THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

I think the big difference between fans and writers is that for fans, team comes first, second and third in importance. On the list of things that matter to Mets fans - Reyes on the DL, Wright’s missing power numbers, why Redding and Hernandez are in the rotation, etc. Manny is none of those things. Manny isn’t even on a division rival.

Sports journalists don’t have that innate connection with the team - they would never talk about the team they cover as “we,” while fans do it all the time.

So MLB should stop testing and just let players cheat? It is cheating, right?

"It is cheating, right? “

Not really.  It doesn’t violate a rule of the game.  Personally, I don’t, nor have I ever, really cared about what a player’s workout regimen is.  I know gym guys take all sorts of bizarre crap in the belief it might help them bench press 4 more pounds, or whatever.  If you want to argue that taking steroids is “cheating” at working out, that’s fine I guess though I’m not sure how it’s justified.  Cheating at baseball though? Hardly.

Back in the day, players used to get chastised for going to the gym.  Pure players don’t need to work out and build muscles artificially.  They play with their god-given muscles…

Thoughtout the pregame they kept bringing Manny first at bat up like it was some big deal and I could not really understand why.  Sure enough, when he came up, he didnt get as big of a reaction as most in the media thought he would.

Colin is right.  As a mets fan im more concerned with the all the injuries that have taken place then Manny Ramirez at this point.

I think the biggest issue is that, in baseball, steroid use makes you so much disproportionally better.  Take PEDs, and you go from 40 home runs to 70.  You break records.  You become superman.

In hockey, steroids can’t turn a Kovalev into a Gretzky.  In soccer or basketball, there won’t be much effect either.  In football, it would be perhaps a big benefit to blockers, but they don’t really have stats, and their one-on-one opponents match them drug for drug, so there’s no huge change to the game.

I don’t care much about players taking drugs.  I *do* care that the drugs distort the game to the point where I don’t enjoy it as much.  I don’t like home runs much in the first place, and I especially don’t like that tens of players are doing now what only one or two could do back in the 80s, when (for instance) Jesse Barfield led the American League with 40 home runs.

In a sense, it’s a “fault” of the rules of the game of baseball that steroids have such a large impact.  If we were playing in the deadball era, steroids wouldn’t be such a big deal to the fans or the press.

By the way, I thought that was a hell of a good column by Celizic, which is something I didn’t think I would ever say.

They’re at the park not to worship numbers or to watch perfect human beings play a perfect game. They’re there to have a beer and a brat and cheer for the home team and have fun.

In their view, Manny had a slip-up. He got caught. He paid for it. Now he’s back, and ain’t that grand?

They love Manny because he’s a character who does goofy things and has crazy hair and hits the ball like few others ever have. Guys like him are the reason we buy tickets.

Dead on.

"It is cheating, right? “ Yes, and he got caught, missed 50 games and lost $8 million in salary.

What more penalty do you think he should serve?

perfect - tom you nailed it exactly right, especially the part about how baseball is awesome and MLB (ie professional baseball) is but one part of “baseball”.  Usually it totally owns because it brings together the very best baseball players and often the best athletes in the world and gets them to play baseball for our (the fans’ ) entertainment.  but its obviously not perfect, and if your number one concern is finding a product in the form of baseball that values intergrity or sportsmanship or drug free living or whatever over winning then your best bet is to invest your time in money with one of the myriad other outlets of baseball that exisit in the world. 

on a slightly unrelated note, steroids are the only thing keeping me remotely interested in most olympic sports.  that and figuring out how to gamble on them with my friends.  i would love it if there were WAY more steroid or cheating scandal in the olympics.  specifically if they were american competitors that bob costas had interviewed many times.  then everyone would flip out in the media and i would just laugh and laugh.

If it’s so easy to go from 40 HR to 70 HR why has it only happened twice, even in the “steroid era”?

And should steroids help pitchers as well? Do we assume it only helps batting because offense was up during the 90s?

Brian: I don’t consider it cheating.  Baseball fans put it somewhere in the corking/emery board category:

http://tangotiger.net/ethics/ethics_results.php

Basically, it’s an ejection if you are caught, otherwise do whatever you can do.  That’s the feeling among fans. 

It’s the players themselves that should care, because it sets up a moral issue for them, one that they really shouldn’t need to consider.  Mike Schmidt bravely said that he would have taken steroids if they were popular in his era.

If MLB didn’t keep track of so many statistics, it would not be that big a deal either.  It’s the “sanctity” of the records that gets the phony outrage in overdrive.  No one who follows hockey would compare scoring in the 1920s to scoring in the 1980s without an enormous adjustment level.  For some reason, MLB fans do the straight comparsion all the time.

Andy/9: it’s not easy to go from 40 to 70 HR with steroids, but it’s probably close to impossible without.  So the breaking of one of baseball’s biggest records is entirely due to steroids.  That’s my point: that’s why the fans care, because records are breaking and statistics are taking on new meanings.

Steroids may help pitchers too, but until some pitcher on PEDs strikes out 425 batters in a season, fans won’t care as much.

That’s my point: that’s why the fans care, because records are breaking and statistics are taking on new meanings.

But they DON’T care.  The MEDIA cares.  The fans don’t.  The fans came out in droves for Bonds’ chase, long after his testimony was leaked.

No MLB team offered Bonds a deal afterwards because they were all afraid of the media.

The media made, not reported, the news here.  And since the media is its own policeman, no one in the media has the guts to admit it.  Except maybe Celizic here.

The Holy Reporters are anything but.  They are neither holy, nor did they report.

"In hockey, steroids can’t turn a Kovalev into a Gretzky.  In soccer or basketball, there won’t be much effect either.  In football, it would be perhaps a big benefit to blockers, but they don’t really have stats, and their one-on-one opponents match them drug for drug, so there’s no huge change to the game.”

This, is simply wrong.  I see it all the time.  As an actual expect on doping/anti-doping it is almost amusing to read about how PEDs effect some sports but not others.  It is largely non-sense.

Anabolics combined with an appropriate workout regime not only allow you to be stronger, with higher muscle density - something that will on its own improve almost every aspect of athletic performance - but further it allows you better control of how you develop your muscles and better recovery for both workout and performance.

Blood enhancers, likewise, are almost always universally good for all athlete - even those not in endurance sports.  At a minimum, EPO allows you to stay aerobic longer during your weight training, which in turn allows for better recovery, more reps at higher weights, and longer workouts.

From a performance perspective, PEDs are very good.  They are “distorting” (if you choose to decide they represent something materially different from other technological enhancements to most modern sport) every game to a very similar extent.

I can buy Paul’s argument, except for his very last line.

If PED can affect one part of your body more than another, and if the activity you are involved in emphasizes that part of your body more, than how could you say “to a very similar extent”?

For example, isn’t it more likely that Ben Johnson gets a bigger benefit from PED than Jason Kidd would?  Or that Gordie Howe would get a better benefit than Patrick Roy?

It seems reasonable to me that in baseball, the relief pitcher gets a bigger benefit than would Willie Bloomquist.

Tango,
Let me see if this is what you are saying:

1. PED #1 makes you stronger.

2. Strength represents 40% of Sport 1

3. Strength represents 90% of Sport 2

Therefore, PED #1 effects Sport 2 to a greater degree than it effects Sport 1.

Is that what you are getting at when you suggest that Ben Johnson “benefits” more from PEDs than does Jason Kidd?

I think the answer, ultimately, is either “probably not” or “we don’t really know”.  If it is what you mean, I’ll explain further.  If it is not, please clarify further.

"It seems reasonable to me that in baseball, the relief pitcher gets a bigger benefit than would Willie Bloomquist.”

I think that is almost certainly true.  That is, however, a different question.  PEDs (and different PEDs) are going to benefit some players more than others.  Willie Bloomquist just isn’t a very good player.  PEDs are not going to change that substantially.  They will make Boom Boom better, but not better enough that he can suddenly compete with Pujols.  PEDs work on the margins.

10: what if the question was, do steroids help an olympic weightlifter more than a ping pong player?  i think the answer ultimatley is “absolutely 100% yes it does”

derp, i said 10 when i meant 15.

Ken,
That is what I am getting at in #15, but I am not convinced that is true.  It is, of course, the intuitive answer, but the truth is more complicated.

In ping pong, what matters is that you win a point/game/match.  Defining, with precision, the components that contribute to that win is difficult.  You know strength and speed and endurance all have something to do with it, but actually defining their contribution is more tricky.  In weightlifting, what defines a “win” is the amount of weight a person can lift.  Again, there is some contribution from strength and some from the skill of lifting.  So, I agree with you that it is more obvious how being stronger leads to victory in weightlifting over table tennis, but it is also clear that strength is an element of both sports.

Now, we are on to our margins analysis.  Assume you have two otherwise identical players.  One, however, starts taking steroids and improves his strength.  Let’s say this translates into a 1% greater chance of winning any one point in the game.  Over that person’s career, how many more games/matches/championships will the steroid taker win?  I don’t know.  But when you recognize that these performance enhancers are all on the margins, the logic of PED#1 distorts sport 1 more than sport 2 is far less clear.

Tango, what is your evidence that fans don’t care about steroids?  This NYT poll showed that over 80% of baseball fans care about steroid use. 

http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/Feb09b-BASEBALL.pdf

Given your admirable usual MO of following the data wherever it leads, I find troubling your vehement supposed speaking for the fans when the data lines up against you.

I don’t see much evidence of them putting their money where their mouth is, though.  People can tell you they care in a poll all day, but have they stopped watching games, buying merchandise, and the like?  I see a lot of righteous indignation but not a whole lot of action.

Right, the evidence is their action, not their mouths, exactly as Patriot said.

If they think of Bonds/steroids as WWE/WWF, then why the heck did they continue to follow him for years following the leaked testimony?

Why did attendance continue to go up across the league?

When I say “care” I mean care like MADD care, like does something about it care, like I’m not going to take it anymore care.

Indeed, fans care about steroids as much as they care about ticket price increases.  They may not like it on the surface, but when it comes down to it, they really don’t care. 

That’s the evidence.  Not their big yapping mouths.