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Originally Posted by bnorth
Throw in the acne and mood swings and I say he was roiding to the max. But hey I think a lot of the major stars from that era and the 70's was also on the juice.
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not so sure about that. One of the great "red flags" of the roid era was the "double peak" statistically. Players normally peak between 24-28 and then decline, the level that they decline generally determines if they are a star, avg or a HOF'er. One thing players never have done in the history of baseball, is produce a second peak between age 32-40 yet this is exactly what most of the "usual suspects" did in the 90's early 2000's.
Not saying it is the sole way to determine roid use, but it's a pretty darn good flag.
In the case of Maris, he had a 7.1 WAR season in 1960 followed by a 7.2 in 1961. His BABIP was actually low that year but he had a higher HR/FB than usual. I think it's just the case of a player having a "career year" and it's obvious he made a greater effort to hit long balls that year and was driven by Mantle along the way.
as far as why he's underappreciated? the stupid asterisk, and the fact that his career wasn't very long , hurts him.(and that he wasn't a media darling)