Right, I was referring to HGH which is also a banned substance. Steroids may help , but in baseball, its effects are minimal compared to other sports.
Tell that to Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Pudge Rodriguez et al.
It turned Barry Bonds from a star player, and one of the best current stars in baseball, into the greatest hitter of all time, the likes of which baseball has never seen in its entire history.
Barry Bonds homerun totals -
age 25-29: 175
age 30-34: 186
age 35-39: 258
The late 30's are notoriously the years of decline for a homerun hitter. Not only did Barry not decline significantly, and even maintain his previous homerun hitting ability into his late 30's - itself a rare feat - he did something unprecedented. He hit homeruns at age 35-39 at a rate at which he never came close to hitting them in the prime of his career. If you look at other metrics such as OBP, SLG, OPS, and their astronomical rise in these years of his career, you can only conclude that Barry Bonds somewhere along the way found the fountain of youth. To deny the power of steroids to enhance homerun hitting ability is to look at these numbers and insist that I believe the world is flat.
Like I said, you still have to be able to see the ball and make contact with it. As a pitcher, even if you throw consistently 100 mph, you're still going to get hit unless you truly know how to pitch. I'm not downplaying its effects, but any regular guy can take steroids and still have absolutely no added talent.
This is why I pointed out that marginal players are the most likely to use steroids, if they are just on the brink of making the majors with their ability level, to give them that slight added boost that will hopefully land them on some major league team's bench, or if their a journeyman middle reliever, that 2 or 3 added miles per hour (or more) on their fastball that will allow them to hang around a major league roster for a few extra years, or make a few extra million.
But the other group that is the most likely to use are the superstar players. Because they
Already have the immense level of talent, what they need to understand the game well, hit the various types of pitches, the mechanics to do so with the proper form, the concentration and good eye, pitch recognition, etc - they already have all of these things, and now, with steroids, they will be adding distance to all their fly balls, which by the law of averages means that more of the flyballs they hit will go out of the park rather than staying in. This increases their homerun total, which might already have been a decent total, and takes them to the next level as a hitter.
It's not like you juice up and start hitting 50 HR a year. Even A-rod's numbers with Texas weren't that crazy when he claimed he did steroids.
He DID start to hit 50 homeruns per year, and actually the numbers were pretty crazy. The 3 years in Texas saw his greatest homerun production of his career. He hit 156 homeruns over that span.
Here is a quote from wikipedia: "2001–02: Record-breaking seasons
Rodriguez's power hitting numbers improved with his move to Texas. In his first season with the Rangers, Alex produced one of the top offensive seasons ever for a shortstop, leading the American League with 52 HR, 133 runs scored, and 393 total bases.
He became the first player since 1932 with 50 homers and 200 hits in a season, just the third shortstop to ever lead his league in homers, and was just the second AL player in the last 34 seasons (beginning 1968) to lead the league in runs, homers, and total bases; his total base figure is the most ever for a major league shortstop. His 52 homers made him the sixth youngest to ever reach 50 homers and were the highest total ever by a shortstop, surpassing Ernie Banks' record of 47 in 1958, and also the most ever for an infielder other than a 1st baseman, breaking Phillies 3B Mike Schmidt's mark of 48 in 1980..."
And "He followed that with a major league-best 57 HR, 142 RBIs and 389 total bases in 2002, becoming the first player to lead the majors in all three categories since 1984."
And "His 109 home runs in 2001-02 are the most ever by an American League right-handed batter in consecutive seasons. "
And then: "In 2003, his last season with Texas, Rodriguez led the American League in home runs, runs scored, and slugging percentage, and won his second consecutive Gold Glove Award. He also led the league in fewest at bats per home run (12.9) and became the youngest player to hit 300 homers.
Following five top-10 finishes in the AL Most Valuable Player voting between 1996 and 2002, Rodriguez won his first MVP trophy. "
Sounds pretty crazy to me.
You also don't know when he began taking them (I highly doubt it was ONLY during that one time when he tested positive - you see how these players incessantly lie about it and only admit to what they got caught with or sometimes don't even admit that), he could have started taking them earlier on in his career, and he certainly could have continued taking them with the Yankees for the first few years before a solid testing regimen was really in place. 2003 testing was just to "test the waters" so to speak before all the revelations came out and the mlb was forced by congress to put in a reliable testing mechanism to rid baseball of steroids. There were a couple of years where the same evasion continued.
Bonds was a Hall of Famer before he supposedly started juicing.
Certainly, but he became the greatest hitter of all time, and he did that from age 35-39. He was NOT the greatest hitter of all time (or anywhere near it) before steroids and before bulking up like he did.
Clemens was a CY Young pitcher before he supposedly started using as well.
But his career was in the decline with the Red Sox and clearly his statistics reflect that. That is why they got rid of him or didn't pay to keep him around. Until suddenly he became the best pitcher in baseball again, and went on to win 4 more Cy Young's in his late 30's - early 40's.
The game is more than just power and velocity. In other sports, I think it does more, but in baseball, where even the littlest guys have power, it might just increase average productivity by a little bit. We will never know, and if it were up to me they would all be jailed.
See above.
But why do you want them in jail? These substances were legal in baseball at the time.
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Topic: Roger Clemens (Read 1727 times)