While many of us eagerly await the May arrival of Will Carroll’s “The Juice” in finer bookstores, “Moneyball” author Michael Lewis shines some light on the subject and its impact on player development in tomorrow’s New York Times Magazine section.
Another piece of evidence that steroids work is the reluctance of the players to part with their drugs. A few weeks ago, not long after after Major League Baseball’s public humiliation before Congress, the commissioner’s office released the names of 41 minor-league players who failed spring-training drug tests. The players came from just 10 of the 13 major-league organizations tested so far. Given the public outrage over steroid use during the off-season, you might think that the minor leaguers would have arrived in camp prepared. (They needn’t stop taking steroids altogether; to avoid being caught they only had to stop taking them a few weeks before the test.) And yet an average of more than three players per organization appeared to be unwilling to play clean.
Perhaps all this means nothing. Perhaps minor leaguers are deluded about the importance of the drugs. On the other hand, they might be right that they need them — that steroids are so helpful in today’s game that a 15-game suspension and a reputation as a steroid user is a small price to pay for the benefits. The evidence is unlikely ever to be anything but inconclusive. There are too many alternative explanations for the power surge: players have altered their swings (though most swings are still idiosyncratically personal affairs); players have grown naturally stronger (but have they?); some hitters, like Barry Bonds, have switched from ash to maple bats (though most hitters haven’t); pitchers aren’t as good (though there is no hard evidence of this); ballparks are smaller (though a few are actually bigger).
But the ambiguity of steroids’ effects may have, in an odd way, increased their grip on the game. Unable to parse the statistics and separate natural power from steroid power, the people who evaluate baseball players for a living have no choice but to ignore the distinction. They’ve come to view the increase in the number of young players without power who become older players with power as a new eternal truth about the game. ”Good hitters become power hitters, power hitters don’t become good hitters” has become a kind of cliche for baseball’s more statistically minded general managers. Power is now understood as less an innate gift than a gettable skill — more like speaking French than being 6-foot-3. Which is to say that steroids may have changed not only the way the game is played but also the way the game is understood. They have given birth to a big, beefy idea from whose side-effects no player is immune.
good hitters do often become power hitters. this isn’t a recent development – there’s a long history of players developing power as they age that goes back to well before the “Steroid Era”. take a look at the careers of Robin Yount, George Brett, etc. hell, take a look at Mickey Mantle’s career. there’s thousands of examples from all-stars all theway down to the end of the bench. bodies don’t fully finish developing until the mid-20s and guys who hit a lot of doubles suddenly find more of their hits going over the wall as they reach their peak. whether steroids accentuate that effect is open for debate i suppose, but this isn’t some new phenomenon.
point taken, though there is a difference between becoming a power hitter midway through one’s career and seeing power numbers increase dramatically in what would otherwise be considered the twilight of a player’s career.
What do we make of hitters who went from being prodigious sluggers to downright superhuman (Sosa, McGwire)? Or those who weren’t previously noted for the longball, had a brief run flexing their muscles (Brady Anderson) and then returned to earth?
Brady Anderson had a fluke season. it happens, and there’s not usually an easy explanation. as for McGwire and Sosa (and Bonds), all i can say is look at the careers of other big sluggers: Ted Williams had huge seasons at age 38 and 41; Hank Aaron had a power spike at age 37 and again at 39; Reggie Jackson had 2 of his 3 biggest HR years at age 34 and 36; Frank Howard got much better at age 30 for some reason; Lou Gehrig looked headed for greatness past age 40 if he hadn’t become ill. so Sosa having his best season at age 32, or McGwire having his at age 34 is not all that out of line. Bonds seems to me to be the rough equivalent of Williams. and even without steroids, today’s players are in better condition especially later in their careers that sustained greatness doesn’t strike me as all that out of line. again, this isn’t to say that steroids can’t or don’t play a role, just that that role is currently unquantifiable. the fact that so many people (CSTB not included) are stepping over each other to throw accusations and sweeping proclamations around can’t change the fact that there is no evidence of any actual effects of steroids on hitting or pitching and that much of the so-called evidence bandied about is completely anecdotal and self-selecting. the defense would like to call Alex Sanchez to the stand….
Jamie,
how’s this for a sweeping proclamation? every one of the guys you named (Cecil Fielder too!) was on steroids — and Jeff Kent has the proof in the glove compartment of his Ford Explorer.
We can note that Brady Anderson hit 50 HR’s at the age of 32, a year after he hit 16 (and a year before he went back to 18). In Anderson’s 15 season big league career, he never managed to hit 25 homers before or after his crazy 1996 season. Fluke or fraud? There’s no proof to indicate the latter, and for that, I apologize to the former Oriole, his sister Laurie and magician brother Harry.
there’s a section in the Lewis piece about George Brett, btw.
i hate to think that i’m coming across as some sort of steroid apologist. it’s more that i liken a baseball player on steroids to some coked-up jackass in a bar. just because the coke makes him feel cooler and more charming doesn’t mean that it’s so. just adding muscle mass doesn’t necessarily make one into a power hitter or pitcher. 95% of ballplayers have muscular physiques, but not all of them hit a ton of home runs or strike out over 1 guy per IP. likewise, if steroids provide a psychological benefit, that’s no guarantee that the player is actually any better. and it may even work against someone who gets overly confident to the point that they don’t feel like they have anything to improve upon. there’s many potential outcomes of steroid use, but there’s been such a narrow focus on just one of them that i’m willing to bet that it’s being widely overstated.