The greatest individual season in history, marred because they took medicines.

FAFO

I am so old.

Whatever one thinks of PED's, the respective attitudes of baseball and football fans towards them couldn't be more different.

And for obvious reasons.

Whatever one thinks of PED's, the respective attitudes of baseball and football fans towards them couldn't be more different.

Same goes for sports "journalists."

Baseball writers: Rewrite the record books. Take away their MLB-recognized home run totals. No more performance awards ever and kiss your Hall of Fame chances goodbye.
Football writers: Forced the NFL to pass a rule that a player could not be awarded the Defensive Player of the Year Award (among other awards and honors) during the same season the player tested positive for steroids, because the AP almost did just that.

At the end of the day...

Nothing is going to make me regret or otherwise dim the enjoyment and pleasure I got out of that 1998 season. It was a fun experience and I won't apologize for still holding fond memories of it.

I remember sitting on my couch during a September Cubs/Cards game - the crowd going nuts, Sammy and Mac trading HRs at one point - and calling a friend and both of simultaneously saying "Holy #### are you watching this?!?!"

It was fun. 2016 will forever be my favorite summer.... but 1998 remains neck-and-neck with 1984 as #2 on the list.

I remember being a 24-year-old, newly-minted employee at a large consulting firm in Boston, taking the T every morning to and from work in my suit, eagerly reading the Boston Globe on the ride in to follow the Chase for 62...and then the race between Sosa and McGwire. It was also Pedro's first year in Boston, where every start was appointment television (or a scramble to get tickets to Fenway).

It was magical, not just because of the actual athletic feats, but because it was early enough in the internet age that it seems so old-fashioned compared to now. (I mean, I was relying on a physical copy of the Globe to get the news!)

But it ended up putting a permanent, or at least generational, dent in major league baseball. MLB relies far, far more on the history of the game, and the records and accomplishments of that history, than any other sport. This is a big part of why there are more purists in baseball than in football, basketball, or hockey. It is also why the sport has struggled so much with what to do with the Hall of Fame; with how people like Bonds and Rose are handled; and how to modernize the sport for an audience that consumes the product very differently than 40 years ago.

As exciting as 1998 was, the way that era has been processed and adjudicated since then has been the number one reason I have lost some of my zest for the game. I love the hunt for greatness - watching a prospect become a promising rookie; then watching them reveal how high their peak is; then seeing if they are lucky enough to stay healthy, and disciplined enough to do the work needed to maximize the length of their peak; then seeing how steep their decline is; and finally, how long they want to (or can) stick around after they clearly are no longer the player they once were.

Because of the Sillyball Era, it is now a lot tougher to wonder what records and milestones such players can reach. I mean, when Aaron Judge approached 62 home runs, I didn't give a crap. Why? Because what is that supposed to mean now? Are we going to pretend Bonds and Sosa didn't hit 70 and 66 HRs? Those totals are honored in MLB's official records, so they count...but everybody acts like they don't really count. And in terms of certain milestones, it is crazy that ARod hit 696 home runs, despite missing a full season, and yet it was all treated with a shrug. And this doesn't even take into account Pete Rose, who has one of the five (?) great records in MLB (Rose for hits, Bonds and Aaron for HRs, Cobb for average, Young for wins, Ryan for strikeouts), and is this bizarre figure of the last 35 years of baseball history.

To me, the bottom line is that we have to choose from one of two imperfect options. Either:

1) We recognize these numbers as legitimate records, and include the players that achieved them into the Hall of Fame and as part of the royalty of baseball's history; or

2) We do not recognize their accomplishments as legitimate, put big asterisks on them, and treat things like Aaron Judge's 62 home runs as if they are the true record. We ban players like Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, Sosa, etc., from even being on the HOF ballot, and move on.

Instead, we did a very half-ass non-decision for the last 25 years, treating the records as official, allowing them to be HOF candidates, but crapping all over them whenever possible. Sometimes, people are so afraid of the consequences of a decision that they simply don't make a decision, as if consequences just won't happen. But indecision eventually brings big consequences, often worse than any decision could have brought on.

Was it fun at the time? Oh yes. Were reporters a big part of the story by hiding it? Oh yes. I remember when a reporter found the creatine in McGwire's locker and the rest of the media blasted him (reporter) for doing it.

The PED mania that started when Bonds chased down 70 in 2001 got ugly very fast (can't have a black man hold that title now can we). Took awhile for the PEDs to stick to McGwire but now he is glued to them and seen as nothing without them. In truth he was an injury prone Fred McGriff without them (check their stats though age 30, and after their age 30 season and you'll see it quickly).

so without PEDS, which you imply McGwire started using at precisely age 31, he would have taken the same absolute nose dive McGriff took at that age?

One interesting piece of analysis I did about McGwire amounted to actually reading what Jose Canseco had to say. Among the things that he said (it's on Page 7 of his book) is that he got Mark started on steroids in 1988. McGwire was not a rookie in 1988. He was a rookie in 1987. And he set the record for homers by a rookie. By 11 (eleven). Frank Robinson and Wally Berger had hit 38; Mark hit 49. Oh, and that's in Oakland, where home runs go to turn into cans of corn. In other words, It's a monstrous breaking of a record. Not quite as bad as Babe Ruth hitting 54 in 1920, but as bad as any other steamrolling of a record. AND HE WAS NOT ON STEROIDS! Canseco is clear - Mark did not do steroids until 1988, the next year. And Jose is the only source for accusations of Mark, unit Mark himself confessed later on. He did not confess to 1987.

There are lots of methods for projecting a player's stats out into the future if you know the player's year, his age, his playing time, and the ballpark for the starting year, and all of those for the target year. Try a couple for Mark, starting in 1987 in Oakland and ending in St. Louis in 1998. What you will find is that Mark projects to hit right about 70 homers in 1998. In St. Louis. And that's a projection made from a NON-STEROIDS season.,

Now, there is no doubt that Mark McGwire did steroids during his playing career. But the above raises SERIOUS doubt as to whether the steroids helped him any in hitting homers in 1998. Or 1999, for that matter. The evidence would strongly suggest that they did not, and that the 70 homers should be treated as completely legitimate. The reason that no one saw that coming was that Mark had been trying to hit homers in Oakland. So, he could only hit 49 homers as a rookie, rather than 56 or some such number.

And you know what? I will absolutely guarantee you that, if Mark McGwire had managed to hit one more rookie homer, thereby breaking the magic number "50", that would have been one of the most important baseball news stories of the year; possibly the most important one. And the sportswriters would not have gotten their shorts in a ruckus when he hit 70 years later - in St. Louis. The Oakland ballpark kept McGwire from getting the recognition his record deserves. Sad, but true.

McGwire was no doubt going to be a great home run hitter, regardless of whether he took PEDs.

But a lot of guys set career records in homers in 1987. I don't think you can use that data point alone in projecting a rookie's career, especially when we know the guy averaged "only" 39 homers per 162 games in the subsequent 8 years.

---------------

1998 was exciting. I had just graduated from high school and saw Mac's 50th and 51st homers in a doubleheader at Shea Stadium that summer. (It would have been more exiting if the Mets hadn't choked at the end of the regular season.) If the memories of that summer bring you joy, you don't have to let anyone take that away from you. But don't take it personally when people feel differently or try to look at it objectively.

so without PEDS, which you imply McGwire started using at precisely age 31, he would have taken the same absolute nose dive McGriff took at that age?

People focus on the home runs, but don't steroids help you stay healthy? McGwire played 74 games over his age 29-30 seasons combined.

One interesting piece of analysis I did about McGwire amounted to actually reading what Jose Canseco had to say. Among the things that he said (it's on Page 7 of his book) is that he got Mark started on steroids in 1988. McGwire was not a rookie in 1988. He was a rookie in 1987. And he set the record for homers by a rookie. By 11 (eleven).

In fairness, that was the juiced ball year when HR per game spiked from 0.91 to 1.06, a number that had never been seen before and never would be seen again until 1996.

Again the "evidence" against Sosa is

(a) a reporter claimed that multiple lawyers recalled seeing Sosa's name on the list of positive tests in 2003. Note, no reporter anywhere has ever actually seen a coppy of the list.
(b) None of these "sources familiar with the list" was actually looking at the list at the time of confirmation. (Did they confuse Sosa and Manny? Sammy and Jorge Sosa?)
(c) Maybe the NY Times verified those sources but their track record is not great. The reporter's later track record isn't spotless either. It took 4 months after SI broke the ARod story for the NY Times to get confirmation and publish -- how many calls were made, how many people were asked the question, did any of those people say Sosa was not on the list, did the confirmations only come after repeated calls to the same people, why did it take so long to establish other names on the list?
(d) Unless something happened in the last few years, Sosa has never admitted to usage at any time, not 2003, not 1998. Sosa has never said that his name appeared on the 2003 list.
(e) Sosa testified to Congress, clearly and in English (as if that matters), that he never used steroids.
(f) Sosa never tested positive after official testing was established.
(g) To my knowledge, nobody has ever come forward to say that they supplied Sosa with steroids, saw him use steroids, heard him admit steroid usage.
(h) The evidence against Sosa is, at best, similar to the evidence against Ortiz.

That's before we get to issues like the facts that PED usage was not a violation of any baseball rule in 1998, that steroids could be obtained legally in the DR, that tainted supplements were widespread in the US.

It would surprise noone if Sammy used, either in 1998 or 2003. But it is defamatory to state it as fact. Even "allegedly used in 1998" is stretching it unless we want to consider "come on, we all know it" as an "allegation."

In fairness, that was the juiced ball year when HR per game spiked from 0.91 to 1.06, a number that had never been seen before and never would be seen again until 1996.

And currently sits at 1.22, tied for 4th-highest all time. The 5 highest seasons of all-time are 2019, 2020, 2017, 2023 and 2021. Maybe they need to start testing for roids.

Roids or no roids, McGwire figured out weight-lifting and launch angle before everybody started doing it. His career G/F ratio was 0.39; Joey Gallo is at 0.43.

Dave - You have a point, but when you only have one year of provable steroid-free hitting, you have to use that year. Also, some of the projection algorithms adjust for home run environment. They only have McGwire having the high 60s. It's still well within the limits of the methods to say that McGwire clearly had a 70-homer season in him if he ever got out of Oakland. And St. Louis in 1998 was not exactly Coors Field. It was pretty neutral for homers. In a good homer park, Mac might have hit 75. In Coors, he might well have hit 80.

For what it's worth, Mac hit 28 homers on the road in 1987 (that's where my estimate of 56 comes from); 21 at home. The plate appearances are very close. In 1998, he hit 38 at home and 32 on the road, but the plate appearances are NOT close - he had a lot more opportunities in St. Louis.

In 1998, Sammy Sosa hit 35 at home and 31 on the road, and had less opportunity at home. The park helped him quite a bit.

People focus on the home runs, but don't steroids help you stay healthy?

What evidence is there of that?

More to the point, if steroids have actual health benefits it'd be reflected in medical treatments.

And yes, I'm aware that he claimed that he thought steroids would help him heal faster.

Shall I provide a list of improbable things various players are documented as believing?

Some people claim that steroids keep you healthy and point to the longevity of guys like Bonds, Clemens, ARod, Palmeiro, etc. Others claim the exact opposite and say they cause you to break down and become injury prone (McGwire, Canseco, Caminiti, Braun, Tatis). IOW, steroids do whatever is convenient for your argument.

1998 was amazing. Probably still my favorite MLB season of all time. Even knowing what we do now about McGwire - and assuming (with no evidence) what we assume now about Sosa - the idea that a baseball chase could capture the nations attention like that even amongst non fans is just unfathomable today. T'was a different time, where sports (and pop culture in general), held a much more pronounced role in mainstream society.

We should just recognize that the 90s were a weird time in baseball history, much like the 20s, and (for opposite reasons) the deadball era. We should adjust statistics from the 90s when doing cross-era comparisons (like we always do with any era), and recognize that records without adjustments for context are dumb and don't mean anything anyway. (Sorry people who enjoyed 1998. I don't mean to rain on your parade but the record really doesn't mean anything unless you adjust it for context. Also, I hate fun.)

The problem with this is that steroids trigger a moral panic in (some) people. McGw didn't _deserve_ his record, and so, this thinking goes, it somehow _isn't_ a record. Which... doesn't make any sense.

I mean, you can do it this way: someone holds the record for most home runs hit by someone who didn't use steroids. And that's true in the same way that someone holds the record for most home runs hit by someone who never did weight training, and someone has the record for home runs hit by someone who is taller than six foot six, and so on. Weight training probably helps you hit home runs. I suspect that being over 6'6" does also. The only difference between "was over 6'6"" and "used steroids" is that the latter sets off the moral panic buttons. The other records are just odd trivia, and without resenting PED users for hitting home runs they "shouldn't" have hit, the clean HR record is also just odd trivia.

Screw phony home run records. 1998 was great because we got to see the greatest team in baseball history. El Duque and Scott Brosius were my answers to home run frenzy.

More to the point, if steroids have actual health benefits it'd be reflected in medical treatments.

I’m not a doctor, but I did watch House from 2004-2012 (has itvreally been that long?). And I know that not a single episode went by without House ordering staff to put some patient on steroids.

#21 - And test them for Lupis while you're at it!

Football writers: Forced the NFL to pass a rule that a player could not be awarded the Defensive Player of the Year Award (among other awards and honors) during the same season the player tested positive for steroids, because the AP almost did just that

Interesting contrast with baseball. Those covering this sport never made the slightest peep about keeping Bonds from winning 4 straight MVP awards. And it’s not like the rumors and accusations and BALCO weren’t out there at the time. The very same people decided hitting 73 homers on steroids is OK to win an MVP award but hitting 762 for a career is too tainted for the hall.

Would the voters today give an MVP award to someone who tested for steroids? It would be impossible to have an MVP season while being disrupted with a 80 game suspension, but I guess we could have a test case if an obvious MVP tested positive before game 160 or something. MVP does not include the postseason, but perhaps knowledge that the player will not be available for the playoffs will sink his case.

Interesting contrast with baseball. Those covering this sport never made the slightest peep about keeping Bonds from winning 4 straight MVP awards. And it’s not like the rumors and accusations and BALCO weren’t out there at the time. The very same people decided hitting 73 homers on steroids is OK to win an MVP award but hitting 762 for a career is too tainted for the hall.

Would the voters today give an MVP award to someone who tested for steroids? It would be impossible to have an MVP season while being disrupted with a 80 game suspension, but I guess we could have a test case if an obvious MVP tested positive before game 160 or something. MVP does not include the postseason, but perhaps knowledge that the player will not be available for the playoffs will sink his case.

The closest thing I can think of would be Melky Cabrera in 2012 who was plausibly the favorite for NL MVP when he got hit with the suspension. If that had been a season ending injury, I have to imagine he'd at least have gotten some down ballot support, but he was completely shut out. At the same time, Ryan Braun finished in second that year right on the heels of his initial avoided suspension, so I don't think voters are really holding grudges as far as award voting goes.

Some people claim that steroids keep you healthy and point to the longevity of guys like Bonds, Clemens, ARod, Palmeiro, etc. Others claim the exact opposite and say they cause you to break down and become injury prone (McGwire, Canseco, Caminiti, Braun, Tatis). IOW, steroids do whatever is convenient for your argument.

There were massively more players in or past their late 30s performing at or near their peak level during the years 1995-2005 than at any other point in baseball history. (Cue those of us who don't care about the morals of steroids saying: and this is supposed to be a bad thing, how?)

If I recall correctly, according to McGwire he got seriously into steroids when injuries were on the verge of ending his career in 1993-1994, for the purpose of recovering from them. Maybe Canseco is telling the truth and McGwire's lying, or maybe they're both lying, or maybe they're both telling somewhat of the truth and he first dabbled with them in 1988 but didn't get really into them until 1994.

My own personal opinion is that most likely almost everyone in baseball was heavily using steroids during that time period, so moralizing about it and hunting witches over it are pointless exercises. The era was what it was; let's adjust for it as best we can and move forward.

There were massively more players in or past their late 30s performing at or near their peak level during the years 1995-2005 than at any other point in baseball history. (Cue those of us who don't care about the morals of steroids saying: and this is supposed to be a bad thing, how?)

Because forcing hundreds or thousands of low-paid workers to take unregulated medical treatments with unknown effects on their health in order to compete to keep their jobs is wrong?

#25 Thing is that we just can't separate the influence of PEDS from baseball players starting to take physical training seriously. They came into the game more or less at the same time and a commitment to working out likely helps extend careers too.

Yeah. There have always been a few players who worked out seriously. And a lot of them aged very well. In the early 80s Sparky Anderson was ######## about Lance Parrish training with weights (and he pretty much destroyed Nelson Simmons' career over the issue) and by the end of the decade weight training -- and PEDs -- were starting to become taken for granted.

As for McGwire's injuries, he had a chronic heel problem. I can't see any way steroids helped with that. It healed. Offensive conditions exploded with the arrival of sillyball. It's not even slightly surprising that somebody who (as Brock points out) debuted as he did (and yeah 1987 was sillyball lite) would have a 60+ HR year once he was finally able to stay healthy and play in that offensive environment.

#25 Thing is that we just can't separate the influence of PEDS from baseball players starting to take physical training seriously. They came into the game more or less at the same time and a commitment to working out likely helps extend careers too.

Then why did that more or less wash out of the game 10-15 years ago? There are only four active players aged 40 or older right now, when there were double digits pretty much every year in that 1995-2005 era Paste cites.

In the steroid era, however you want to define it, many more players hit 50 or 60 homers than at any other time, many more players were active into their late 30s and 40s than at any other time, and many more players used steroids than at any other time. I think it's incumbent on people to demonstrate why those things are not related, rather than asking people to demonstrate that they are.

I think it's incumbent on people to demonstrate why those things are not related, rather than asking people to demonstrate that they are.

Nobody has to prove a negative. The burden of proof is always on those making the assertion.

Thing is that we just can't separate the influence of PEDS from baseball players starting to take physical training seriously. They came into the game more or less at the same time and a commitment to working out likely helps extend careers too.

These 2 factors are related. The way steroids work is that they allow faster recovery from a workout, so your workouts are more effective and you can work out more intensely.

#28 - Were there more age 40+ players during sillyball than at ANY other time, or are you just comparing it to today? I seem to remember all the top 1970's pitchers going past 40. Niekro and Ryan were pushing 50. Unless you think they were all on PED's too, it means there's other possible explanations.

#30 It seems to me that the common view is that PEDS are not a factor for pitchers -- except Clemens of course.

Discussions about PEDs often get strange.

To be clear, I'm not talking about Tom N or Mephisto or ... well anybody in this discussion. This is a "what's the evidence" kind of discussion. And Tom's got a valid point worth looking at.

I think that there is something to #27. Increase physical training and steroids are correlated in time and effect. They both increase strength and presumably HRs. Disregarding any other potential factors at play such as smaller parks, likely juiced ball, maybe below average pitching for a number of years etc, any analysis has to differentiate between general HR increase due to better training and HR increase due to enhanced training allowed by steroids.

Note the word allowed in the previous sentence. For steroids to be effective, the player needed to actually push their physical training beyond what they could do naturally without them. Otherwise, they were just a placebo. My pet theory (of which there is as much proof as any other, none) is that many/most players who took steroids didn't really push themselves to places that they couldn't get to without them. It's human nature to get satisfied at some level and convince yourself that that you are giving max effort, even though you aren't. In a few cases like Bonds who was a workout freak, he was able to increase his workouts beyond what he was capable without them and reaped additional benefits.

I adopted this theory because no one has been able to provide a statistical method to differentiate steroid users from non-users. If steroids were this overpowering benefit, there would be a way to tease out a group of players who suddenly because better HR hitter while the rest of the league continued a normal career path. This theory also accounts for the extreme HR numbers because those players were among the small percentage who got a real benefit from steroids. Bottom line is while steroids helped in some cases, the general HR increase was due to better physical training and the "steroid effect" is much smaller than most critics claim.

#30 It seems to me that the common view is that PEDS are not a factor for pitchers -- except Clemens of course.

Hi Ron. You might be right it is the commonly accepted but back in the day both Mike Marshall and Tom Seaver were big on lifting. This was before steroids. So I would keep an open mind as to whether they might help pitchers. Seaver at least claimed it was important for leg drive.

#30 It seems to me that the common view is that PEDS are not a factor for pitchers -- except Clemens of course.

Weight lifting seems like a very common workout regime for pitchers now, with an emphasis on low rep, high strength power lifting type workouts to increase their explosive power. Anything that reduces the amount of rest time needed between workouts is going to increase your results and strength, so there is a reasonable inference that PEDs would help pitchers.

Weight lifting was critical for some - Nolan Ryan in the 80's was well known for doing them, especially leg day - he worked those legs hard to help his arm stay healthy and he lasted longer than pretty much anyone outside of Moyer and Paige (who was famously known for never running - kind of the anti-Ryan).

With McGwire age 22-30 143 OPS+, age 31-37 183 OPS+. Does that seem right? Of course not. McGriff 22-30 153 OPS+, 31-40 119 OPS+ (cut to age 37 and you get a 121). Much more normal aging process. Aaron was 157 up to 30, 152 after - unusual, but still declined as he got older overall, although it is odd to have his best OPS+ at age 37 (a 194!). And yes, steroids were around then. And the guy best known for crazy stats? Bonds up to 30 159 OPS+, 31 to the end 203 (!!!!). Crazy stuff. Mr. Poster Boy Steroids Canseco up to 30 was 138 OPS+, 121 31-end but he was on them from day one - I remember seeing the steroid chants on TV during his 30-30 season in 1988.

Another infamous guy - Rafael Palmeiro - pre 30 133 OPS+, post 30 132 OPS+ - an Aaron type career. Did he use? He was caught but there were no clues before that really and there were rumors a teammate spiked his vitamin shots iirc. Still, his stats suggest the potential of an issue.

McGwire did start pre-age 30 but around age 30 was recovering from his assorted injuries and would've been looking for anything to get healthy. Yeah, his 49 as a rookie suggested 70 was possible, but really - if you take a rookie year and extrapolate then Vince Coleman should've easily had 1000+ SB or 2000 even (110 SB as a rookie, 107 the next year, 109 the next, led for his first 6 years in a row with 65+ every year but still ended with 'just' 752). In 1987 George Bell hit 47, by far his best, Andre Dawson 49 (by 17 his highest) and many others had career years.

John - You're confusing two issues. You can't reliably use the projection algorithms for career accumulation (which is why the Coleman "projection" fails), because the algorithms have to assume the the player is healthy every year - either that, or they have to try to predict injuries, in which case, they will fail. So the career accumulation projection will always fail because no one is healthy EVERY year.

But you CAN use them to predict individual seasons, if you are dealing with a healthy year. McGwire was healthy in 1998, and 1999. He was not in 2000. The prediction effect actually shows up in 1997. He was healthy all year, and actually led the majors in homers that year, but with a number well below 60. How? Well, he was traded from Oakland to St. Louis in the middle of the year. After the trade, he hit homers at a 60+ rate. But before the trade, well, he was in Oakland. It is VERY clear that the biggest influence on Mark's Big Homer Years was getting out of Oakland. Neither steroids nor anything else had as large an effect.

AND HE WAS NOT ON STEROIDS!

I mean, if you believe Jose Canseco, which -- why would you?

Did Sosa use steroids? How did we ultimately know Mcgwire did? Big Mac wanted back into the game as a coach and admitting to steroids was his price of admission. Sammy has never shown any interest in that career path. Or won't do the mea culpa. Or never did them.

McGwire was healthy in 1998, and 1999. He was not in 2000. The prediction effect actually shows up in 1997. He was healthy all year, and actually led the majors in homers that year, but with a number well below 60.

I wouldn't consider 58 homers "well below 60".

Just sayin'. ;-)

#35 - People often point to the post age 30 power increases for McGwire and Bonds to illustrate what steroids can do, but it's cherry picking a bit to focus only on those 2 players (and of course, by McGwire's own admission he was using PED's well before 30). Let's look at ALL the big name PED sluggers (known or assumed) and see if we can find a pattern...

OPS+ through age 30/OPS+ after age 30:

Bonds - 159/203
McGwire - 143/183
Canseco - 138/121
ARod - 145/132
Manny - 156/152
Cano - 126/122
Sosa - 119/142
Braun - 143/120
Sheffield - 140/140
Palmeiro - 133/132
Giambi - 149/131

Pretty inconclusive, IMO. Only Bonds, Mac, and Sammy improved in their 30's. Ramirez, Cano, Sheffield, and Palmeiro pulled a Hank Aaron and just basically continued doing what they'd already been doing (even ever so slightly regressing for Manny and Cano). And Canseco, ARod, Braun, and Giambi aged "normally" and got noticeably worse. So all this proves...absolutely nothing.

Edit: Also, here's a few other guys who aren't linked to PED's as far as I know:

Edgar Martinez - 135/151
Jeff Kent - 112/130
Larry Walker - 136/145
Roberto Clemente - 116/155

Clemente is especially striking...

According to Mark McGwire he didn't try steroids until after the 1989 season. So you don't just have 87 to look at for "clean".

Roberto Clemente - 116/155

Clemente is especially striking...

Well, Clemente basically stumbled around in a daze in his first five years in MLB, with an OPS+ of 89. (He didn't win any Gold Gloves in those years, either, despite a 4.1 dWAR, best among RF in the NL [only Kaline was better, with a 4.9]). And then he became Clemente!, with 15 ASGs, 12 GGs, two rings and an MVP.

And 3,000 hits. Exactly.

Booey - You're right. I misremembered. Mac hit 52, which is what I remembered, in 1996, leading the AL. But he hit 58 in 1997, leading neither league. My bad. I think that whaat causes me to misremember this (I've done it before) is that no-one made a big deal out of the 58. It was, at the time, tied for the third-highest total ever, behind 61 and 60, tied with Foxx and Greenberg. I don't understand why not much was made of that.

McCoy - I went with Canseco's introducing Mac to steroids in 1988 because Canseco was the original source of the accusation against Mac, and because I didn't want anyone to throw a tantrum because I didn't honor the Canseco claim for 88. It's possible that the problem is language. Canseco may have introduced Mac to steroids in 88, but Mac may not have picked up on them seriously until 89. In any case, the only blowback you get for 87 is the game's homer rate, not steroids.

Well, Clemente basically stumbled around in a daze in his first five years in MLB, with an OPS+ of 89. (He didn't win any Gold Gloves in those years, either, despite a 4.1 dWAR, best among RF in the NL [only Kaline was better, with a 4.9]). And then he became Clemente!, with 15 ASGs, 12 GGs, two rings and an MVP.

Sure, but other players we've been talking about took some extra time to develop into what they'd become as well, skewing the pre and post PED numbers a bit. Looks at Bonds, for instance:

1986-1989 (ages 22-24) - 124 OPS+ (presumably clean)
1990-1998 (ages 25-33) - 181 OPS+ (presumably clean)*
1999-2007 (ages 34-42) - 214 OPS+ (roided to the gills)

* Game of Shadows says he started juicing after getting upstaged by Mac/Sammy in 1998

So yeah, Barry definitely saw a big jump after he's widely believed to have started roiding, but his through-age 30 OPS+ of "only" 159 is a bit misleading considering the slow-ish (for him) start to his career. That final 9 seasons of presumably clean play with a 181 OPS+ is probably a better indicator of his pre-PED hitting ability. And even that's not entirely accurate, because statements like that assume no one was roiding except for him. Maybe he was a "true" 200 OPS+ player from 1990-1998 but countless other players increasing their own stats through artificial means brought up the league OPS and thus brought down the OPS+ of the clean players?

McGwire is another interesting case study. If we believe his confession that he first starting juicing after the 1989 season, that means we get the following:

1987-1989 (ages 23-25) - 143 OPS+ (presumably clean)
1990-1992 (ages 26-28) - 141 OPS+ (juiced)
1993-1994 (ages 29-30) - missed way too much time for a relevant sample size
1995-2001 (ages 31-37) - 183 OPS+ (juiced)

His first 3 years of roiding produced near identical results to his 3 presumably clean full seasons before that. His late career PED fueled surge didn't occur until sillyball and all it's offense boosting co-morbidities were in full swing. So it's not as simple as just handwaving away all his hitting development as just "teh roids!"

Booey - You're right. I misremembered. Mac hit 52, which is what I remembered, in 1996, leading the AL. But he hit 58 in 1997, leading neither league. My bad. I think that whaat causes me to misremember this (I've done it before) is that no-one made a big deal out of the 58. It was, at the time, tied for the third-highest total ever, behind 61 and 60, tied with Foxx and Greenberg. I don't understand why not much was made of that.

Well, his 58 in 1997 was a 3-way tie for 4th all time (Ruth also had 59 in 1921). ;-)

And it should be acknowledged that Mac's 52 in 1996 came in only 130 games (423 AB's). Prorate it to 540 AB's like he had in 1997 and we're at 66 homers, or 63 homers if we prorate it to the 509 AB's he had in 1998. Also worth noting that he had 39 homers in 317 AB's in 1995, an identical pace that also prorates to 66 homers in 540 AB's or 63 homers in 509 AB's. So even in pitching friendly Oakland, injuries (and the shortened 1995 season) were really the only things preventing McGwire from reaching 60 homers earlier.

That's what was so amazing about Mac's prime. He didn't just have a 60 homer season like Maris or Judge; he was a 60 homer PLAYER during his peak (Sosa was too, though it was taking him an extra 100+ AB's per season and he didn't maintain that pace as long).

I don't know why so many are downplaying what Mac did in 1987. He remains one of only three players to lead MLB in HR as a rookie, and one of only six players to lead the league.

Pete Alonso (2019 NYM): 53 HR, led MLB
Aaron Judge (2017 NYY): 52 HR, led AL
Mark McGwire (1987 OAK): 49 HR, led AL & tied for MLB lead
Ralph Kiner (1946 PIT): 23 HR, led NL
Tim Jordan (1906 BRO): 12 HR, led NL & tied for MLB lead
Harry Lumley (1904 BRO): 9 HR, led NL

https://www.mlb.com/news/rookies-to-lead-league-in-home-runs

And I think people did make a big deal of Mac's 52 and 58. One reason that 1998 was so crazy and so hyped is that the HR chase was a multiyear process, maybe starting with Matt Williams in 1994, hitting 43 in 115 team games. Mac had his brushes, Griffey hit 56 in 1997, and chasing the record was talked about everywhere. Then 1998 happened, and it was awesome.

Using production by age and timeframe as proof, maybe the most obvious cheater of all time is Paul Molitor.

#48 - Or Randy Johnson, if we're including pitchers in the conversation. His best seasons by BREF pitching WAR came at ages 38, 37, 35, 31, 40, 36, and 33.

Nolan Ryan's WAR/162 was higher in his 40s than in his 20s.

I think that whaat causes me to misremember this (I've done it before) is that no-one made a big deal out of the 58. It was, at the time, tied for the third-highest total ever, behind 61 and 60, tied with Foxx and Greenberg. I don't understand why not much was made of that.

Part of it is that McGwire never really seemed like he was threatening the record. He had "just" 43 homers at the beginning of September, before having his biggest month of the year with 15. He hit three homers in the last two games of the season to come oh-so-close.

Part of it is that McGwire never really seemed like he was threatening the record. He had "just" 43 homers at the beginning of September, before having his biggest month of the year with 15. He hit three homers in the last two games of the season to come oh-so-close.

Like Matt Kemp's Triple Crown run (which only became a thing in the final week of the season), or even Albert Belle's monster season that fell short of the MVP. Albert hit 31 HRs in the final two months of hte season, after Cleveland had already built a 20-game lead.

Then why did that more or less wash out of the game 10-15 years ago? There are only four active players aged 40 or older right now, when there were double digits pretty much every year in that 1995-2005 era Paste cites.

One possibility is because everyone weight trains now. Before, those that did had an advantage over those that did not. it took 10-15 years for it to become standard. I have no idea is this is the reason, but it would certainly be consistent with other advances.

man that's hard to believe. Playing hi school football in the late 70s everyone on the team was lifting. And Im sure every other team in Pennsylvania was lifting weights. Not every baseball player was benching but I would guess nearly all of the hitters must have had some regimen to keep their arms and wrists in shape.

Steriods seem to have been effective among the professional ranks by mid 70s as the Steelers lineman looked they were from a different planet. By about 1980 this effect had filtered down to college level where you saw the first 300 lb lineman that weren't just obese. Dean Steinkuhler, Dave Rimington, Tony Manderich those guys started to blow up about 1980 or so.

Then thee was Pumping Iron the movie and the book and Arnold was a household name by this time. Its hard to imagine pro athletes in ANY sport would not be aware of the benefits of weight lifting by the 1980s.

There were lots of baseball players in the 80s and 90s who still had that old school baseball mentality of beer, babes, and fishing and thinking lifting weights didn't need to be done. I don't think Ryne Sandberg was into beer and babes but he wasn't lifting weights. Mark Grace most certainly was into beer and babes and he didn't start trying to lift wrights until near the end of his career.

It would seem like weightlifting and steroids would go hand-in-hand. As players saw the benefits of using weight training, seeing the benefits of steroids would like not be far behind.

Up until roughly the mid-80s it's very easy to find prominent figures being very much against weight training in baseball. My go to quotes on that for a long time came from Sparky Anderson and Russ Nixon, but there were plenty of others.

There was a widespread belief that adding upper body strength somehow slowed your bat.

My mother was a life long track and field person and she had a lot to say about how backwards baseball was in terms of physical training back then.

And yeah pitchers working out goes back at least as far as Cy Young (he was mostly doing endurance work -- running miles per day, but full time farm work in the off season is pretty good for building strength too), but they were always the exceptions.

My comment back in #30 is mostly on the discussions about steroids. Somehow a lot of people seem to believe that steroids can only help hitters. And Roger Clemens.

My understanding is also that there was a long-standing belief that being too bulky wasn’t good for you in baseball, so most players eschewed weight training (and presumably steroids as well) until the 90s. Reading about the 1980s Mets, for example, it’s hard to believe many of those guys had the discipline or time off the field for weight training.

I think a lot was made of Mac’s 58 home run season after the fact. My recollection is that we went into 1997 with everyone talking about McGwire having the potential to break the record. That being said, no one expected him to obliterate the record and hit 70, and *nobody* expected Sosa to also be there right alongside him most of the way.

Brian Downing was one of the early proponents, and he caught some flack from the old timers. He appears in this article about Lance Parrish from 1983 where Sparky grudgingly admits weight can be helpful to some guys, but it's a pretty reluctant approval.

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1983/03/10/Tiger-Catcher-Thrives-On-Weightlift-Program/2618416120400/

I first noticed things were changing when the Twins printed up a bunch of World Series roster posters for the 1991 season. When you held one up next to the 1987 team there was a huge difference in how everyone looked. OK, Greg Gagne never weighted more than 104 pounds, but lots of the others were way more football-looking than four years earlier.

Using production by age and timeframe as proof, maybe the most obvious cheater of all time is Paul Molitor.

A valid sales pitch for cocaine if ever there was one.

I'll occasionally watch footage of games from the mid-'80s, when I first became a baseball fan - and I'm always startled for a minute by the fact that the players were a bunch of guys built like me (6'2", 170).

#59 Anderson's the guy who said of Parish's lifting that he has to decide if he wants to be a ball player or a circus strong man.

For years I watched games from the upper upper deck, and from such a vantage point you can't really get any particular sense of what the players are like. But I remember my first game with seats next to the field, and at being shocked at how HUGE Nick Markakis and Adam Jones are. B-R lists Markakis at 6'1" and 210, which isn't that big really, but all 210 pounds are muscle. Dude is stacked.

I hope you mean "jacked".

Probably meant he was on a multiple roid regimen, like one of these favorites.

There was a dude played for the Expos between 1998 and 2003, somewhere around 2001 who has absolutely stacked and jacked. I always default to Brad Wilkerson but I don't think it was him. I remember seeing him at Veterans Stadium and he made everyone around him look really tiny. Couldn't hit worth shvt though.

Then why did that more or less wash out of the game 10-15 years ago? There are only four active players aged 40 or older right now, when there were double digits pretty much every year in that 1995-2005 era Paste cites.

Because the number of 24-year-old players making the minimum salary who can do what today's 40-year-olds can do eventually exceeds the number of 40-year-olds. All those 24-year-olds were, ten years earlier, 14-year-olds who were at the right age to start getting serious about strength training and conditioning. They, and their support networks/industries, could see what was going on in MLB at that time and could start a commitment to forging the same or similar path.

Success in MLB always fills the pipeline if you wait long enough for another generation to adopt on a widespread basis the success paths of their predecessors. That's why it seems every starter can throw at least 95 and every reliever can throw 98 these days. Kids and their support network (parents, coaches, leagues, various parasites and middlemen) figure out the boxes to check to optimize their path to MLB, and the viability of a path floods the network with kids, and so on. All the while from a top-down approach teams are doing the same thing in their own development programs. Eventually supply and demand meet somewhere in the middle and you get a robust pipeline of players, all of whom can give teams an on-field-quality reason not to employ, say, Yasiel Puig.

Probably meant he was on a multiple roid regimen, like one of these favorites.

Not clicking the link, but please tell me it's the argument over how many days there are in a week. That's a classic.

Might have been Schneider

For years I watched games from the upper upper deck, and from such a vantage point you can't really get any particular sense of what the players are like. But I remember my first game with seats next to the field, and at being shocked at how HUGE Nick Markakis and Adam Jones are. B-R lists Markakis at 6'1" and 210, which isn't that big really, but all 210 pounds are muscle. Dude is stacked.

Interestingly, Markakis never really developed any home run power, and actually peaked in HR at age 23.

Ruben Sierra's decline in the early '90s was blamed by some (many?) on his lifting weights.

earlier in the thread there was talk about whether steroids may have prolonged careers. Interestingly, Bill James touched on this issue in the following article where he studies pitcher "retention" rates which is some sort of proxy for injuries. In the conclusion he mentions that they've been mostly consistent for last 100 years but there was some increase in the 90s among the various categories of pitchers he studied. (categories based on how long they stayed on the field):

https://www.billjamesonline.com/pitcher_value_retention/?Year=2023

Ruben Sierra's decline in the early '90s was blamed by some (many?) on his lifting weights.

Yea I wondered if it was a lack of flexibility with Ruben. Also you can lift for power or lift for appearance, simplifying it greatly if you want more explosive power you want to lift close to your max possible weight for low reps, if you want big muscles you lift lighter weights for a lot of reps. I think its because high reps forces your muscles to develop more veins/arteries for blood flow in order to supply the muscles for much longer sets.

A baseball player who looks like a body builder might just be on the wrong program and not getting full benefits from their workouts.

Sierra played from age 27-*40* while putting up -3.6 WAR and was at or below replacement level 9 out of 13 years. That’s pretty astounding.

#66 Brad Fullmer. Listed at 185. Nope.

Fullmer did have a few good years, but had a lot of problems in Montreal. Specifically with Tommy Harper (the hitting coach). Fullmer got sent out after a rough start in 1999 (.207/.263/.424 when he was sent out). When he came back he played pretty well (finished at .277/.321/.464) and Felipe Alou tried to credit Harper. Fullmer very pointedly said that he hadn't changed anything.

See also Pat Lennon. His shtick was to use a couple of sledgehammers instead of bats in the on-deck circle. I've always figured he didn't get a lot of shots because he just radiated anger and was oh so strong.

high reps forces your muscles to develop more veins/arteries for blood flow in order to supply the muscles for much longer sets.

I dont think it works this way. There was always talk about how do a certain program do get to a certain appearance but you're basically limited to your own genetic build of bone density and muscle density and fast twitch/slow twitch muscles. You cant just tailor make your body to be a marathoner or a world's strongest man, its not that simple.

I mean I dont want to say that there's no difference between doing a few heavy lifts or many lighter lifts. Because obviously there is such a thing as stamina. But mostly your just building muscle strength and if your genetically inclined your muscles should get bigger or a lot bigger.

All I know is that back in 1998 I was a Padres season ticket holder enjoying the Cinderella season until the Yankees spoiled it. Also was one of the people who would go to games 2 hours early just to watch Mac launch balls into orbit during BP. Suspected he was juiced at the time; to be honest, didn't care all that much. It was worth the price of admission to watch him pulverize baseballs.