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The Modern HR surge, steroids factor, EFFECTS of the Big Boppers!
Skinpinch
Posts: 1,531
in Sports Talk
In about 1993/1994 things went crazy. Here are the HR per At bats in MLB for each of the years...
'88 One HR every 44.8 at bats.
'89 46.3
'90 43
'89 46.3
'91 42
'92 47
'93 38.4
'94 33.3
'95 33.9
'96 31.6
'97 33.4
'98 33.1
'99 30.2
'00 29.3
'01 30.4
'02 32.7
'03 32.2
'04 30.7
'05 33
'06 31
As you can see, before 1993, it was a different world in MLB. 1993 had a big jump, and then starting in 1994 HR's were hit at record pace and hasn't stopped since! I am frankly amazed at the consistent HR level from 1994 to now. But what I wanted to see was who was responsible for this surge. Was it the emergence of Barry Bonds, Sosa, McGwire, Belle, etc..? The common theme is that these juiced sluggers are responsible for the HR surge.
I don't care about these guys, in fact, I don't care so much THAT I AM GOING TO EXPUNGE THEIR HR'S FROM THE MLB RECORD BOOK FROM THE 'JUICED' ERA! I'm not going to stop there...in fact I AM GOING TO TAKE AWAY THE ENTIRE TOP 20 HR HITTERS FROM THE SEASON!
Lets take away the top 20 HR hitters from 1994, '98, and '01 and see what happens...
HR/AB not including the top 20 HR hitterss....
1994 38
1998 37
2001 34
Now lets compare again the ENTIRE league before the craziness, to those seaons(MINUS THE TOP 20 HR hitters)
'88 All players 44.8
'89 All players 46.3
'90 All players 43
'91 All players 42
'92 All players 47
'94 Minus top 20...38
'98 Minus top 20...37
'01 Minus top 20...34
Even if you take away the top 20 HR hitters from those seasons, the rest of the league is still hitting HR at a rate much better than the nearby seasons(which includes EVERY player). In fact,
The top 20 HR hitters of 1991/1992 hit HR at appx a 40% rate LESS than the top 20 of the 'juiced' period.
The rest of the league from '91/'92 hit HR at appx a 40% rate LESS than the rest of the league of the juiced period.
I don't see steroids as the preeminent factor in the HR surge...unless every MLB clubhouse handed them out in 1993 and continued to do so for the next 13 years. If only certain players took steroids, then why does the rest of the league see a similar increase in HR rate?
It seems to me, that ALL players from the era have benefitted from the easy hitting enivornment to a similar degree, with steroids being a minimal factor.
I don't think there needs to be a witch hunt for any certain player, and I don't think we have to worry so much about who did what and when, because there are other MUCH MORE prevailing factors responsible for the HR surge....factors that ALL players from this era have taken advantage of!
I wouldn't worry about if Griffey is clean and McGwire is not, or if Thomas is clean and Bonds is not...or if Rey Sanchez is clean or not. If you are interested in them being clean because it is a health risk, or you 'think' it is 'cheating' then great. Other than that, the era, much like other era's, are condusive to outlandish records being set, whether or not a guy is on steroids or is 'clean'. There may be some instances for a handful of players where it may have helped, THAT WE WILL NEVER KNOW!
What we do know is that ALL players from this era are the beneficiary of an environement that is condusive to putting up outlandish numbers, unlike the era directly before it...but much like other era's many years before it.
'88 One HR every 44.8 at bats.
'89 46.3
'90 43
'89 46.3
'91 42
'92 47
'93 38.4
'94 33.3
'95 33.9
'96 31.6
'97 33.4
'98 33.1
'99 30.2
'00 29.3
'01 30.4
'02 32.7
'03 32.2
'04 30.7
'05 33
'06 31
As you can see, before 1993, it was a different world in MLB. 1993 had a big jump, and then starting in 1994 HR's were hit at record pace and hasn't stopped since! I am frankly amazed at the consistent HR level from 1994 to now. But what I wanted to see was who was responsible for this surge. Was it the emergence of Barry Bonds, Sosa, McGwire, Belle, etc..? The common theme is that these juiced sluggers are responsible for the HR surge.
I don't care about these guys, in fact, I don't care so much THAT I AM GOING TO EXPUNGE THEIR HR'S FROM THE MLB RECORD BOOK FROM THE 'JUICED' ERA! I'm not going to stop there...in fact I AM GOING TO TAKE AWAY THE ENTIRE TOP 20 HR HITTERS FROM THE SEASON!
Lets take away the top 20 HR hitters from 1994, '98, and '01 and see what happens...
HR/AB not including the top 20 HR hitterss....
1994 38
1998 37
2001 34
Now lets compare again the ENTIRE league before the craziness, to those seaons(MINUS THE TOP 20 HR hitters)
'88 All players 44.8
'89 All players 46.3
'90 All players 43
'91 All players 42
'92 All players 47
'94 Minus top 20...38
'98 Minus top 20...37
'01 Minus top 20...34
Even if you take away the top 20 HR hitters from those seasons, the rest of the league is still hitting HR at a rate much better than the nearby seasons(which includes EVERY player). In fact,
The top 20 HR hitters of 1991/1992 hit HR at appx a 40% rate LESS than the top 20 of the 'juiced' period.
The rest of the league from '91/'92 hit HR at appx a 40% rate LESS than the rest of the league of the juiced period.
I don't see steroids as the preeminent factor in the HR surge...unless every MLB clubhouse handed them out in 1993 and continued to do so for the next 13 years. If only certain players took steroids, then why does the rest of the league see a similar increase in HR rate?
It seems to me, that ALL players from the era have benefitted from the easy hitting enivornment to a similar degree, with steroids being a minimal factor.
I don't think there needs to be a witch hunt for any certain player, and I don't think we have to worry so much about who did what and when, because there are other MUCH MORE prevailing factors responsible for the HR surge....factors that ALL players from this era have taken advantage of!
I wouldn't worry about if Griffey is clean and McGwire is not, or if Thomas is clean and Bonds is not...or if Rey Sanchez is clean or not. If you are interested in them being clean because it is a health risk, or you 'think' it is 'cheating' then great. Other than that, the era, much like other era's, are condusive to outlandish records being set, whether or not a guy is on steroids or is 'clean'. There may be some instances for a handful of players where it may have helped, THAT WE WILL NEVER KNOW!
What we do know is that ALL players from this era are the beneficiary of an environement that is condusive to putting up outlandish numbers, unlike the era directly before it...but much like other era's many years before it.
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Comments
I remember hearing Fred Lynn on the radio remarked that one year, he actually worked out during the off season (with no real organized program) and proceeded to hit 39 HRs the next year. The following year, he had his baby son and didn't bother with the same off season training. This resulted in his HRs totals falling back to the same 20+ pace that it was previously, ultimately ending up with 12 due to a season cut short by injury. Basically, what he was trying to say is that off-season training is almost a requirement these days where as when he was playing, it was taken no where near as seriously.
So that is in essence taking away the best two HR hitters of EVERY TEAM in 2001, and the rest of the league is still outhomering the 1992 entire league(stars and all).
The rest of the league outhomered the rest of the league at appx the same 40% rate.
In otherwords, the studs saw the same increase as the duds.
Either they were all on something to see the same increase, or they all received the same benefits from the other reasons(non steroids).
1-the ball itself was juiced. I recall starting a thread about this around 6 months ago that an investigation by SI had regarding this.
2-smaller ball parks. Even I could hit it out of Enron Field (or whatever it's called now)
3-less foul territory. This is a big one, though often overlooked.
4-As has already been pointed out, the 5 man rotation, and expansion, and lesser quality pitching in general.
5-the legit training has definetly improved ( the Fred Lynn example is perfect)
6-video scouting...now hitters know what a pitcher is likely to throw them in certain situations.
These are just a few off the top of my head, i'm sure there are others.
<< <i>2-smaller ball parks. Even I could hit it out of Enron Field (or whatever it's called now) >>
That's a common misconception.
After raising the yellow line and factoring the walls' height, Yankee Stadium is actually SHORTER than Minute Maid Park
<< <i>Some other factors to consider aside from the blue elephant in the room (steriods) would be:
1-the ball itself was juiced. I recall starting a thread about this around 6 months ago that an investigation by SI had regarding this.
2-smaller ball parks. Even I could hit it out of Enron Field (or whatever it's called now)
3-less foul territory. This is a big one, though often overlooked.
4-As has already been pointed out, the 5 man rotation, and expansion, and lesser quality pitching in general.
5-the legit training has definetly improved ( the Fred Lynn example is perfect)
6-video scouting...now hitters know what a pitcher is likely to throw them in certain situations.
These are just a few off the top of my head, i'm sure there are others. >>
To add a few to your list...
1)Body Armor
2)Small strike zone
3)Scouting reliance solely on radar gun
4) No inside pitching allowed
Jeff Bagwell made a living off of #1 and #4.
The Fred Lynn example is a good example. Better muscles help in hitting, and if a guy hits the gym hard with 'acceptable' nutritional supplements, then he may possibly be getting all he can get out of having bigger muscles. The addition of steroids to this body may start to get to the point of diminsihing returns, and turn out to be a very minimal factor. Yet it is being touted as EVERYTHING and the MAIN reason guys achieved like they did. Those people are flat out wrong.
Unless the clubhouses started handing out steroids to everybody in 1993/94, then it doesn't look to be much a factor at all, and is in the back seat...make that the trunk, of the reasons of big offense.
<< <i>Jeff Bagwell made a living off of #1 and #4. >>
Huh?!?
Having your hand broken a couple of times will do that.
How did he break his hand if he was wearing body armor?
Oh that's right, he wasn't.
It wasn't until afterwards did he start to wear a protective GLOVE.
Tone down the over-exaggerations, please.
Given that, we would expect to see Bonds AB/HR ratio decline by about 40% at that point. Checking the stats and, lo and behold, his AB/HR dropped from 20.4 in 1986-1992 to 12.9 in 1993-1998 - that's a drop of about 37% and it certainly looks like the Bonds-bashers are on a "witch hunt".
But wait, as they say, there's more.
Starting at age 34 - when we would expect, based on every baseball player who ever lived, for his AB/HR to start shooting up fairly dramatically - Bonds ratio dropped AGAIN from 12.9 to 8.9 - that's ANOTHER drop of over 30% and by an old man playing in a pitcher's park.
I think what all of the HR data shows is that the prevalence of players who juice to the unimaginable levels that Bonds has obviously done are, in fact, relatively rare - they get "lost" as statistical noise when we look at the data for everybody. What it also shows is that statistically identifying the people that our eyes and our common sense tells us have done something inhuman to their bodies that we're not noticing happening to everybody else is actually quite easy.
The league data is interesting and it would be even more interesting to break down the factors that contributed to it. But, even after we account for the league-wide increases, Bonds still stands out like a turd in a punchbowl except that he has less class.
If I find the time, I'll chart how Bonds (and a few others) compares to an "average" superstar career at each age. Up to the year 2000, there is nothing terribly unusual about his career trajectory - he peaks at the same age that an average superstar peaks, he builds to that point and trails off from that point at just about the average rate and then BOOM - he enters territory no human being had ever entered before. What am I saying? No human being has entered it yet - only Bonds.
<< <i>How fitting. Brady Anderson is literally the poster boy for the enhanced performance resulting from steroids. >>
He really is, a leadoff guy jumping up and hitting 50 HR's I think..
90-'92 Bonds 16.3 MLB 43.7.........Pre Live Ball and Pre Bonds Steroids era. Bonds is also established as HOF caliber at this point.
93-'98 Bonds 12.9 MLB 33.9.........This is the LIVE BALL era and PRE STEROIDS for BONDS personally.
99-'04 Bonds 8.7 MLB 31.1.........This is the LIVE BALL era and BONDS ON STEROIDS era. I used up until his last full time season.
Ok, Bonds increase rate of HR per AB mirrors that of the overall league pretty closely in each distinct period. As the league became easier to hit HR, as expected it became easier for Bonds as well. The reasons of why it became easier have all been covered pretty much.
His steroid era did see a slight uptick in Bonds HR rate, over that of the rest of the league. So in essence he did out homer the league pace to a higher degree, why?
It is certain that he worked on his body in this era. If logic dictates that increased muscles make one better at HR, then it should be assumed that a guy who works very hard with NO STEROIDS can increase his ability by a lot. Bonds did this. It resulted in a slightly better uptick in HR, compared to the league as a whole.
If working hard with no steroids only would increase his rate slightly, then there really isn't much else room left to put the extra gain that steroids may have given him(on top of what an 'acceptable' improved body would give).
Looking at it this way would show that steroids most likely have a very minimal impact over what the league environement and 'acceptable' body improvements would give.
The only caveat is that since he was in what is normally a declining phase of a career, he may have been able to halt that. But again, he may have been able to halt that to a large degree already by partaking in a 'acceptable' training regiment that he had never done before. Steroids may possibly just be icing on the cake. Seeing that his gain wasn't large, as measured with the rest of the leagues gain, then steroids alone look to play a small part.
<< <i>His steroid era did see a slight uptick in Bonds HR rate, over that of the rest of the league. So in essence he did out homer the league pace to a higher degree, why? >>
I'm sorry, but did you just describe a drop of about 33% compared to a league average of about 8% as a "slight uptick"? And in the context of a man (1) in his late thirties (2)playing in a pitcher's park and (3) already hitting HR at a pace where it's nearly impossible to improve? The probablity, under those circumstances, that his AB/HR would drop at all are essentially nil. That he outdistanced his younger peers in easier parks by a margin of 4:1 is absurd on its face.
I'm not sure if you're playing devil's advocate or what exactly your agenda is with regard to Bonds specifically, but language like "slight uptick" in this context betrays any pretense of objectivity. I hate not knowing for sure who else has used steroids because it casts such an ugly shadow over everyone and the game itself. But I do know for certain, beyond any shadow of any doubt, that Bonds used them and used them extensively over a period of many years and that it had a dramatic impact on his hitting. But I'm not special in that regard - you know it, too, as does everyone else. I am struggling to understand the motivation to pretend otherwise.
My agenda is basically wading through all this to reach a reasonable assessment on the players true worth.
At that 25% rate that he outdistanced the league increase, that equates to appx a dozen odd homers a year in that span. Being that it is a six year span in question there, probably an extra 75 Home Runs.
So, if body building added an extra 75 HR to his total, how much of that can be attributed to if it is 'normal' weightlifting? How much would be attributed to steroids? I know slower regression could be an issue too, but it is possible that a 'normal' body building routine could have slowed it(being that he wasn't on one before).
If we are looking at an extra 75 HR, or a 100 because of body building(some attributed to normal, some to steroids), that is what I am looking for.
As for the home run record, if he had done zero body building and continued at his pace, then he would not have received not even a fraction of the walks he did, and as a result his HR would total actually would not have dropped that 100 that he added via working out(part natural part steroids).
The demotion in ability he is getting for steroid use is way higher than it needs to be.
For example, this comment: "If only certain players took steroids, then why does the rest of the league see a similar increase in HR rate?" From everything I've heard, it hasn't been just "certain players" taking steroids or HGH, it's been widespread and rampant. If 75% of the league is on some sort of performance enhancing drug, then that would certainly explain why the league as a whole is hitting more home runs. I've also heard that it's not just the power hitters that have benefitted from steroid use, it's the little guys who think that they had to take steroids just to have a chance to compete. When you've got guys hitting 60 to 70 homers in a year and you are only hitting 5 to 10 I would imagine the temptation to cheat in order to keep up would be great.
There was an article written a few years ago detailing the scientific findings of what increased bat speed did for Barry Bonds. The study figured out how much taking steroids/increased strength would increase bat speed (I believe they may have also used actual bat speeds from tapes of Bonds too, but I can't remember) and then they calculated how many feet the increased bat speed would add to the trajectory of the ball. The end result was that Bonds had hit A LOT of home runs that wouldn't have been home runs without the increase in bat speed. I believe the number was in the 60-80 range for his career at that point.
Clearly that leaves room for increased workout regimens, better nutrition, video preparation, harder bats, better scouting, smaller parks, expansion, Colorado, etc. as the reason for the HR Surge. But I don't think that we can absolutely say that steroids haven't had a big impact without knowing who took what and how much they took.
That said, I see no reason to think that 75 even comes close to the number of "extra" homers that steroids have given Bonds. You're getting that figure by comparing his increase to league averages, but why are we assuming that a man approaching 40 playing in a pitcher's park is going to get a league-average increase? Half the league gets less than the league average, and Bonds was THE prime candidate to be in that half. Bonds was not, until 1999, on anything close to a pace that Aaron's record appeared in jeopardy; 600 would probably have been the best estimate at that time of his projected career total based on historical aging patterns.
You know I admire your skill at analyzing most any issue, but I think your quest here is hopeless. You're not going to find any kind of rule to apply to league data that will work on Bonds, because what Bonds has done to himself (or at least the degree to which he has done it) is not that widespread. In other words, don't analyze the punchbowl until AFTER you scoop out the turd.
There is one thing that I can't get past and say I am certain that steroids played a bigger impact, and that is how much a gain a player can have by working his body without using steroids. Also, and the overnight explosion of offense. There is no way everybody decided to take them at once. The other factors are the prevailing cause of increased offense.
If a player for the first time dedicates himself as a gym rat and alters his body wtihout roids, then there will be some sort of increase. The question then remains is how much more of an increase can steroids do on top of that. To me, that is the question.
TheVon, I agree, the use is rampant, and that is why I initially said it is an inherent era advantage for him...like other eras had too.
But, steroid is only minimal in that it is about equal part as about six other things for the increased offense. I don't want people to have the misguided impression that since a guy is considered 'clean', that he wasn't a beneficiary of an era that was condusive to dominance like no other...regardless of steroids or not!
Regardless if a guy was on roids or not, he still had a TREMENDOUS advantage to dominate like nobody in the previous 40 years had the benefit of.
If we just listened to the news, we would think it is steroids as the driving force, and it isn't. Look at the numbers I posted above, and you can see how it is a league wide benefit. After that it needs to be taken on a case by case basis, as in Bonds and his eyebrow raising old man increase, or Palmeiro's too.
The thing I am p i s s e d about is that I now have to explain the steroid issue to my son. If I tell him that Bonds hit a bunch of extra HR because of steroids, I am now treading in shaky water as it is possible that it may be a turn on for him instead of a turn off...we know how young people are!
Just a few more comments and then I'll let this go:
1. That the surge in offense happened all at once is telling. You say that it can't be that everyone started taking steroids all at once and I agree. But it is also the case that it can't be that everybody reached their peak physical condition all at once, either. Whatever happened, it happened across the board and it simply has to be some combination of park changes, ball changes, maybe even strike zone changes; I won't pretend to know exactly what the changes were but they had to be in the conditions in which the game was played not in the players. Steroids and conditioning are surely part of that surge, but I think they are very small parts.
2. The surge that everyone else saw Bonds saw, too, and it happened at the same time (1993/1994) that it happened for everyone else. The second surge that Bonds got was steroids, plain and simple. We can imagine it was conditioning, we can imagine that it was divine intervention, or we can imagine it was the effect of gamma rays on man-in-the-moon marigolds; but it was steroids.
3. By all means, talk about Barry Bonds to your son. Just be sure to end every sentence with "but he cheated, so none of it counts". And tell him that because he cheated he won't get in the HOF (hopefully) and that he's going to die before he gets old. We should all be talking about Bonds with our children, as an example of a life wasted.