A hypothetical PED HOF question - Please share your thoughts

gregmo32

Wouldn't it be fascinating to know, for sure, who the best players were who did not use any PED's at any time in their careers?

I am sure we would all be shocked if we looked at a list of "100% clean" players. That is where the unfairness of it all sinks in. If we had this hypothetical (and obviously, impossible) list, would we be amazed that (completely as a random example) Mark Grace was the best player of the era who did not use PEDs?

The "watered down HOF" topic gets brought up often on these boards. One aspect of that which is rarely discussed, is that by leaving out all of the cheaters, a vacuum remains that ought to be filled by the best "non cheaters" of their era. What is difficult is that we don't know who those are.

My theory is that anyone voted in as a non cheater (from this era) would receive a strong backlash as a Hall of Good, or Hall of Very Good player. But if all cheaters are banned, then it would be extremely interesting to know who the "non cheaters" were. I would love to see what the upper echelon season and career stats look like for a non cheater.

Many people would frown upon considering for HOF inclusion Player X with career totals of 2200 hits, 320 HR's, and few Gold Glove awards. But if that represented the best a non cheater could do, wouldn't that mean they absoultely deserve inclusion in the HOF by the logical argument that all cheaters should be banned?

I would love to hear others' opinions on the topic.

Toro

I feel that one of the reasons Andre Dawson,Barry Larkin and Jim Rice got in were partly because of the stats they put up compared to the steroid era. I believe the news/media attention that "anyone" could have been a PED user(in the steroid era) benefitted them during their enshrinement year somehow. On the other side of the token, this is the first year that the big fish are on the list and as you can see, it's not going to be easy for anyone now for some strange reason I have yet to be able to explain.

gregmo32

I do agree that all of the PED talk helped Dawson and Rice get voted in , whether it should have or not.

epatmythes

<< <i>Wouldn't it be fascinating to know, for sure, who the best players were who did not use any PED's at any time in their careers? >>



It would... however, probably my thinking of why is not the same are you're thinking!

You said PEDs, not steriods, in which case...

I'm thinking that list would be very small... if not COMPLETELY BLANK!!!

detroitfan2

Maybe this was implied in the original argument, but besides just having worse "numbers" than PED users, clean players also have the disadvantage of competing on the field against PED users, so any numbers that are attained are going to be "worse" than if everyone was clean. I would guess this to be especially true of pitchers. In other words, not only is a "clean" pitcher from the PED era going to have worse numbers than a PED using pitcher from the same era, but that "clean" pitcher is going to have worse numbers than pitchers from non-PED eras simply because a large percentage of the batters faced were PED users.

MrG

Interesting site....

dennis07

Reading the list from the Mitchell report was a first for me. I wonder if Fernando Vina started steriods & HGH AFTER
Albert Belle nearly obliterated him in the collision in the base line between first and second. If so one could hardly blame him.

scotgreb

Wouldn't it be fascinating to know, for sure, who the best players were who did not use any PED's at any time in their careers?

I can answer that for you . . .

The answer is none.

I believe that 100% of players over the past several decades used a "banned" substance of some sort -- either doctor prescribed or not -- during their career.

tugboat2648

As always, the Onion seems to have it all figured out.

The Onion

gregmo32

"Maybe this was implied in the original argument, but besides just having worse "numbers" than PED users, clean players also have the disadvantage of competing on the field against PED users, so any numbers that are attained are going to be "worse" than if everyone was clean. I would guess this to be especially true of pitchers. In other words, not only is a "clean" pitcher from the PED era going to have worse numbers than a PED using pitcher from the same era, but that "clean" pitcher is going to have worse numbers than pitchers from non-PED eras simply because a large percentage of the batters faced were PED users. "


Absolutely, and that is part of my point! If you consider that somewhere between "a lot" and "a vast majority" were cheating, how much worse does that make the performance of the clean players appear?

CollectorAtWork

My opinion is to not let in the Hall of the Good if all of the Great players used PEDs. Don't let anyone in from the era if there is doubt. Just let them wait 20 years for the Veteran's Committee vote, and hopefully by then, things have settled down where they can view this era in an unbiased light. I think there are still some players like Maddux, Pedro, Jeter, Rivera who are clean, especially since their body type didn't undergo tremendous changes like Bonds or Sosa. However, I do know that plenty of skinny guys have been caught using steroids also, so you never know. I wish they would release that full list of players who took that test in I think 2001 and what their results were so we could get better clarity on this.

Josh22

what if all players during that era (and currently, as the drug makers and masking agent makers will always be ahead of the drug testers) all players were on peds? sure numbers might be inflated, but you would still be able to compare players to each other and see who was truly worthy.

clearly not everyone was caught. what if the majority of long and short relievers were on peds - and by this i dont necessarily mean only steroids. what about the guys who were taking constant amphetamines to "get up" for the 3rd night in a row out of the pen and were still able to bring it at 95mph? do u think bonds or giambi or brady anderson ever had to face that lefty?

what about the guys who "had to do it" to keep them employed and their families fed? if you were on the bubble of making, and staying in, the big leagues and ML minimum salary of multiple hundreds of thousands, compared to a AAA salary... and you had no other skill to offer (no college degree, no experience in anything else) AND there are a number of guys you are competing against for that job doing it, would you?

this is not meant as an argument or commercial to do steroids. not at all. just a look into the mindset when someone thinks about doing it, and maybe make you think that more guys are doing than you would have originally thought.

while we are taught "being a rat" or snitch (i believe that was what lt col slade used as a term in scent of a woman) is a bad thing (and i happen to agree), if "making the hall of fame" was a career goal for the "clean" players back then, it was incumbent on them to say something to someone. i dont believe it was their place to do so, but someone has to answer for this.

CollectorAtWork

<< <i>what if all players during that era (and currently, as the drug makers and masking agent makers will always be ahead of the drug testers) all players were on peds? sure numbers might be inflated, but you would still be able to compare players to each other and see who was truly worthy.

clearly not everyone was caught. what if the majority of long and short relievers were on peds - and by this i dont necessarily mean only steroids. what about the guys who were taking constant amphetamines to "get up" for the 3rd night in a row out of the pen and were still able to bring it at 95mph? do u think bonds or giambi or brady anderson ever had to face that lefty?

what about the guys who "had to do it" to keep them employed and their families fed? if you were on the bubble of making, and staying in, the big leagues and ML minimum salary of multiple hundreds of thousands, compared to a AAA salary... and you had no other skill to offer (no college degree, no experience in anything else) AND there are a number of guys you are competing against for that job doing it, would you?

this is not meant as an argument or commercial to do steroids. not at all. just a look into the mindset when someone thinks about doing it, and maybe make you think that more guys are doing than you would have originally thought.

while we are taught "being a rat" or snitch (i believe that was what lt col slade used as a term in scent of a woman) is a bad thing (and i happen to agree), if "making the hall of fame" was a career goal for the "clean" players back then, it was incumbent on them to say something to someone. i dont believe it was their place to do so, but someone has to answer for this. >>



I think we are only looking at potential HOFers here. If there were nobodies like Guillermo Moto who did PEDs, who cares because no one is going to consider them for the Hall of Fame anyway. There aren't going to be any long or short relievers entering the Hall any time soon anyway. Also, I don't think there have been any examples where using ampethetamines has given players who may not have been Hall worthy good enough stats to be in the Hall. That is, they may have just let the player play a few more games, but it doesn't make a big difference. The player could've just drank coffee for the roughly the same effect. PEDs is completely different as once they were banned w/ enforcement, the power numbers for players dropped considerably across the board.

If you were arguing, well, w/ all of the players on PEDs, wouldn't that have killed the stats of the non-PED players, so that they wouldn't be Hall worthy anymore? I don't think so. Look at Bonds. From what I read, he didn't immediately go into PEDs when everyone else did. He just started when people like McGwire starting getting all of the attention, and he wanted some of that also. However, his stats were still Hall worthy then, even though his power numbers were nothing like in his later years. I think that's what people need to consider. The 500HR mark needs to be looked a differently since the PED era has skewed this. Now it looks like getting 500 is no big deal, but if you weren't on PEDs, it would be a lot tougher. If McGriff didn't do PEDs, then his numbers would look a lot better in comparison, and perhaps he (and players like him) should be inducted.

Josh22

i get that maybe the relievers werent hall worthy, and im not arguing that they were, but they certainly contribute to a superstar player's hall-worthyness. mota (juan rincon, etc) at one time was a real good reliever, better than a lot of guys. theoretically the more he could pitch at a high level the more likely that the batter would make an out.

lets say we isolate ted williams hitting a homerun off of bob feller. both players were the very best superstars, and both players were clean. homerun counts for williams. now lets see we isolate barry bonds hitting a homerun against roger clemens. does that homerun count less? both players were illegally enhanced, therefore keeping the playing field level. now lets say bonds hits a homerun off mota, again does that count less? i would argue that it would still count the same.

while i obviously cant say for certain, i believe that the vast majority of players played on some sort of performing enhancing drugs, and if you dont think greenies and uppers make a HUGE difference i think you are kidding yourself. now the power numbers are obviously inflated. but if one believes that most players were "getting help" wouldnt it stand to reason that the level of difficulty these players were playing at be at least equal, if not higher than the "clean era" players?

500 hrs now is certainly not what it was decades ago, and obviously 61 is still the real number, but if you compare these guys across the board for that era, its still impressive what theyve done, vs the players that they did it against.