Are there any player's autographs that you refuse to collect?

[earlywynnfan]

Originally Posted by HOF Auto Rookies

I understand, honestly, I don't think it would be as construed as people think. Steroids will only help so much, the rest is upon the individual. You still have to be able to do your job in hitting the ball etc. Averages may go up a few tenths of a point at best, and home runs maybe around 35-50 more per career I'd say. Those close balls hit to the track or off the fence could go over.

I think you miss the reason for taking steroids, at least for a baseball player. It's not to make you much stronger, it's to keep your body in top shape. A normal body wears down after exertion, so over the course of a 162-game season, anyone will have lulls in performance. But on steroids, the body bounces back at an extremely high rate, meaning there are no lulls, therefore players can play at peak for every single game. That's why so many on the busted list were relievers. There have been many in baseball's history who have come out of the gate at a much higher HR rate than Ruth or even Maris, but by the end of the season they've worn down. This is how Mac, BB, and Sammy kept the pace going.

Ken
earlywynnfan5@hotmail.com

[HOF Auto Rookies]

Originally Posted by earlywynnfan

I think you miss the reason for taking steroids, at least for a baseball player. It's not to make you much stronger, it's to keep your body in top shape. A normal body wears down after exertion, so over the course of a 162-game season, anyone will have lulls in performance. But on steroids, the body bounces back at an extremely high rate, meaning there are no lulls, therefore players can play at peak for every single game. That's why so many on the busted list were relievers. There have been many in baseball's history who have come out of the gate at a much higher HR rate than Ruth or even Maris, but by the end of the season they've worn down. This is how Mac, BB, and Sammy kept the pace going.

Ken
earlywynnfan5@hotmail.com

No I totally agree with that. And in some of my earlier posts I emphasized on how steroids are popularily used as a means in recovering from surgeries.

[mr2686]

Ok, well if you agree with that, then how can you say that a players avg would only go up a few tenths of a point and only 35 - 50 homeruns (per career) if they are performing at a constant peak level?

[HOF Auto Rookies]

Originally Posted by mr2686

Ok, well if you agree with that, then how can you say that a players avg would only go up a few tenths of a point and only 35 - 50 homeruns (per career) if they are performing at a constant peak level?

Just because a player is taking steroids does not correlate to said player producing at that level consistently throughout the whole season. You REALLY think right now if Matt Kemp took steriods throughout the whole season that he would hit .450, 100 home runs, 230 rbi's, 172 runs and 276 hits as he's projected to do so? NO CHANCE!

[Lordstan]

I've been watching this debate from the sidelines and have decided to chime in.

Let's compare Bonds to Ruth, since that is the example used before.

Comparison from start of career to age 32. This is approximately the year before Bonds started using steroids.
Player From To Yrs WAR G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG SB CS OPS+
Ruth 1914-27 14 127.3 1501 4959 1283 1731 341 98 416 1265 1221 832 .349 .480 .709 92 85 214
Bonds 1986-97 12 94.1 1742 6069 1244 1750 359 56 374 1094 1227 958 .288 .408 .551 417 118 162

Comparison from age 33 to the end of their careers
Player From To Yrs WAR G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG SB CS OPS+
Ruth 1928-35 8 62.7 1002 3440 891 1142 165 38 298 948 841 498 .332 .465 .662 31 32 195
Bonds 1998-07 10 77.7 1244 3778 983 1185 242 21 388 902 1331 581 .314 .496 .697 97 23 209


Totals
Player From To Yrs WAR G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG SB CS OPS+
Ruth 1914-35 22 190.0 2503 8399 2174 2873 506 136 714 2213 2062 1330 .342 .474 .690 123 117 206
Bonds 1986-07 22 171.8 2986 9847 2227 2935 601 77 762 1996 2558 1539 .298 .444 .607 514 141 181

When you look at the splits, it certainly appears that the steroids increased things more than a little bit for Bonds. In 2 less years he hit 14 more HRs, BA went up 26 points, OBP went up 90points(mostly due to walks as people wouldn't pitch to him with all the HRs he was hitting), and slugging went up 147 points. This discrepancy is even more exaggered when you realize he only played 14g in 2005, so all of these stats were done in 9, not 10, seasons
It's seems hard to say that the steroids only helped him a couple of BA points and 30- 35 total HR. He was getting better when 99% of MLers get slower and less productive.

Here is a list of other notables WAR scores from age 32 and up. The last column is their total WAR before age 32.

Player From To Yrs 33up <32

Babe Ruth 1928-1935 8 62.7 127.3
Barry Bonds 1998-2007 10 77.7 94.1
Ted Williams 1952-1960 9 39.1 86.2
Lou Gehrig 1936-1939 4 22.3 96.1
Jimmie Foxx 1941-1945 4 5.2 90
Willie Mays 1964-1973 10 57.6 97.1
Hank Aaron 1967-1976 10 44.3 97.3
Mel Ott 1942-1947 6 18.0 91.3
Frank Robinson 1969-1976 8 27.5 79.9
Ken Griffey 2003-2010 8 3.1 75.5
Ty Cobb 1920-1928 9 40.8 118.7
Tris Speaker 1921-1928 8 41.2 91.7
Cap Anson 1885-1897 13 54.8 44.5
Honus Wagner 1907-1917 11 63.0 71.5
Pete Rose 1974-1986 13 23.3 52.0
Paul Waner 1936-1945 10 19.0 54.8
Stan Musial 1954-1963 10 38.2 89.6
Paul Molitor 1990-1998 9 29.7 45.1
Nap Lajoie 1908-1916 9 33.7 70.5
Sam Crawford 1913-1917 5 15.6 61.0
George Brett 1986-1993 8 17.1 67.9
Only three players had their WAR drop by less than half, Cap Anson( who went up for some reason), Honus Wagner, and Bonds.
All these other great players had their WAR pretty low after age 32. Only Wagner and Ruth are close, and his dropped from 127, less than half of what it was the first half of his career. This probably would've been an even bigger difference if Ruth'sfirst 4yrs weren't pitching. Bonds' dropped less than 20pts.

A few more interesting items.
Bonds won no gold gloves after he started taking steroids.
Bonds stole over 400bases before roids and only 97 after.
Also interesting to note is that's Ruth's overall WAR is first (Bonds is second) despite the first 4yrs of his career being a pitcher.

Even if the contention that Bonds didn't get better with the roids is true, I think it's certainly clear that he was able to maintain his peak productivity for a number of years longer that would be expected. This certainly inflated his overall numbers. i don't think he would've gotten anywhere close to 700HR without them.

Lastly, we can debate back and forth forever about who was better, but we'll never be able to compare them directly because Bonds CHEATED. It doesn't matter why. He used steroids. It also doesn't matter that others did it as well. I don't excuse bad behavior by pointing to other bad behavior. How many less of this, or more of that, he would've had is purely speculation.
Bonds can never be the greatest in my mind, no matter what the numbers are, because he cheated. Game. Set. Match!

[HOF Auto Rookies]

Very nice list, sorry you had to spend time in doing that. Start of career to age 32: 42 home run difference. After: 90. Bonds has ONE outlier year for the increase in home runs. You take that outlier year, his numbers don't look at skewed. He if he hit 50, he would have had less home runs than through age 32. Batting average went up due to walks, which you stated, as well as other stats.

We don't know how long Bonds used steroids. But saying how "he wouldn't come close" to hitting 700 home runs is ridiculous. He was pretty damn close to the Babe through age 32, and that one year makes it look like a huge difference. Not going to look cause I don't care, but I believe Hank Aaron as well hit more home runs later in his life as well.

In regards to batting average and home run production I had stated, I believe you helped my cause. More walks = higher average. Regards to home run output, his one year makes it look ridiculous, but it's not too far off from his production through age 32.

What are their defensive WAR's. Bet it's not even close. Not going to count, but your stolen base total is wrong, Bonds has over 500. We don't know how many years Bonds was on them, or what type of steroids they were. Could be one year, could be 5 years, could be 3 months, who knows.

[drc]

My opinion is you get straight zeroes where you cheat. Just like in the Olympics. Just like on a college test, just like in a poker game. In fact, that's the standard philosophy used in sports on a play by play basis. In football, if you are offsides the 50 yard pass is negated. They don't debate how many yards you would have gotten if you hadn't been offside. They say you get zero. In fact they say you get negative yards with the penalty.

[Lordstan]

Originally Posted by HOF Auto Rookies

Very nice list, sorry you had to spend time in doing that. Start of career to age 32: 42 home run difference. After: 90. Bonds has ONE outlier year for the increase in home runs. You take that outlier year, his numbers don't look at skewed. He if he hit 50, he would have had less home runs than through age 32. Batting average went up due to walks, which you stated, as well as other stats.

We don't know how long Bonds used steroids. But saying how "he wouldn't come close" to hitting 700 home runs is ridiculous. He was pretty damn close to the Babe through age 32, and that one year makes it look like a huge difference. Not going to look cause I don't care, but I believe Hank Aaron as well hit more home runs later in his life as well.

In regards to batting average and home run production I had stated, I believe you helped my cause. More walks = higher average. Regards to home run output, his one year makes it look ridiculous, but it's not too far off from his production through age 32.

What are their defensive WAR's. Bet it's not even close. Not going to count, but your stolen base total is wrong, Bonds has over 500. We don't know how many years Bonds was on them, or what type of steroids they were. Could be one year, could be 5 years, could be 3 months, who knows.

OK
First off, Ruth hit only 20HR total the first 5yrs of his career due to him pitching. So if we remove those years, now we have Ruth hitting 396Hr in 9yrs(44avg) vs Bonds 374 in 12yrs(32avg). This isn't "pretty damn close to the Babe through age 32."

After 32, Ruth hit 298HR in 8yrs(37avg). Bonds hit 388 in 10. BUT he only hit 5 in the year he didn't play. So, we can adjust 383 HR in 9yrs(43vg).

So Ruth went down 7HR per year on avg(16% reduction), after age 32, and Bonds went up 11 per year(34% improvement). I guess you're right. There was no significant statistical effect of being able to perform at his maximum, or enhanced, production for those extra years.

BTW, Aaron had 75 less HR in the last 10 yrs of his career than Bonds(388-313). Interestingly enough, Aaron had 68 more HR than Bonds before age 32 while playing only 1 more year(442-374).

So Aaron went from avg 34 per year, before age 32, to 31 per yr after age 32. This represents a 9% decrease. As above, Bonds went up 34% in the same span.

Even if you remove 25Hr from Bonds outlier year he still hits 358 in 9yrs (40avg). This is still 9hr per year extra or a 25% increase in production. It seems ludicrous to believe that he "just got better" at a time in his life when every one else gets worse.

You should read more closely, in the totals chart, you can clearly see that Bonds is listed as having 514 SB. He had 417 prior to steroids and 97 after.

I didn't list defensive WAR, because I used the totals. Of course Bonds is higher than Ruth. Nobody in this thread has stated otherwise. I used the total WAR, because in takes into account all aspects of their play.

Lastly, perhaps you are unaware of the physiology of steroids. I am. You don't go from skinny to a monster in a couple of months. It takes years of use along with aggressive working out to pull off the changeover he did.



All in all, this is an interesting discussion, but after everything is said and done, BONDS STILL CHEATED!

Addendum: While we are postulating, I wonder how much further separated from the pack would Ruth be if he never pitched? If we estimate 25HR per year his first 5yrs, instead of 20 total, he would have 820HR. Plus all his other categories would be that much higher. HMM. Perhaps some investigation can be done into the performance enhancing effects of Beer, Hot Dogs, and women.