Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Chris Getz removes name from list of homerless streaks
(www.cbssports.com)
posted on April 17, 2013 at 10:55 AM by RoyalsRetro (AG#1F) to ben revere, chris getz, home runs, phillies, royals, steroids, streaks
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11 comment(s)
Read More...On Tuesday night against Atlanta, Royals second baseman Chris Getz did this for the first time since 2009, for the first time in 954 at-bats ...
That would be third home run of his career, which to date spans 1,350 plate appearances.
Getz’s rare clout calls to mind current notable homerless streaks—a list from which Getz has, of course, just removed himself. Here’s the rundown from FoxSports Kansas City’s Joel Goldberg:
Ben Revere it is! Revere, it should be noted, has no ...
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< 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 >So your position in response to people who think and assert that steroids are cheating -- which numerous people have said, on and outside these boards -- is that amps are cheating.
How is this difficult? Do you somehow not have the power of your conviction?
Coffee's a diuretic, for one thing. It's also less efficient to ingest.
You are arguing that a well rested player who took amps would see no effect.
In the light of zero evidence to the contrary, yes. And again, why would anyone who was well rested take amps in the first place? Every piece of testimony regarding amps says that they were used for restoration purposes by players who were fatigued from either jet lag, doubleheaders or hangovers. Of course once the effects wore off, they could easily become addictive, but all that would mean would be that once the amps got into a player's system, he would never really feel normally rested and alert, and would need to keep taking them just to maintain himself. And there is no evidence that after all that, his natural talent level would have been "enhanced" beyond what it was to begin with.
And you have precisely zero evidence that amps don't take a player beyond his "natural level." Andy has simply asserted this, with his justification being that no lab tests replicated under major league conditions have shown such an effect, while not requiring that kind of evidence to show the same re steroids.
If you or anyone else can show me a single amped up player whose late career power spikes were remotely comparable to those of Barry Bonds, I'll gladly wave my request for such a test.
No, it's not. Can you read? I said _if_ one is cheating _then_ the other is.
I don't think either is cheating, but if we want to define one as cheating then by similar reasoning the other has to be cheating as well.
If you want to define both as cheating, or both as not cheating, you will get no real argument from me. It's the conflicting treatment of the two that I object to.
My conviction is fine. This is "difficult" because one can only reach the conclusions you are reaching through bad faith, dishonesty, or a complete lack of logic. Andy complains that I call him dishonest on this issue, but in that I am doing him a favor by not concluding that he's just a complete idiot.
Now, if you can show me a single steroid-using player whose late career power spikes were remotely comparable to those of Barry Bonds...
I think both are cheating, and both should be banned. But, that doesn't mean the effects of or response to their use has to be the same.
Shoplifting, and grand theft auto are both stealing; we don't treat them the same.
Except for the studies showing the effects of amphetamines -- which (hint) are about much more than counteracting a lack of sleep.
Which (hint) do not deal with 95-MPH pitches that have to be struck squarely by 34 ounce bats. Not that you would know anything about that.
Which is exactly why amphetamines were used, to restore tired ballplayers to their natural talent level. Whether or not that actually worked as advertised is an open question, but there is zero evidence that they ever did anything more than that.
Wrong. It isn't their natural talent level. One's natural talent level is to only be able to put forth a certain level of performance for a certain length of time. To go beyond that is enhancing.
That's a semantic distinction without a difference, at best philosophical and at worst simply misleading. But at least with this you're not trying to pretend that if Hank Aaron had spent his entire career on amps, he would have surpassed his own home run record. Amphetamines are no more "enhancing" than a cortisone shot, which nobody has ever complained about. They may keep a player at point A for longer than he would be otherwise, but they don't bring him beyond that.
There are no greenie versions of the juiced-up Barry Bonds late career spikes** anywhere to be found.
False. There are no steroid versions of Barry Bonds' late career spike anywhere to be found.
Well, other than Barry Bonds himself, but we'll ignore that.
That's a trollish position, maybe definitionally so. You don't think amps are cheating, but you reserve the right to go "NYAH, NYAH, NYAH" and change your mind. Arguing that amps are cheating when you don't believe it is trollish -- there's really no other word.
Bottom line is you don't think amps are cheating, and you concern troll discussions of whether different drugs are cheating.
Upon reflection, perhaps you'll see the dishonorability of that stance.
Barry Bonds.
Now, if you can show me a single steroid-using player whose late career power spikes were remotely comparable to those of Barry Bonds...
IOW it was the amps and not the steroids. Got it. But given the ubiquity of the amp culture well before 1999, and given Bonds's understandable tendency to be "the best that he could be", and given the game-wide power spikes that were evident well before 1999, why is it that those amp-driven spikes didn't take place when Bonds was in his prime years, or until he started juicing?
Not at all. "Bottom line" is that I see no distinction between the two as far as cheating goes.
That's an accurate statement, but incomplete.
The record reflects your statement that you don't think either is cheating and, therefore, that you don't think using amps is cheating. Too late to withdraw it.
You don't think "Andy's heroes" cheated, and you agree with the historical consensus which holds the same. So, apparently, does Andy.
No need to withdraw it. Here's how the discussion proceeds:
1 SBB: Players who used steroids were cheating.
2 Ray: By what definition?
3 SBB: Because of X, Y, and Z.
4 Ray: X, Y, and Z apply to amps users also. Are players who used amps cheaters too?
5 SBB: No.
The dishonesty and/or breakdown in logic occurs between 4 and 5.
It was a fine dodge by Andy not to specifically answer it.
Which is IMO an honorable position that's honorably arrived at. Your only problem is that you refuse to grant comparable honorable intent to those who see it differently, which is what occasionally puts you into troll territory.
The truth is that there's no "correct" way to look at steroids and amphetamines. There are only conflicting and inherently subjective ideas about how each of these drugs impact the players who take them, and what they do to the competitive balance of the game itself. If this were such an easy question to resolve, with all the facts on one side or the other, it would have been resolved long ago.
1 SBB: Players who used steroids were cheating.
2 Ray: By what definition?
3 SBB: Because of X, Y, and Z.
4 Ray: X, Y, and Z apply to amps users also. Are players who used amps cheaters too?
5 SBB: No.
The dishonesty and/or breakdown in logic occurs between 4 and 5.
X, Y, and Z don't apply equally to the two. It's perfectly logical.
Depends on if the Yankees could buy up the entire world's supply before anyone else could get to it. Then it'd be just another Free Market Miracle.
I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at. I think Ray has been pretty clear and upfront about what he's arguing.
It's a pretty straight forward rhetorical move
Amps and steroids are either both cheating or neither of them is cheating. Those are the only positions available. If amps aren't cheating, neither are steroids. If amps are cheating than so are steroids. He doesn't seem particularly concerned which of those viewpoints a person takes...so long as it doesn't split the two. Whether amps are cheating or not isn't the issue he's getting at, consistency is.
(This isn't to say I agree with this approach...I really haven't put a great deal of thought into steroids in baseball, there just seemed to be some confusion)
Question: Why is the whole change attributed to Steroids?
Answer: Because it was unprecedented before or since. No one has had such a late career surge**, it must be steroids.
Question: If he is unique then he isn't proving anything about Steroids in general, or other (many, most, all) players would have had similar late career spikes. So why is the whole change in stats attributed to Steroids?
Note: I still don't care if he did or did not use Steroids during the period it was not against the rules (as documented and enforced by baseball). I don't even care if people use steroids now, if they get caught, they are punished and the game moves on. The punishment is more than enough for me. I don't get the desire to do more than inflict the agreed upon punishment - but he tested positive , now he can't win MVP, batting title, or Miss Congenialty! I say if it was important than make that part of the punishment up front, otherwise STFU about it.
* Assuming he was using Steroids in addition to changing his approach. I admit I have never looked closely at the evidence, because i still don't care.
** In the history of baseball pretty much everything has happened. Soon I expect to see cases of late career surges being discussed. Have a coke on me if so.
It wouldn't bother me in the slightest as long as it was available to every pitcher under Obamacare.
How is it restorative? Humans have not shown over 100 years of baseball history the ability to pitch starters innnings balls out for 162 games.
I don't see the confusion or the gotcha. Maybe I'm missing it.
They don't have to apply "equally," just similarly, which they do, in the abstract.
It's like calling pizza and apples both "food" even though one is specifically different from the other. In the abstract they're both food.
With steroids and amps if you try to drill down from the abstract to cite specific differences you get distinctions but no meaningful differences.
But that's trollish as applied to the amp argument, because he doesn't think amps are cheating.
Put another way, if someone says, "I don't think amps are cheating," it's trollish to say, "But what do you think about steroids?" in lieu of simply agreeing.
Question: Why is the whole change attributed to Steroids?
It isn't, at least certainly not by anyone I've met. There are many factors that went into that power surge, all of which are freely acknowledged to have contributed to it. This is the problem with so many of these discussions when people act as if these questions are always black and white, and if anyone "admits" one point then they have to switch "sides" completely. IMO that's just silly.
Are we now changing the definition of restorative? For the purpose of this debate, "restorative" has meant getting a player back to his "natural talent level". You specifically said that a pitcher's natural talent level is the same however tired he is.
Of course they do. You don't get to just say both are "cheating" and "performance enhancing" and have a reasonable expectation that the argument will cease. Where does that come from?
Moreover, "X, Y, and Z" are a fit as between amps and coffee.
That isn't really the distinction that matters. It needs to go a little further. t doesn't matter how much you want to cheat if what you are doing does not in fact have the effect of giving you a leg up. Thus, the distinctions I have set out.
You don't know that.
The gotcha is in your own words above.
Allow me to introduce yourself to your own argument. Humans have shown the ability to start at (say) level 50 once every five days. If they tried to start every day, they would be much less than 50 for each start. Under your and Andy's stated criteria, a pill that put the pitcher at 50 every day for 162 games is merely "restorative" and not "enhancing" because the pitcher's "natural, well-rested level" is 50. So as long as the pill doesn't put the pitcher at (say) 60 for any one of the 162 games, the pill is totally cool, simply restorative, not cheating at all.
And also, applying similar logic as your statement above, humans have not shown over 150 years of baseball history the ability to be well-rested for 162 games. So by your own argument, amps, which return a player to his "well-rested" level, are cheating.
Do you see now?
No, it's assumed recovery times from high-pitch outings generally consistent with 100 years of baseball history. Something that changes that underlying premise isn't restorative.
I don't think it's trollish...I don't know, maybe I'm operating under a different definition of troll. Certainly a different definition of "concern trolling" as I always took that to mean someone ostensibly agreeing with you, but pointing out the problems in your shared view-point dishonestly. I think Ray's been pretty clear he doesn't agree with you.
I see trolling as someone fishing for an emotional response, more interested in angrying up the blood than discussion. I think it's pretty clear Ray's just addressing what he sees as a logical inconsistency in the argument.
[Apologies again (or the first time) for speaking for you so much Ray. I'm just trying to put my finger on why the discussion has taken the turn it has. It seems pretty clear what your two positions are, and yet the discussion seems intent on moving in some weird direction. I guess this is what comes from me not reading a steroids thread in years]
#### it. You absolutely are changing the way we're using the word 'restorative'. I can't debate if you're going to do that.
That isn't close to my criteria. See 281, which refines the definition of "natural talent level."
If some drug allowed pitchers to come back on three days rest on a regular basis that would still be restorative, but 2 or 1 day rest would be something else?
You're not debating. You're engaging in sophistry and imagination, and looking for gotchas in concepts I've barely subscribed to. Those are Andy's categories.
There's no pill that can make a starting pitcher be able to pitch 130 pitches every day, so I don't give a #### whether or not its called restorative, because at that point those categories have lost part or all of their ability to assist understanding. It's like asking whether a brand of Coca-Cola that can make Justin Verlander throw 10 pitches a start at 200 mph is "restorative." Who cares -- at that point the meaning and weight of "restorative" changes.
"Fifty" and "30" were constructs.
But the drug in the hypothetical did follow your definition of "restorative" and you claimed that it didn't.
"Refines" the definition. Hilarious. I saw more redefining than refining.
But let's go with your newly refined definition, which is: "assumed recovery times from high-pitch outings generally consistent with 100 years of baseball history. Something that changes that underlying premise isn't restorative."
Do you not see that a similar argument applies to position players? No position player is "well-rested" after 120 games or whatever. So any amp that gets that player back to his well-rested state every day is cheating even under this refined definition.
Says who?
The difference, of course, is that the starting pitcher the day after 130 pitches is something quite different than simply not "well-rested." Better, more precise descriptions would be "deemed by mainstream sports medicine all but unfit to pitch," and "jeopardizing his health if he does pitch."
This is another effort to equate things at an entirely superficial level, just as with "cheating" and "performance enhancing."
Not tongue in cheek, but not totally serious either. Since Aaron played in the amp era, he falls under the guilty until proven innocence that guys like Bagwell, Sosa etc have fallen under.
I'll note that Andy has claimed not to care about this kind of add-on, be it Aaron's home run record or Rose's hits record, because, in his words, amps merely restored these players to their natural states.
But if it doesn't matter that Aaron hit 755 home runs when he would have hit (say) 705 without amps, I don't know what we're doing, exactly. Why are the steroids players being savaged while Andy doesn't care about 705 vs 755 or 4100 instead of 4256?
I think you have it backwards. Ray says it's no more cheating than what the pre-tested roiders had done. And that there is now a set of testing with a defined limit on punishments, and that more punishments beyond what is spelled out in the rules, is wrong.
I can't speak for Andy, but those numbers are entirely speculative. The number of times Aaron used amps is entirely speculative. There isn't a stitch of evidence that he took the field a single additional time because of amps.
You're stitching together a bunch of tall tales, urban legends, and ideological poses into a mass jumble of incomprehensibility.
Where is the evidence that Bagwell used? Sosa? Piazza?
On top of that, if Aaron was discovered to use(which he has admitted to at least once) would you argue for punishing him in the same way you would argue for punishing Bonds?
I haven't argued for punishing Bonds.
I absolutely love this. Since when does it matter for steroids players that the player has only been shown to have used steroids once in his career? Do you see how you're using a double standard, Andy? Do you see why I have charged you with arguing in bad faith? You have said that with good evidence that a player ever used steroids you would ban him from the Hall. Are you now saying that "just once" is ok for steroids players? Otherwise, why even mention that Aaron may only have used once?
That was my next question, what are you arguing for?
Again not Andy, but the difference is in leverage per use. A dose of amps lasts a few hours and each "impacted" game requires a new dose. Not so with steroids.
I'm not sure your hypothetical "just once" 'roider exists, but if he does, I'd almost certainly say no harm, no foul.
What you got?
Page 6 of 7 pages
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