CBS: Doyel: This guy looks like Nomar but is it really him?

On Rigel 7 (and crappier parts of Argo City) Doyel is pronounced Doh-el.

He’s not going to Cooperstown.

Pretty soon, he won’t be in the big leagues any more. He has been put on the disabled list six times since 2006, and his batting average has plummeted from .303 to .283 to .264 this season.

Those are facts. What are the causes? Several possibilities come to mind, most nefariously the impact of steroids—a possibility I discount, by the way.

The signs are there, however. Garciaparra put up his best offensive numbers during the steroid bonanza that was the late 1990s and early 2000s. That’s one strike. His numbers have fallen off the face of the earth since steroid testing has been put into place. That’s two strikes. And he has been brittle ever since, suffering a string of muscle and joint injuries that often befall athletes who have unnaturally bulked their body. Three strikes ... but the argument is out. And here’s why I think so:

Garciaparra was never a power hitter. He hit 35 home runs once, 30 once, and had years of 28, 27 and 24. If he was juicing, he was the most ineffective juicer in the game. He was playing at Fenway, for crying out loud, where a juiced right-handed hitter with Garciaparra’s ability could have—would have—made annual runs at 40 or 50 homers.