems like it would. We aren’t talking about casual players taking steroids, we are talking about accomplished major league ballplayers which statically is already a very small and rare population. Then you add the fact that a small change can have an outsized effect. For example, the difference between a homerun and a fly ball out is only a couple of feet or less. If a person that could hit 50 home runs in 500 at bats with 100 warning track outs could just change 20% of the outs into homeruns, well, voila! Same goes for the Ben Johnson effect. Winning or losing the 100 meter dash is a difference of tenths of a second in accomplished athletes. Any extra strength, even a small amout could make an also ran a champion.

By: Rick

Rick — Wed, 10 May 2006 07:24:18 +0000

As an economist I did not find your arguments convincing. In fact, I’m not sure the data given even supports those arguments.

For example, you mention that HR rates and HBP both went up in the 1990′s, but the expansion years (1993 and 1998) don’t appear to be significantly different from the years around them and the greatest increase in the home run rate would appear to be in 2001. How does expansion explain that data?

Furthermore, the coefficient of variation for ERA continues to rise in the 2000′s. Why would expansion in 93 and 95 cause continued and increasing dilution of talent year after year into the 2000′s?

Finally, you seem to assume that the rate of HBP corresponds inversely to the talent of the pitchers. Has this assumption ever been tested statistically? In my years of observing baseball I have noticed that some of the best pitchers in baseball have reputations as “headhunters”, i.e Roger Clemens, Pedro Martinez and Don Drysdale.