ESPN quotes a number of their baseball analysts on the Hall of Fame vote, but I liked Curt Schilling‘s second comment the best:
Schilling on the “steroid era”
“Perception in our world is absolutely reality. Everybody is linked to it. You’re either a suspected user or you didn’t do anything to actively stop it. I fall into the category of being one of the players who didn’t do anything to stop it. This is part of the price that we’re paying.”
I think this vote bodes very ill for Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds. Mark McGwire keeps losing votes. He started in 2007 at 23.5%, and is now down to 16.9%, the third consecutive year he dropped. Whatever arguments the voters are making about the steroid era, the anti-PED vote is winning. Bonds and Clemens coming in with nearly two third of the voters keeping them off the ballot means the people who think they belong will have a tough time. This isn’t Bert Blyleven, where the more you looked at his statistical record, the easier it was to vote for him. Everyone knows how great Barry and Roger played. There is a huge contingent of voters who don’t want to vote for anyone from this era, which I believe is the reason Craig Biggio did not win recognition today. It’s going to be a very interesting few years.
I feel there is a real failure of the sabermetric community for not quantifying the impact of many of the changes in the steroid era such as smaller parks, maple bats, juiced balls (even Tango agrees the ball was livelier) and smaller strike zones. The few studies I have seen have been weak.
There is a perception that the inflated offense was due primarily to the steroid use of a handful of players known or suspected to have used, and statistically that’s not possible.
When you consider that Tony Gwynn at age 37 and 38 had career highs in HR then something besides steroids was going on. Consider also the drastic jump that occurred almost overnight in the early 90’s. The distribution of HR’s hit shifted to the right so guys who used to hit single figure HR were hitting HR in the teens, tens to twenties, twenties to thirties, etc. BABIP likewise jumped across the board.
If this becomes clearer, folks will be more likely to discount steroid use. Especially if they were to become aware that the number of players who used steroids was likely far higher than the number of known suspects and not limited to HR hitters or power pitchers. It was probably across the board so much so that using was not cheating as much as leveling the playing field.
Right now there is a perception that steroids caused more of an effect than they probably did. And while there is no question individuals benefited, how much was from the steroids alone and how much the motivation that caused them to use steroids which also meant spending more time in the gym during the offseason.
Since steroid testing began, has anyone noticed players getting smaller? HR’s being hit shorter distances? Pitchers velocities dropping? Sure, HR are down and so is offense, but that could be attributed to a less livelier ball (the specs are so large the difference in how far a ball travels in the 400 ft test at the high and low end of the spec is 50 ft).
MLB has sought to encourage the belief that steroids were the root cause of the jump, but that’s probably to cover up their juicing the ball to increase attendance and revenues.
Gotta agree with Curt. And it’s not just the other players. Ownership/management turned a blind eye, commissioner’s office didn’t push hard for a clean game, sports reporters didn’t investigate (where were you, BBWAA?) and us fans didn’t do anything either.
The self-righteousness a lot of these BBWAA voters are expounding is really off-putting. It reminds me of the McCarthy era, up to and including a blacklist.
pft » I want to disagree with you on that. Over the years I’ve seen many good studies on these subjects. The fact is, that there were a number of things that changed during the 1990s that facilitated home run hitting:
That’s a lot going on, and try as you might, it’s tough to quantify each one separately when they are all interacting. Steroid use, however, is the only thing that can be really judged as immoral. If it was just ballparks, equipment, and better training, the writers could simply compare players on a level playing field. Steroids cloud the issue.
Frankly, Barry Bonds provides a very good example of what steroids can allegedly do. Here was one of the greatest hitters ever turning into superman when he should have been in decline. He hit home runs into McCovey Cove with great frequency when in a ball park that tends to hurt homers. He hit 35 of the first 45 Giants splash home runs. If you take out Bonds’s shots, the Giants have 27 splash homers, their opponents 25.
By 1999, Barry had played years with juiced balls, small ballparks, and everything else from that era that sent offense through the roof. None of that did what his alleged PED body did. I don’t need any examples of physical changes. Barry Bonds from age 34 through 42 should not have happened.
Linkmeister: Bingo.
So if this continues, we will just wind up with an entire generation of players airbrushed out of history, because they played during an era where steroids was prevalent? Wow.
I don’t think this is being well thought out, but I can sort of see a logic too this. Part of the problem with the idea of keeping steroids users out of the Hall is that steroids use in the 1990s and early 00s seems to have been really prevalent, and its impossible to tell for sure who used steroids and who didn’t. We only have 100% certainty on the players who were honest about it, and a few players caught after testing started. So the solution tuns out to be just keep everyone who played during this period out of the Hall of Fame.
Maybe later there can be a special committee to go back and piece through the records and figure out who from this era really does belong in the Hall, as was done with the Negro Leagues and the nineteenth century.
Not to be unkind (no wait–yes I do), but how many clueless, malicious fossils like Murray Chass can we expect to croak in the next ten years? That might give at least some of the players in the recent era a shot at induction. Mike Piazza being passed up this year was merely despicable–if the clogged ballot results in Greg Maddux not getting in first ballot next January, it will be a crime against the history of the sport.
Ed » I’m beginning to believe that is quite possible. This is why it’s good that players stay on the ballot for 15 years. As M. Scott Eiland points out, there will be turnover in the voters over the next decade. That process allowed Jim Rice to go into the Hall, as the people who covered him and didn’t like him were replaced with voters who only saw his record.