When you are connected to steroid use and put up huge numbers in the 2nd half of your career, should you be elected? None of those guys will ever get in and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. In an age of 50 million dollar per year salaries any little deterrent to keep the competition clean is fair in my eyes
I can't find any evidence that Sheffield made $50 million in a year. He was a great hitter before the "cream" came along. If PEDs were a magic elixir that made everyone great, there would be some validity to this argument, but it obviously wasn't. I think all the suspected (key word) PED users that deserve to get in should get in, with a notation on the plaque that they were suspected. Thank God the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame doesn't have such arbitrary standards.
We can point to Carlos Pena going from one HR to 40 when there was testing. Pretty damn significant, too. We can also point to Nelson Cruz getting busted and then having pretty much the same homer numbers after he came off suspension, with what you can bet was intensified testing.
There is a pretty verifiable link between expansion, which dilutes the pitching pool, and offensive production, and in 2001 there had been two rounds of recent expansion.
The point is that we don't know what players used or didn't use. We are told a lot of pitchers used. Maybe you should go to the Mitchell Report and see all the players who were linked to PEDs and had virtually no change. Or maybe -- and I know this is radical -- maybe we should stick what we know and what we don't.
Cmon...in nearly 150 years of baseball 6 guys have hit more than 60 hr in a season and magically 3 happened to do it within a few years of each other. And 2 of them did it 2x and 3x. And 1 hit 73 at the age of 37 and you want to sit here and pretend it didn't matter. Then wtf did they all take them for?
I don't want to overburden you with facts, but seven of the eight biggest home run years in history have come since PED testing, with penalties, was installed. The other year was 2000. In that season, teams hit 1.17 homers per game, as opposed to 1.39 in 2019. But 2000 set a record for slugging percentage and ranked second in OPS. That year was squarely in the middle of what is known as "the era," but there were also two expansions, in 1993 and 1998, that had a ripple effect on the pitching. That was also before teams committed to a home run-heavy offensive strategy, with launch angles and hitting the ball in the air. In 2000, teams grounded into 0,80 double plays per game, That figure was 0.71 in 2023.
If steroids were the magic elixir that you say they are, home runs during "the era" would logically have surpassed home runs today, but they didn't.
The original premise was whether Sheffield should be in the Hall of Fame. I understand why some would say no, but saying no because you suspect his career was enhanced by steroids -- a career in which he never struck out 100 times in a season -- makes no sense. Suspicion and speculation are fun, because you can always say, "Yeah, but..." to every contrary piece of evidence, but I prefer facts.
Nice column filled with insights, but Barry Bonds hopefully hasn’t weaseled into the HorF.
Mickey Moniak and Dick Allen in the same column. Who’d have thunk it?
Sheffield was a fearsome player.
When you are connected to steroid use and put up huge numbers in the 2nd half of your career, should you be elected? None of those guys will ever get in and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. In an age of 50 million dollar per year salaries any little deterrent to keep the competition clean is fair in my eyes
I can't find any evidence that Sheffield made $50 million in a year. He was a great hitter before the "cream" came along. If PEDs were a magic elixir that made everyone great, there would be some validity to this argument, but it obviously wasn't. I think all the suspected (key word) PED users that deserve to get in should get in, with a notation on the plaque that they were suspected. Thank God the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame doesn't have such arbitrary standards.
I don't mean mean Sheff made that much I mean that maybe not getting in deters today's current players from using?
No one can say how much it helps or doesn't but we can point to Sosa going from 30 hr to 50-60hr season...pretty damn significant.
I don't think not putting people in for cheating is arbitrary at all. What about all the players who didn't us?
We can point to Carlos Pena going from one HR to 40 when there was testing. Pretty damn significant, too. We can also point to Nelson Cruz getting busted and then having pretty much the same homer numbers after he came off suspension, with what you can bet was intensified testing.
There is a pretty verifiable link between expansion, which dilutes the pitching pool, and offensive production, and in 2001 there had been two rounds of recent expansion.
The point is that we don't know what players used or didn't use. We are told a lot of pitchers used. Maybe you should go to the Mitchell Report and see all the players who were linked to PEDs and had virtually no change. Or maybe -- and I know this is radical -- maybe we should stick what we know and what we don't.
Cmon...in nearly 150 years of baseball 6 guys have hit more than 60 hr in a season and magically 3 happened to do it within a few years of each other. And 2 of them did it 2x and 3x. And 1 hit 73 at the age of 37 and you want to sit here and pretend it didn't matter. Then wtf did they all take them for?
I don't want to overburden you with facts, but seven of the eight biggest home run years in history have come since PED testing, with penalties, was installed. The other year was 2000. In that season, teams hit 1.17 homers per game, as opposed to 1.39 in 2019. But 2000 set a record for slugging percentage and ranked second in OPS. That year was squarely in the middle of what is known as "the era," but there were also two expansions, in 1993 and 1998, that had a ripple effect on the pitching. That was also before teams committed to a home run-heavy offensive strategy, with launch angles and hitting the ball in the air. In 2000, teams grounded into 0,80 double plays per game, That figure was 0.71 in 2023.
If steroids were the magic elixir that you say they are, home runs during "the era" would logically have surpassed home runs today, but they didn't.
The original premise was whether Sheffield should be in the Hall of Fame. I understand why some would say no, but saying no because you suspect his career was enhanced by steroids -- a career in which he never struck out 100 times in a season -- makes no sense. Suspicion and speculation are fun, because you can always say, "Yeah, but..." to every contrary piece of evidence, but I prefer facts.