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It's only horse**** if dude's been on the juice his whole career and has only now found out how to hit.
2016 MLB thread. THE CUBS HAVE BROKEN THE CURSE! Chicago Cubs are your 2016 World Series champions
- Thread in 'Sports & Training' Thread starter Started by proshares,
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Sizing up the 2012 awards races.
As we approach what you might call the quarter pole of the baseball season, the races for the major postseason player awards are starting to narrow to fairly small lists of candidates, with one and possibly two already all but decided. If the season ended today, here is how I would vote on the two MVP awards, the two Cy Young awards, and the AL Rookie of the Year award, with brief explanations for each. I'm voting on the NL Rookie of the Year award this year, so I will not discuss that award again until the results of the balloting are revealed in November.
AL MVP
1. Mike Trout
2. Robinson Cano
3. Justin Verlander
4. Austin Jackson
5. Felix Hernandez
Trout has the performance and the narrative in his favor right now; if he maintains this crazy level of performance, the only argument against him would be if the Angels miss the playoffs, and claiming that an individual player's value is somehow tied to the performance of his teammates is just flat-earth thinking.
One of the most popular questions I've gotten recently is whether Miguel Cabrera will win the AL MVP award. I don't presume to know what the voters will do, but I know that as it stands right now, he shouldn't appear in the top three spots on any ballot. Cabrera's offensive performance has been solid, but he's a major negative on defense at third base, so a player like Cano, a good defender at a position (second base) where offensive levels are lower, is more valuable overall even though Cabrera has slightly higher raw rate stats. Cabrera is the third-most valuable player on his own team, behind Verlander and Jackson, the latter of whom has completely transformed himself at the plate this year and is a plus defender in center.
NL MVP
1. Andrew McCutchen
2. David Wright
3. Buster Posey
4. Ryan Braun
5. Chase Headley
McCutchen leads the NL in both the Baseball Reference and FanGraphs versions of wins above replacement despite a strongly negative defensive number, one I find rather hard to believe and that may be a function of PNC Park's odd dimensions, as McCutchen -- by visual evaluation a good defender in center -- has always scored poorly in UZR and in Baseball Reference's defensive runs saved.
Like Trout, McCutchen may suffer with some voters if his team misses the playoffs, although any rational voter might consider what the Pirates' record would be like without his offensive contributions before dismissing his value. Posey's case may also be tied to whether his team makes the playoffs or not, and his defensive numbers aren't helping his statistical case; I think he's a better defensive catcher than those metrics indicate, and he shouldn't be penalized for playing a handful of games out of position. I may be unfairly omitting Michael Bourn, but so much of his value this year comes from huge numbers in the advanced defensive metrics, with which I'm less comfortable than I am with advanced offensive numbers.
AL Cy Young
1. Justin Verlander
2. Felix Hernandez
3. Jake Peavy
4. CC Sabathia
5. Chris Sale
It's a two-man race right now, with Verlander enjoying a comfortable lead over King Felix, even if you normalize Verlander's stats upward to reflect his low batting average on balls in play -- and Verlander's BABIP has been quite low for over two years now, raising the question of whether he might have slightly more skill than other pitchers in limiting hits on balls in play. Sale has been nearly as effective this year as Verlander on a per-inning basis, but he's already skipped starts twice this year and the White Sox seem inclined to back off his workload now to keep him available in October, which will hurt his candidacy.
As for AL ERA leader Jered Weaver, he's nearly 40 innings behind Verlander, and has had remarkable luck/defensive help on balls in play -- .225 BABIP, by far a career low -- as an extreme fly-ball pitcher with Superman in the outfield behind him.
NL Cy Young
1. R.A. Dickey
2. Johnny Cueto
3. Clayton Kershaw
4. Gio Gonzalez
5. Stephen Strasburg
The most interesting thing about Dickey's stat line this year is that among NL pitchers he's essentially tied with the other four pitchers listed above for the league lead in FanGraphs' WAR even though that statistic, which normalizes a pitcher's performance by using a league-average BABIP, may in fact handle his performance unfairly, as knuckleballers do seem to be able to reduce the rate of hits allowed on balls in play more so than "conventional" pitchers.
Cueto pitches in a harder home environment and has faced at least as difficult a slate of opposing offenses as Dickey has, so he has a reasonable case to be first overall even without considering irrelevant variables like pitching in a pennant race. Strasburg's placement on ballots will be fascinating; no starting pitcher has ever won the Cy Young Award in a full, non-strike-shortened season with under 200 innings (Pedro Martinez's 213 1/3 IP in 1999 were the fewest), but Strasburg has pitched well enough that he might have a case for a few fifth-place votes even with his soon-to-be-truncated workload.
As for Aroldis Chapman and Craig Kimbrel, while both are having spectacular years in relief, neither is as valuable as what a good full-time starter can provide in three to four times as many innings. Chapman might be in the midst of the best relief season ever, and yet ranks just 12th in the NL among pitchers in FanGraphs' WAR because he doesn't pitch enough -- he's retired more than three batters in one appearance just once since Memorial Day. There's a lot of lost value in the practice of limiting relievers to one inning per outing, and until more teams realize this, you're not going to see relievers on my Cy Young ballots.
AL Rookie of the Year
1. Mike Trout
2. Yu Darvish
3. Jarrod Parker
First place here isn't remotely a conversation; I had Trout as the best prospect in the minors for the last two years and he has even exceeded my own expectations for him. His FanGraphs' WAR is more than twice that of any other rookie, hitter or pitcher, in either league. He is ridiculously good, performing so well that he could skip the rest of the season and still win this award.
Darvish's season, on the other hand, has been a significant disappointment relative to expectations, primarily due to one thing -- his lack of control. Darvish has walked 79 batters in 140 2/3 innings this year; he never walked more than 49 batters in any season in Japan, and walked 83 batters combined in his last two years in 434 innings. His stuff has been outstanding and his strikeout rates are excellent, but the consensus approach to facing Darvish is to let him fall behind in the count, and when he does that, he tends to work outside the zone to get hitters to chase, which by and large they're not doing.
If he were a prospect with a history of poor walk rates, I'd be very bearish on him, but his entire NPB experience contradicts the four months we've seen from him here. I think this is more a question of changing his plan, getting him to attack the zone when he falls behind, than resigning ourselves to chronically awful walk rates.
AL MVP
1. Mike Trout
2. Robinson Cano
3. Justin Verlander
4. Austin Jackson
5. Felix Hernandez
Trout has the performance and the narrative in his favor right now; if he maintains this crazy level of performance, the only argument against him would be if the Angels miss the playoffs, and claiming that an individual player's value is somehow tied to the performance of his teammates is just flat-earth thinking.
One of the most popular questions I've gotten recently is whether Miguel Cabrera will win the AL MVP award. I don't presume to know what the voters will do, but I know that as it stands right now, he shouldn't appear in the top three spots on any ballot. Cabrera's offensive performance has been solid, but he's a major negative on defense at third base, so a player like Cano, a good defender at a position (second base) where offensive levels are lower, is more valuable overall even though Cabrera has slightly higher raw rate stats. Cabrera is the third-most valuable player on his own team, behind Verlander and Jackson, the latter of whom has completely transformed himself at the plate this year and is a plus defender in center.
NL MVP
1. Andrew McCutchen
2. David Wright
3. Buster Posey
4. Ryan Braun
5. Chase Headley
McCutchen leads the NL in both the Baseball Reference and FanGraphs versions of wins above replacement despite a strongly negative defensive number, one I find rather hard to believe and that may be a function of PNC Park's odd dimensions, as McCutchen -- by visual evaluation a good defender in center -- has always scored poorly in UZR and in Baseball Reference's defensive runs saved.
Like Trout, McCutchen may suffer with some voters if his team misses the playoffs, although any rational voter might consider what the Pirates' record would be like without his offensive contributions before dismissing his value. Posey's case may also be tied to whether his team makes the playoffs or not, and his defensive numbers aren't helping his statistical case; I think he's a better defensive catcher than those metrics indicate, and he shouldn't be penalized for playing a handful of games out of position. I may be unfairly omitting Michael Bourn, but so much of his value this year comes from huge numbers in the advanced defensive metrics, with which I'm less comfortable than I am with advanced offensive numbers.
AL Cy Young
1. Justin Verlander
2. Felix Hernandez
3. Jake Peavy
4. CC Sabathia
5. Chris Sale
It's a two-man race right now, with Verlander enjoying a comfortable lead over King Felix, even if you normalize Verlander's stats upward to reflect his low batting average on balls in play -- and Verlander's BABIP has been quite low for over two years now, raising the question of whether he might have slightly more skill than other pitchers in limiting hits on balls in play. Sale has been nearly as effective this year as Verlander on a per-inning basis, but he's already skipped starts twice this year and the White Sox seem inclined to back off his workload now to keep him available in October, which will hurt his candidacy.
As for AL ERA leader Jered Weaver, he's nearly 40 innings behind Verlander, and has had remarkable luck/defensive help on balls in play -- .225 BABIP, by far a career low -- as an extreme fly-ball pitcher with Superman in the outfield behind him.
NL Cy Young
1. R.A. Dickey
2. Johnny Cueto
3. Clayton Kershaw
4. Gio Gonzalez
5. Stephen Strasburg
The most interesting thing about Dickey's stat line this year is that among NL pitchers he's essentially tied with the other four pitchers listed above for the league lead in FanGraphs' WAR even though that statistic, which normalizes a pitcher's performance by using a league-average BABIP, may in fact handle his performance unfairly, as knuckleballers do seem to be able to reduce the rate of hits allowed on balls in play more so than "conventional" pitchers.
Cueto pitches in a harder home environment and has faced at least as difficult a slate of opposing offenses as Dickey has, so he has a reasonable case to be first overall even without considering irrelevant variables like pitching in a pennant race. Strasburg's placement on ballots will be fascinating; no starting pitcher has ever won the Cy Young Award in a full, non-strike-shortened season with under 200 innings (Pedro Martinez's 213 1/3 IP in 1999 were the fewest), but Strasburg has pitched well enough that he might have a case for a few fifth-place votes even with his soon-to-be-truncated workload.
As for Aroldis Chapman and Craig Kimbrel, while both are having spectacular years in relief, neither is as valuable as what a good full-time starter can provide in three to four times as many innings. Chapman might be in the midst of the best relief season ever, and yet ranks just 12th in the NL among pitchers in FanGraphs' WAR because he doesn't pitch enough -- he's retired more than three batters in one appearance just once since Memorial Day. There's a lot of lost value in the practice of limiting relievers to one inning per outing, and until more teams realize this, you're not going to see relievers on my Cy Young ballots.
AL Rookie of the Year
1. Mike Trout
2. Yu Darvish
3. Jarrod Parker
First place here isn't remotely a conversation; I had Trout as the best prospect in the minors for the last two years and he has even exceeded my own expectations for him. His FanGraphs' WAR is more than twice that of any other rookie, hitter or pitcher, in either league. He is ridiculously good, performing so well that he could skip the rest of the season and still win this award.
Darvish's season, on the other hand, has been a significant disappointment relative to expectations, primarily due to one thing -- his lack of control. Darvish has walked 79 batters in 140 2/3 innings this year; he never walked more than 49 batters in any season in Japan, and walked 83 batters combined in his last two years in 434 innings. His stuff has been outstanding and his strikeout rates are excellent, but the consensus approach to facing Darvish is to let him fall behind in the count, and when he does that, he tends to work outside the zone to get hitters to chase, which by and large they're not doing.
If he were a prospect with a history of poor walk rates, I'd be very bearish on him, but his entire NPB experience contradicts the four months we've seen from him here. I think this is more a question of changing his plan, getting him to attack the zone when he falls behind, than resigning ourselves to chronically awful walk rates.
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I doubt it's the placebo effect.....It's no coincidence that pitching as soared after PED were banned and outlawed.
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Pitchers are just better, velocity is up in 2002 average fastball was 89.7, now it's 92.
Teams are better at measuring and evaluating defense, better defense = less hits = more no hitters.
Teams are less strikeout averse and walk friendly, so guys there are more guys like Adam Dunn's, Carlos Pena's who walks and strike out a ton and don't get hits = more no hitters
teams utilize shifts better = more no hitters.
Nobody is really shure how steroids impact your ability to hit a baseball, it is not as obvious as you may think.
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Wow, if you don't think steroids helped Melky Carera from going to a below average player to damn near a superstar I don't know what to say. I was astonished at the year he was having, I remember watching so many at bats of his while he was on the Yankees, he was extremely disappointing. I've been telling a bunch of friends of mine that Melky had to of been taking some type of substance. It just doesn't make sense. I'm not surprised at all.
The better question is "how many players are truly taking illegal substances?" players have been getting caught every year and it seems like its not stopping. Some of these players are becoming extremely confident and may be taking some type of undetectable substance.
Read this http://m.espn.go.com/mlb/story?storyId=8274284
The better question is "how many players are truly taking illegal substances?" players have been getting caught every year and it seems like its not stopping. Some of these players are becoming extremely confident and may be taking some type of undetectable substance.
Read this http://m.espn.go.com/mlb/story?storyId=8274284
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If it didn't help players wouldn't keep chancing it.
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Now that he was caught - everyone knew he was taking something. 
cp (reno)
where you "concerned" about Melky and his offensive numbers being so much higher than the past?
Klaw (2:02 PM)
Concerned? No. Skeptical, yes. But absolutely not accepting the rationale that testosterone - which we've been told for years increases power - somehow increased his ability to hit for average on balls in play. I don't see any supporting evidence, and arguing that just to support my contention that Melky wouldn't hold his level of performance would be extremely hypocritical.
Help some of you folks out.
where you "concerned" about Melky and his offensive numbers being so much higher than the past?
Klaw (2:02 PM)
Concerned? No. Skeptical, yes. But absolutely not accepting the rationale that testosterone - which we've been told for years increases power - somehow increased his ability to hit for average on balls in play. I don't see any supporting evidence, and arguing that just to support my contention that Melky wouldn't hold his level of performance would be extremely hypocritical.
Help some of you folks out.
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I love the argument that PEDs dont help you hit a baseball, because it definitely does.
Better bat speed = more hits. 95+ mph fastballs that u couldnt catch up to before are now easily hittable. Balls that would have been pop ups turn into homeruns because youre hitting faster pitches with a faster and
More powerful swing.. and balls that would hve been within a shortstops range will now be hit too hard for him to catch up with, thus resulting in more base hits
Also, when dudes are juicing their confidence is probably through the roof knowing they have an edge. If youve ever played baseball you know its a mental game so basically , Enhanced confidence = more hits.
So while steroids may not enhance hand-eye coordination, it definitely increases bat speed and confidence, two major things when it comes to
Hitting a baseball.
Melky Cabrera and Ryan Braun: fraud status.
Better bat speed = more hits. 95+ mph fastballs that u couldnt catch up to before are now easily hittable. Balls that would have been pop ups turn into homeruns because youre hitting faster pitches with a faster and
More powerful swing.. and balls that would hve been within a shortstops range will now be hit too hard for him to catch up with, thus resulting in more base hits
Also, when dudes are juicing their confidence is probably through the roof knowing they have an edge. If youve ever played baseball you know its a mental game so basically , Enhanced confidence = more hits.
So while steroids may not enhance hand-eye coordination, it definitely increases bat speed and confidence, two major things when it comes to
Hitting a baseball.
Melky Cabrera and Ryan Braun: fraud status.
jumpmanfromdabay
Banned
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At the end of the day I don't care about PEDs I just want to be entertained
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So that is how you explain the drastic drop in Home Runs? While there might not be direct evidence or a clear cut measurable statistic on the impact of steroids.....ignoring the affect it can have is laughable.
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Matt Kemp doesn't care about the kids. 
Earmuffs!
Earmuffs!
VinMillerHearn58
formerly lakersreppa008
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Every time someone gets caught juicing, it makes me wonder if other players (not in the MLB) take some sort of illegal substance.
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Garrett Jones show today.
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I don't believe Conte knows what he's talking about at all.
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^agree
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I mean, Conte is throwing out a high number because that makes headlines. If he said 15%, it doesn't have that same "wow" factor, but there is definitely some truth to what he is saying. It's too easy just to dismiss what he has to say. The idiots are the ones who get caught.
Nobody believed Jose Canseco.
Nobody believed Jose Canseco.
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1. I just explained it to you. Better pitchers are flat out better now. FYI Home runs are back up again.
The drastic decline in run scoring the last few years has been a major story, especially as it related to the rise in drug testing and the end of the so-called “steroid era” in Major League Baseball. There’s no denying the fact that offense has tumbled in the sport, with the league average wOBA falling from a high of .341 back in 1999 to the .316 of today. As baseball has worked to eliminate performance enhancing drugs, scoring runs has become more difficult.
But, perhaps an underreported aspect of this story is that home runs are making their way back into Major League Baseball this year.
2010 was the first year that league average HR/9 had fallen under 1.00 since 1993, and then it declined again to 0.94 last year. These were the kinds of power outages that lent credence to the idea that drug testing had wiped out a large amount of artificial power that had been hanging around the sport for the last 20 years.
That trend continued at the start of 2012, as league average HR/9 was just 0.95 in April. However, as the weather has gotten warmer, the ball has started flying again. Here are the league average HR/9s by month in 2012:
April: 0.95
May: 1.02
June: 1.06
July: 1.07
And, not that you should care about the results from just a couple of days, but August has started out with a home run barrage – the league HR/9 is 1.23 on the first two days of this month. Here are those same HR/9s for 2011:
April: 0.91
May: 0.87
June: 0.88
July: 0.91
August: 1.08
September: 1.00
The first four months of 2011 certainly played like the dead ball era. Then, last August, home runs took a big jump, and they’ve stayed at an elevated level every month since besides April.
We’re basically now at one full calendar year with home run rates at the same level as they were about 10 years ago. They’re definitely not back to the peak levels of 2000 (league HR/9 was 1.1
, but this quantity of home runs lines up pretty well with a bunch of years from the “steroid era”.
And in terms of measuring the actual change in power, we need to adjust for the real significant change in baseball over the last 20 years – the continuing and increasing rate of strikeouts. K% is at an all-time high again this year, up a full point over last year’s record high. Now at 19.6%, the average strikeout rate in Major League Baseball is having a significant depressing effect on run scoring, and is the primary reason that league offense is still down despite the return of some home runs.
So, instead of just looking at home runs per game, we should look at home runs per contacted ball, by removing strikeouts, walks, and hit batters from the equation. So, let’s do just that. Here is home run per contact for each season of the last 20 years.
Season HR/CON
1993: 3.1%
1994: 3.6%
1995: 3.5%
1996: 3.8%
1997: 3.6%
1998: 3.7%
1999: 4.0%
2000: 4.1%
2001: 4.0%
2002: 3.7%
2003: 3.7%
2004: 3.9%
2005: 3.6%
2006: 3.9%
2007: 3.6%
2008: 3.6%
2009: 3.7%
2010: 3.4%
2011: 3.4%
2012: 3.8%
We’re definitely not back at 1999-2001 levels, when home runs per contacted ball were over 4% for three consecutive years, but 2012 actually rates as the seventh highest HR/CON season in the last 20 years, and is actually higher than the rate was in 2005 — the year before comprehensive drug testing went into effect.
And, before you think that players have simply made adjustments to their swings to compensate for the lack of drugs, borrowing from their doubles and triples to get those home runs backs, the rate of doubles and triples per contacted ball has been essentially unchanged for the last 15 years. It’s at 7.1% this year, and has been between 6.9% and 7.3% every year since 1997.
When batters put the bat on the ball today, they’re just about as likely to get an extra base hit now as they were during most of the years when Barry Bonds was bathing in cream. In reality, the decline in offense now is almost exclusively about the dramatic rise in strikeouts. That historic lack of contact has masked the fact that power has made a pretty strong return to today’s baseball game, and has perpetuated the idea that steroid testing has led to dramatically different results in offensive performance.
Perhaps instead of looking at testing for PEDs, we should really be investigating the effects that the installation of PITCHF/x cameras in every park has had on pitchers and umpires. If we’re just looking for a direct correlation between two things, the rise of more accurate pitch tracking in 2007 and the drastic increase in K% over the last five years looks like an interesting place to start.
Of course, few things are ever as simple as “this happened, so that occurred”, and it’s unlikely that we can attribute all of the increase in strikeouts to the new cameras in the ballpark. After all, strikeouts had been on the rise — albeit at a slower pace — well before PITCHF/x, so this is more of an acceleration of a trend than an entirely new one. However, if we’re going to just talk about how one change may have had a strong cause-and-effect relationship on offense in the sport, we’re probably better off starting there than we are starting with the institution of drug testing in 2006.
Baseball is different now than it was 15 years ago, but it’s more about strikeouts than home runs. In reality, we have more evidence that either the pitchers or umpires have changed than we do that the hitters have undergone some significant physical transformation.
But, perhaps an underreported aspect of this story is that home runs are making their way back into Major League Baseball this year.
2010 was the first year that league average HR/9 had fallen under 1.00 since 1993, and then it declined again to 0.94 last year. These were the kinds of power outages that lent credence to the idea that drug testing had wiped out a large amount of artificial power that had been hanging around the sport for the last 20 years.
That trend continued at the start of 2012, as league average HR/9 was just 0.95 in April. However, as the weather has gotten warmer, the ball has started flying again. Here are the league average HR/9s by month in 2012:
April: 0.95
May: 1.02
June: 1.06
July: 1.07
And, not that you should care about the results from just a couple of days, but August has started out with a home run barrage – the league HR/9 is 1.23 on the first two days of this month. Here are those same HR/9s for 2011:
April: 0.91
May: 0.87
June: 0.88
July: 0.91
August: 1.08
September: 1.00
The first four months of 2011 certainly played like the dead ball era. Then, last August, home runs took a big jump, and they’ve stayed at an elevated level every month since besides April.
We’re basically now at one full calendar year with home run rates at the same level as they were about 10 years ago. They’re definitely not back to the peak levels of 2000 (league HR/9 was 1.1
, but this quantity of home runs lines up pretty well with a bunch of years from the “steroid era”.And in terms of measuring the actual change in power, we need to adjust for the real significant change in baseball over the last 20 years – the continuing and increasing rate of strikeouts. K% is at an all-time high again this year, up a full point over last year’s record high. Now at 19.6%, the average strikeout rate in Major League Baseball is having a significant depressing effect on run scoring, and is the primary reason that league offense is still down despite the return of some home runs.
So, instead of just looking at home runs per game, we should look at home runs per contacted ball, by removing strikeouts, walks, and hit batters from the equation. So, let’s do just that. Here is home run per contact for each season of the last 20 years.
Season HR/CON
1993: 3.1%
1994: 3.6%
1995: 3.5%
1996: 3.8%
1997: 3.6%
1998: 3.7%
1999: 4.0%
2000: 4.1%
2001: 4.0%
2002: 3.7%
2003: 3.7%
2004: 3.9%
2005: 3.6%
2006: 3.9%
2007: 3.6%
2008: 3.6%
2009: 3.7%
2010: 3.4%
2011: 3.4%
2012: 3.8%
We’re definitely not back at 1999-2001 levels, when home runs per contacted ball were over 4% for three consecutive years, but 2012 actually rates as the seventh highest HR/CON season in the last 20 years, and is actually higher than the rate was in 2005 — the year before comprehensive drug testing went into effect.
And, before you think that players have simply made adjustments to their swings to compensate for the lack of drugs, borrowing from their doubles and triples to get those home runs backs, the rate of doubles and triples per contacted ball has been essentially unchanged for the last 15 years. It’s at 7.1% this year, and has been between 6.9% and 7.3% every year since 1997.
When batters put the bat on the ball today, they’re just about as likely to get an extra base hit now as they were during most of the years when Barry Bonds was bathing in cream. In reality, the decline in offense now is almost exclusively about the dramatic rise in strikeouts. That historic lack of contact has masked the fact that power has made a pretty strong return to today’s baseball game, and has perpetuated the idea that steroid testing has led to dramatically different results in offensive performance.
Perhaps instead of looking at testing for PEDs, we should really be investigating the effects that the installation of PITCHF/x cameras in every park has had on pitchers and umpires. If we’re just looking for a direct correlation between two things, the rise of more accurate pitch tracking in 2007 and the drastic increase in K% over the last five years looks like an interesting place to start.
Of course, few things are ever as simple as “this happened, so that occurred”, and it’s unlikely that we can attribute all of the increase in strikeouts to the new cameras in the ballpark. After all, strikeouts had been on the rise — albeit at a slower pace — well before PITCHF/x, so this is more of an acceleration of a trend than an entirely new one. However, if we’re going to just talk about how one change may have had a strong cause-and-effect relationship on offense in the sport, we’re probably better off starting there than we are starting with the institution of drug testing in 2006.
Baseball is different now than it was 15 years ago, but it’s more about strikeouts than home runs. In reality, we have more evidence that either the pitchers or umpires have changed than we do that the hitters have undergone some significant physical transformation.
Melky is not hitting any more home runs than he has in the past, his HR/FB rates aren't something he hasn't produced before, his offense resurgence is thanks to an inflated fluky BABIP we have no evidence that known steroid users have seen an increase in HR/FB rates.
I believe that anything that Melky was taking really provided him a marginal, insignificant advantage if any at all. Two career high BABIP season don't match up with the steroid narrative.
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not sure why he has been right on the money for most of the stuff he has said the past few years
Exactly. You guys should do your research on him. Works closely with WADA now as well.
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Osh I love the research but I can't get away from the simplist of arguments. If it didn't help, why are players still chancing it and using when the punishment is so harsh? They are too smart to do something that would jepordize their career and contracts.
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I wouldn't say it's as simple as that. Minor improvement, fluky BABIP, increased power probably all factor in. As a former HS pitcher who couldn't hit a lick, I'd say even a very slight increase in pop can make a difference in production. I don't think it's a magic pill at all, but to suggest PEDs have a negligible effect on someone's ability to hit a baseball is somewhat naive. And he only got caught for Testoserone, but whose to say he and others aren't still on some yet undiscovered designer products?
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