Forgive me for generalizing here, but when it comes to PEDs and the Hall of Fame, we can pretty much break everyone into two camps: those who will consider confirmed PED users for the Hall, and those who won’t. Of course, there are many sub-categories of each of these groups, but this distinction serves the intent of this post.
If you’re in the latter category–i.e. you’re against any confirmed PED user ever being inducted into the Hall of Fame–that’s OK. I’m not going to challenge that stance, but this post is not for you. Of course, I’m not trying to discourage you from reading it, but I’m going to ask some questions that can only be answered by those in the other group, the folks I like to call PED agnostics.
I suppose those of you who are willing to consider for the Hall of Fame players with the PED black mark hanging over their careers are not necessarily agnostics–you range from those who try to factor in PED transgressions when assessing a player’s career to those who simply don’t care at all–but you all have one thing in common. You’re at least somewhat open-minded to the concept of PED users in the Hall of Fame.
So, here’s where I’m going with this. The basis of many an argument from the agnostic side of the equation is that PEDs weren’t outlawed by Major League Baseball and there was no testing when most of the use occurred. In fact, of the seven players on the current ballot whose lack of support can be attributed at least in part to PED use or suspicion, only one–Rafael Palmeiro–was legitimately nabbed by MLB’s drug testing program.
But, of course, we’re entering even more uncharted territory. Manny Ramirez won’t be on the ballot until 2017, but how does the fact he’s been suspended twice under the current rules affect your thinking about his Hall of Fame credentials, which would make him a shoe-in otherwise? And what about Alex Rodriguez? We won’t know for a while whether to consider the Biogenesis scandal simply his first strike, or if his transgressions are, in fact, worthy of the additional punishment handed down by the league.
But, the bottom line is both of these players have clear-cut Hall of Fame resumes if not for PED use, and in both cases, one of the factors frequently used for dismissing the arguments against no longer apply. That is, assuming the sanctions against Rodriguez aren’t thrown out on appeal, which seems unlikely.
I know none of us has an actual Hall of Fame vote. So, of course, this is all hypothetical. But, we wouldn’t spend as much time as we do discussing this sort of thing on the internet if it wasn’t a subject we feel strongly about. In that sense, there are many of us who, for lack of a better way of describing it, like to pretend we’re Hall of Fame voters.
So, with regard to your hypothetical Hall of Fame ballot, where do you stand on the Manny Ramirezes and Alex Rodriguezes (again, assuming we’re considering him worse than a one-time offender) of the world? The way I see it, here are your possible stances (although I’d like to know if you have an alternate opinion):
- You still don’t care about PED use at all, even with regard to players who receive lifetime bans.
- You don’t factor PED use into your opinions on Hall-worthiness, but you’re willing to accept that a lifetime ban based on the current MLB drug policy means a ban from the Hall of Fame.
- Violations of the MLB drug policy due to PED use should result in the player’s Hall of Fame case being discounted.
- Violations of the MLB drug policy are reason enough to turn you full-circle, from PED agnostic to someone who believes confirmed PED users have no place in the Hall, since we can now say that they knowingly violated the league’s policy with intent to cheat.
I usually steer clear of these discussions, but I’m really curious where people stand on this issue now that the rules of the game are changing. Please weigh in if you’re so inclined.
I avoid unequivocal statements, such as “if a player did this, I wouldn’t vote for them”, much as I don’t count any statistical threshold as an automatic yes or no. PED use, or lack thereof, is just one part of the tasty gumbo of evaluating a player. Though at times it can be a bit more poignant and sting the nostrils a bit.
I am the type of person who completely ignores it. I know there are many players using PEDs in the Hall, whether steroids, HGH, or greenies. When looking at Palmeiro’s I choose not to vote for him because I don’t think he put together a HOF career, not because of the drugs he took to help him have his career. On the other hand I would gladly vote for Manny Ramirez. I am not the type who gets upset when somebody hates cheaters, it’s just not my style. As a matter of fact, I think I may have the incorrect mindset when it comes to this, but I just can’t get worked up about it. I watch baseball to be entertained, and better players are more entertaining.
Neal, Palmeiro has a Hall Rating of 125 at Hall of Stats, ahead of Hall of Famers like Eddie Murray, Dave Winfield, and Billy Williams. I suppose a case can be made that he never had a high enough peak to be a Hall of Famer, but I’m interested to hear a PED-agnostic case against a guy with 569 homers and 3,020 hits.
I may be on an island on this one, but peak is at least 80% of my consideration for WAR. Palmeiro’s best season is 6.9 WAR, there have been 567 seasons by position players better than that. He was a very good player for a very long time. To me that is not a Hall of Famer. His 132 OPS+ is the same as Shin-Soo Choo, and he was a first baseman. John Olerud had a 129 OPS+, and was a far superior defender. I am in no way saying he didn’t have a great career, just not great enough.
Neal, I am not disagreeing with you, just curious – what is your stance on the three guys Bryan mentioned above?
I am on the fence with Billy Williams, but I don’t believe I would vote for the other 2. I have an odd idea of the Hall of Fame, and I know that.
Tony Gwynn has a 132 OPS+ and only one season above 6.9. Or does having one season above that meet the cut off?
If it’s all peak, does that leave out Whitaker (tops 6.7), but make room for Fregosi?
I’m going to add one thing: for me, consistency can trump peak. I’ve always seen the crazy streaks that help players win awards (Hershiser or Drysdale with SHO’s, for example) and instead of finding their season more impressive, i think “well, without that streak they were far worse.” Yes, they did those things, but their brief, epic flash of brilliance makes their whole season look better than the rest of it was. Maybe this is just a skewed way of looking at it.
Regardless, another stat: 49 players have at least 20 rBat in 11 seasons. All but 15 are in the Hall (and 10 inarguably deserve the HOF if you ignore gambling and peds). Palmeiro, Sheffield, Bob Johnson, Dick Allen and Edgar Martinez round out the other 5.
Who says a peak has to be one season to be impressive? 88-03 he has 70.2 war (about 4.4 per season) and 33.6 WAA (more than tons of Hall of Famers). Does it really change if you had the same player, but instead of 6.9 at 28 and 3.5 at 38, he had 8.9 at 28 and 1.5 at 38 (all else equal)? For me, that’s no difference.
Neal, you’re using a rate stat (OPS+) to compare a guy with 3500 PA (Shin-Soo Choo) to a guy with over 12000 PA (Palmeiro). With the disparate number of PAs, does this really tell us anything?
What will Choo’s OPS+ be when he reaches age 40, the age at which Palmeiro hung it up? I doubt we’ll ever find out because (as nice of a player as he is) it’s unlikely he’ll be in the league that long. Also, Choo didn’t play his first full season until age 26, while Palmeiro started at age 23.
For some perspective, I checked to see how many players in history had 12000+ PA and an OPS+ of at least 132. It’s a short list: Bonds, Mays, Aaron, Musial, Cobb, Eddie Collins, and Palmeiro.
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That’s fine. If you would like a different stat, he ranks 149th all time in WAR/G for position players with at least 1500 career games. That is behind guys like Brian Giles, Chuck Knoblauch, Jack Clark, Willie Randolph, Chet Lemon, and Jim Fregosi. Even if I remove the first 2 years of his career, and the last 2 years of his career, he is still behind many players not in the Hall of Fame. With his 4 worst seasons removed from consideration he is behind Will Clark, Kieth Hernandez, Jim Wynn, Ken Boyer, and Gene Tenace, as well as many others, in WAR/G. To me he was a good player that had a historic number of games played. I am not saying anyone voting for him is wrong, just he doesn’t fit my personal criteria for a Hall of Famer.
OK, Neal, but WAR per G is a rate stat also. Same problem. You’re dinging Palmeiro again for longevity.
# of games played age 35 and beyond:
KBoyer – 367
JClark – 221
WClark – 207
Fregosi – 69
BGiles – 487
Hernandez – 118
Knoblauch – 0
CLemon – 104
Palmeiro – 891
Randolph – 33
Tenace – 119
JWynn – 66
My point is that rate stats are going to favor those with shorter careers, especially those who are forced to retire earlier because they can’t make an MLB team.
I know Will Clark and maybe Willie Randolph just walked away from the game (and there may be a few others), but everyone else on the list got forced out of the league because they weren’t good enough.
Palmeiro had 18 seasons with at least 110 games (cherry-picked). There are 21 position players with that many seasons of that ilk, and all but Pete Rose are either in the Hall or still on the ballot.
Bryan:
Here’s my problem:
After his age 30 season Palmiero had 1455 hits 194 HRs, 706 RBIs, just to take three numbers, and in the normal progression of things, he probably would have seen his figures do less than double, say 2700 hits, 375 HRs, 1300 RBIs. A nice career, but not a HOF career in my opinion, given the overall context.
After his age 30 season Mark McGuire, whose career was all but in the tank, had 238 HRs and 657 RBIs. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, let’s say he rejuvenated himself normally to the expected curve of players with long careers and ended with 420 HRs and 1250 RBIs. Not nearly a HOF career given his other stats.
Bonds is different because at age 34 he already had a HOF career—BEFORE his head started to swell. He would have finished with well over 600 HRs etc., even if he had continued the normal slow decline of age.
I think it’s important to face the situation as honestly as possible, and buying into PED inflated stats without a huge amount of skepticism and a great deal of looking those stats over from every angle smacks of head in the sand ostriches and rose colored glasses. Picture, if you will, a large, lanky bird with pink spectacles about to dig his noggin in.
I don’t think PED use should disqualify a player from the Hall, but I don’t think it should qualify him for the Hall either.
I think it’s a leap to assume he would have had 600 HR’s, much less “well over”. Through 34, he had 445 … to get to 600 that would mean averaging 39 a year for 4 years, hardly a given with normal aging, and that’s assuming he stayed healthy without the PED’s.
Not arguing he was a HOF had he retired at 34, and a 1st ballot at that. It took him from 1st ballot to discussion of best ever.
NSB, look at my comment #3 below and you’ll see that I completely respect that opinion (your last sentence is particularly strong). Personally, I’d rather accept numbers at face value (with proper contextual adjustments for ballparks and eras) than try to guess when a player started using and recreate his numbers as if he hadn’t. I’m perfectly happy with a Hall of Fame with or without Rafael Palmeiro. I think McGwire should be in, largely for his role in bringing a lot of fans (including me) back to baseball in ’98, but also because he hit 49 homers as a rookie and still holds the AB/HR record. And Bonds, of course, is a Hall of Famer.
Going to duck the PED question—I’ve written lots about it on a message board and on my own site, and I kind of go around in circles at this point—but count me as someone else who believes that, putting that issue aside, there has to be room in the HOF for a guy with 3,000 hits/560 HR/1800 RBI/5300 TB. Oh, I know—counting stats. But I think there needs to be different paths to the HOF, and at least one of them ought to be sheer bulk of a certain magnitude. (And it’s not like Palmeiro doesn’t have an okay WAR/OPS+ argument.)
This is a tough question and a good one, Dan. I don’t factor PEDs into past Hall of Fame arguments much, although I understand those who argue that Rafael Palmeiro might not have been hallworthy if not for those questionable seasons in his late thirties.
I guess my take now is that MLB is dealing with steroid users by suspending them once they’re caught using, so their punishment is measurable from a baseball standpoint. If Ryan Braun comes up just short because of games he missed due to his suspension, I’m not going to adjust in his favor the way I do for Hank Greenberg missing time due to war. But I’ll still judge players’ Hall of Fame cases by their accomplishments on the field.
With that in mind, Manny’s in. He was a beast for a decade and a half, started cheating when age caught up to him, and MLB did the right thing to suspend him and not let him rack up any more counting stats to pad his case. But he was a Hall of Famer long before the suspension and he’s no less a Hall of Famer today.
I’d vote for ARod too. If he ends up with a lifetime ban, I don’t have a huge problem with him being kept out. Steroids were a part of baseball’s culture and that should be reflected in the Hall. Tampering with evidence and buying incriminating documents are not a part of baseball and the league can punish him as it sees fit. It will be a little disappointing, though, if the three greatest players of “my generation” are still outside the Hall 20 years from now (though I never liked Bonds, Clemens, or Rodriguez).
Bryan’s comment comes the closest to reflecting my opinion. That is, with the punishments now built into the process, I’m not going to seek to punish players further. If they’re banned for life, so be it. That would, in theory, involve three separate violations, which would be enough for me to decide not to include them in my personal Hall as well.
The angle of missing games due to suspension costing players is one I hadn’t given much thought to. A second infraction under the current policy will essentially cost a player an entire season, so not insignificant.
I guess the only gray area might be if A-Rod was banned for life based on one violation. I know MLB would be claiming multiple violations, but it would lack the progressive discipline that would make me think it was enough to throw a player’s entire career out. Obviously, it doesn’t appear that’s going to happen, but if it’s true it was considered, I have less trust in the process.
Hate to be boring here, but I’m in the same boat as the two of you. I’d put Bonds and Clemens in without hesitation, McGwire too. Palmeiro and Sosa I have a harder time with, but they’re in for me as well. If Cooperstown really wants to stand for the best of the best, these guys need to have a plaque there.
Also, the notion (which I’ve heard a lot of fans support) that there should be a special “PED Wing” of the Hall of Fame is beyond ludicrous. There are enough creeps/cheats/racists/what-have-yous in the HoF that stand right beside the most upstanding of citizens. These 90s-00s players, through insane talent, and occasionally some pharmaceutical assistance, are worthy of inclusion without segregation.
PED use makes it difficult for me. On one hand there is Barry Bonds, who would have been a HOF-worthy player w/o PEDs. Alex Rodriguez also falls into this category. Clemens probably does, too.
Not so sure about Manny because no idea how far back it goes. Same with trying to judge Ryan Braun’s career to date.
I suspect you’ll find the more the person looks at objective measure as Hall criteria, the more likely they are to gravitate to one pole or the other. That’s because you don’t know what stats to eliminate or modify. On the other hand, the more you include a subjective gut feeling w/the statistical analysis, the more likely you are to try to judge where the cheater would have been w/o PEDs.
I’d vote for both Manny and A-Rod. I would rather vote them in and acknowledge that they used (on their plaques, website, books, etc.) than just pretend their careers didn’t happen.
The Hall of Fame is about legacy. PEDs are part of Manny and A-Rod’s legacy but not all of it. They were also great players. Recognize both.
First I try to take in to account how much evidence there is of the players having used PED’s. If the on the Mitchell report or there’s some other reliable evidence of their having used then it gets taken into account. If it’s just rumors, like with Bagwell or Piazza, it doesn’t. Then I look at the players career and do my best to determine if the player would have gotten in without the PED’s. I also try to factor this in for the players who appear not to have used PED’s as well- i.e. did Bonds and the rest move the bar for someone like Fred McGriff. If I think that’s possible then I also try to take that into account. If it’s ever a close call on anything it always goes against the cheaters.
Is my “system” perfect? Nope. Far from it. But it’s my vote so it’s my rules and these buttholes who juiced have pissed me off so I do the best I can.
If it were my vote, I’d consider PEDs on the margins, with the borderline cases or the guys who might not otherwise have made it. ARod, Bonds, and Clemens are mortal locks even without, so it’d be foolish to try to make an example of them just to prove one’s moral sensibilities.
The difficulty, though, is in saying “Oh, without ‘roids that guy would have had only 400 homers.” I mean, 400 homers is still a LOT of homers. The whole context of baseball was skewed for the past 15 years. I did a small study on my blog once, looking not at the top homer hitters, but at the middle guys… how many 20-HR hitters were there? I looked at some years in the early-mid 80s and then (IIRC) 2002-2006. With PI, much easier to recreate, and I do so here:
1982: 51 (14.3%)
1983: 41 (11.2%)
1984: 45 (12.0%)
1985: 59 (15.8%)
1986: 60 (16.4%)
Those percentages are the number of 20 homer guys out of all non-pitchers who played at least 50 games that season, to correct for expansion. I’m not sure about that jump in ’85 and after, but it ain’t nothin’:
2002: 81 (19.9%)
2003: 86 (20.9%)
2004: 93 (23.1%)
2005: 78 (19.3%)
2006: 91 (22.7%)
Everyone and their twin is hitting dingers for a while there, and it becomes nearly impossible to say with certainty that one player’s diminished totals, sans PEDs, wouldn’t look comparatively good if you similarly deflated people across the board. “Correcting” just one guy doesn’t help in the context of an “uncorrected” environment. So I lean towards putting in the no-doubters while openly discussing the conditions in which their numbers and hat sizes bloated beyond comparison.
I’m an agnostic. I disregard PED use, and look at performance on the field only. Similarly, I don’t care about off field issues either. I echo Neal in comment #2: baseball is entertainment.
Very long suspensions for players will usually markedly impact their HoF chances anyway, let alone a lifetime ban. Their numbers will get punished by the suspensions as well, so why would I go above and beyond that mentally punish them more?
If I thought for a minute that the testing system in place caught a significant percentage of cheaters (i.e., at least half), I might consider discounting the numbers achieved by them. But the biogenesis stuff shows that testing simply isn’t catching most of them. And I would snicker at anyone trying to convince me that this one clinic was the only one. So I’m left with the same situation that always existed (ignoring all rumours and innuendo which tend to only target top players, I have no way to know, at all, who is clean), except now occasionally someone will get suspended.
Hartvig and Bryan do a very good job of defining my universe of tolerance. I really dislike PED use, and it seriously impacts my appreciation of the stats “accomplished”. I think you need proof, in the form of failed tests or other documentary evidence, before you can charge someone. I have a certain amount of queasiness barring players who used before MLB really came down on them. You have to take into account a very clear tacit understanding between players, the union, and MLB that these things just happened and it put fannies in seats. For those players, like McGwire, Palmerio, Bonds and Clemens, I find myself mentally adjusting downward their accomplishments. So, for McGwire, if you took away 20% of his HR, is he really a HOF? Palmeiro may have extended his career (and certainly his later-aged totals) and I wonder if without them he wouldn’t occupy the same grey area that McGriff does. I have a lot less “sympathy” after the red line was drawn (and the MLB was not longer tacitly consenting). The more recent “fails” and the Biogenesis group I have no sympathy at all for, particularly Braun and A-Rod, because there’s a certain willfulness about the cheating that went on here that I cannot stomach. So, and this may not be entirely fair, I wouldn’t vote for either ARod or Braun if they put up Ruthian numbers.
I fully understand that there are so many sophisticated methods for doping that we may not know about others who are doing it but haven’t been caught. I don’t take that into account at all. It’s illegal, it’s been clearly defined as illegal by agreement between MLB and MLBPA (beyond slaps on the wrist) and the fact that others may be getting away with it doesn’t make it not cheating.
I would add one thing, which is I think that it would be worthwhile for MLB/MLBPA to do a better job on the “theraputic use” exception. A one month course of something in December in conjunction with an injury strikes me as something that should be explored.
Great question, I’m probably closest to agnostic. I don’t have the information about enough players to make a global adjustment. Palmeiro, McGwire, Sosa, Bonds, Clemens, etc. are in my Personal Hall and A-Rod and Manny will be too.
The difference for me is that I don’t fight for them. I have written more passionate articles about Kevin Appier than I have about Rafael Palmeiro (or even Barry Bonds). I’ll let them in… but I don’t celebrate them. I save that for Deacon White, Alan Trammell, Lou Whitaker, Rick Reuschel, Larry Walker, etc.
A lot of good sense is being spoken on this thread by those who would vote for confirmed PED users for the hall, but I just don’t think I could bring myself to do it, not that I get a vote; not at least until Pete Rose is elected. Pete copped to breaking the rules of MLB. But there was never any suggestion that he was unfairly trying to influence the outcome on the field of play. Baseball is entertainment, but the entertainment value, for me at least depends on sustaining the belief that it is a contest played according to rules and the victors fully deserve the crown. If a player took PEDs inadvertently , say, believing that they were vitamins ., with no intent to cheat, then I would be ok – maybe Ryan Braun can convince me.
So I guess I fall into a third group, neither agnostic, nor totally opposed . I would look at each player and say , is there an overwhelming body of evidence that this player habitually and deliberately gained an unfair advantage over a significant time period. If not, then I am ok with them being in the hall. – this lets in players around whom unproved allegations have swirled, but no overwhelming evidence has been collected. I am not naive enough to think that the players who got caught were the only users, but they were the ones who got caught.
Whether a player would have had an HOF career without using is ,for me at least , totally beside the point.
I would not remove a player from HOF eligibility unless MLB does, as (I think) is the case for Pete Rose. That is, a lifetime ban from further play is just that, but a lifetime ban from any “association” with professional baseball (as in Rose’s ban) would (or should), in my mind, render a player ineligible for the Hall.
So, if a player is still eligible, I would consider him but would make some mental adjustment for the effects of PED. A Bonds or Clemens or A-Rod or Manny are no-doubters in my mind. Their use of PEDs is regrettable but I think not a determining factor in achieving HOF-level credentials.
A Palmeiro is a more borderline case, mainly for the reasons Neal mentioned. Bill James talked about a Hall player needing to maintain a high standard for a long period (check), and also having a peak where he is recognized as among the top players in the game, and the best (or among the two or three best) at his position (don’t think so). A glance at Palmeiro’s stat page shows immediately why it’s doubtful he makes the second test – only 3 black ink marks: one for doubles (under 50); one for hits (under 200); and one for runs (under 125). Add in PEDs and I’m inclined to tilt against Palmeiro. But, he is certainly the extreme case – players with the ability to put up his kind of numbers year after year will usually have a higher peak to clinch their HOF case.
As to what constitutes PEDs usage, damned if I know. If a player is sanctioned by MLB or admits usage, then yes I will consider that in evaluating a player in the case of a borderline HOF career. Being named in a report, or rumored to have used, or showing a sudden performance improvement – lacking anything more substantive, I would consciously try NOT to let my assessment be swayed by PED questions (though not sure I would necessarily be successful with that). Similarly, I would try NOT to have a player’s squeaky clean image sway my HOF assessment in his favor.
Let ’em in. If there’s one person in the current HOF who used a PED of some sort, then you can’t keep the other guys out. We always focus on the big names – Clemens, Bonds, McGwire in the past, Braun and A-Rod now… but what about the other players?
Where’s the outrage over Randy Velarde and Adam Piatt during the Mitchell Report era? What about Jordany Valdespin and Sergio Escalona now?
If the middling players are “cheating” also, then how much of a boost did Bonds or Sosa really get? Ramirez? Braun? It’s just nonsense. Go ahead and suspend them, that’s fine, MLB can do what they want. There are rules. I just don’t think they’ve proven that PEDs are what made someone great.
Leave a guy out if you want – McGwire isn’t a HOFer even with the roids – but don’t make it your only argument.
Actually, I would fall in the 0.00001% that said “not Randy Velarde!” when I first heard the names from the Mitchell Report. Honestly, none of the HOF level players on it shocked or disappointed me as much as Randy Velarde
Echoing what others have said here, I would ignore PED suspensions or Mitchell report mentions (because we know these to be incomplete).
However, I’m not a complete PED agnostic.
For example, we HAVE to acknowledge that PED use boosts HR rates. Which means we can not apply the classic gold standard of 500 HRs (or even 600 HRs) and let these guys waltz in, especially if power hitting was their most pronounced skill.
In practice:
I would not vote for Sosa, McGwire, Sheffield, Juan Gone, Delgado. HOVG for me.
I would vote for A-Rod, I-Rod, Bonds, Piazza, Clemens.
I’m on the fence regarding Bagwell, Manny and Palmeiro.
I basically think the stats are stats (though I value post season more than anybody on here and I think DWAR is seriously broken) and I wouldn’t overly correct for PED’s. Pitchers used, hitters used, and yes it unbalanced the scales because not everyone did it an not everyone had as good a doctor. All that said, it was a league wide thing, I don’t like singling guys out. Do I correct? Maybe a little. If a guy was a big money player during that era I assume he was juicing for comparing him to some other era. OPS++ maybe, that’s all. Clearly Bonds blew away the competition even if his doctor was a little better paid.
All that said, I do penalize for off field activities. I like Rose being banned. I’d be more likely to hold out bonds on his obstruction of justice conviction than if he, say, admitted continual steroid use. Palmero wagged his finger out of the hall of fame, not a needle. He made himself the focal point.
So, I guess I count PED’s and particularly lieing/manipulation against a player, but nothing is set in stone. Except betting on the game you’re in.
Just curious, where do you come down on Shoeless Joe?
I’ve heard that he was involved in fixing the series and others say he was not. His batting line doesn’t look like he was involved. If he was involved, I would ban him. I’m no expert on that period of baseball though.
I have always said that Bonds, Clemens, Man-Ram belong in the hall, no doubt about it. They put up Hall worthy numbers before age and injuries took their toll on them. Players like Braun, Sosa and A-Rod used during their prime and so on(Braun is not a HOF player anyway, just an example). I’m more inclined to judge them more harshly because of that. With that Said I believe A-Rod was the most gifted of the three mentioned and deserves a chance to get in.
McGwire was a special case because he was so one dimensional but that one dimension(hitting the long ball) was spectacular, like Ozzie Smith for defense.
@ numbers 4, 8, 10, 17 and 18…I do believe that a great, consistent player(12-15 solid years) is a worthy candidate and another player who had a 7-8 year peak being a top 3-5 player in MLB also deserves some serious consideration for the Hall.
I care that they used but since no one can give full proof evidence of a certain time period, I have to look at the numbers and when that player was “suspected” of using. Using like Braun in his prime makes me feel like he never was good enough anyway, if so, why use at all? So many if’s and not enough proof.
What really bothers me is the way some players were treated/handled vs. others when they either admitted use after being caught(Pettitte, McGwire) or presumed guilty(Bonds, Clemens) but never officially caught. Pettitte pretty much used and got caught, admitted it afterwards and no one cared while he still pitches. McGwire is still in Baseball as well as a hitting coach with a similar situation. Bonds was blackballed out of the league and no one would sign him even though he still produced at a very good/high level.
Exactly what was the difference in these guys vs. eachother besides being a “good person” or not? The whole process is tiresome. I agree with several of you, it’s entertainment but let’s not punish some and hold others at a different level just because.
We all want the same thing – to evolve, to feel good, to feel youthful and strong.
New understandings of how to work with the human organism are being developed daily, and we’re not going to go backwards any time soon.
All of these players made their own choices, yes.
But they were also advised by, and preyed upon by, scientists and doctors whose expertise they have been conditioned to trust.
Where we have gone wrong is in moving too fast, in utilizing biological agents that provide benefits, but whose drawbacks we have not sufficiently eliminated so as to render the aids appropriate for standardized use.
Our failure to have an intelligent conversation on this subject for the past 20 years is an embarrassment to our entire culture.
So my answer is yes, I do NOT eliminate users of steroids and hgh from the “hall of fame.”
And frankly, if we do eliminate “PED” users, where do we draw the line?
Do we expose and eliminate every player from 1950-2010 who used cocaine and amphetamines?
Do we eliminate every player from 1860-1950 who played when there was a better athlete with dark skin shining shoes on the stadium concourse?
We’ve made choices as a culture, and we take responsibility collectively.
Singling superstars out for the sins of the many is lazy and uncivilized.
On HOF and PEDs, I think I generally share Voomo’s stance.
But I also think that failed PED tests, suspensions, and admitted use should be engraved on the plaques of those inducted. And the Hall should develop exhibits that discuss the issue.
The cultural failing that allowed the problem to get so far out of hand should not be a reason to sweep the whole thing under the historical rug. Yes, a difficult climate contributed to many players’ bad decisions, but those decisions still should be acknowledged.
Voomo, you provide some excellent reasons why PED users have diminished culpability, given the culture in which they operated – MLB effectively made a decision to ignore an obvious problem after the 1991 proclamation barring their use.
And of course , each of us is free to include or exclude them form our personal halls.. Much of the disagreement on the issue seems to me to depend on how we frame the question ; are we “punishing” players by excluding them from the hall, or are we “honoring” some players by their inclusion? Those who see exclusion as punishment are ,I think, much more likely to adopt your view than those who see inclusion as an honor we sparingly, and sometimes mistakenly , bestow.
I am very close to full-on PED agnosticism. I really don’t care about it very much; I don’t consider it materially different from any other form of cheating, and I don’t hear anybody calling for bat-corkers or spitball-throwers to be barred from the Hall. I just don’t see how we can keep Barry Bonds out of the Hall on the grounds that he broke the rules — even though, to my knowledge, every substance he’s been linked to using was not actually against the rules when he used it — but allow Gaylord Perry, authour of “Me and the Spitter,” to remain in. And since I think the sort of moral crusade that would expunge anybody with any shady doings from the Hall would be absurd, unfun, and ruinous to the history of the sport, I’m for having them in.
I also consider baseball entertainment but not in the same way, say, a TV program is. Because it is first and foremost a game, a competition, and so it makes demands on those who play it.
The first demand is that you follow the rules. There is of course scope for interpreting / bending / playing a little fast and loose with these rules (each according to his own ability / wiliness / conscience); however, you simply can’t flagrantly, flat-out ignore them. That goes against the very essence of games. It’s taking away the tennis net. (And it is why conflating racism, sexism, assholism, or the use of non-performance-enhancing drugs, etc. with PED use is preposterous. It’s not against baseball’s rules, as a game, to be an asshole. If it were the Hall of Fame would be emptied out, which personally wouldn’t bother me one bit – I see it as a retrograde institution.)
We can argue about baseball’s attitude toward PEDs all we want, how the suits turned a blind eye to them and everyone conspired to pretend everything was hunky dory, but basically use of them was prohibited by Bart Giamatti in 1993 (I think it was then). If you used after 1993, you violated the basic spirit of baseball, which, big deal, so what, many players did. But we as fans indeed can and should hold them accountable for it in some way, whether that’s keeping them out of the Hall or whatever.
A little thought experiment: Let’s say someone invented a new type of aluminum with all the tangible properties of wood. It looked, felt, smelled, etc. like wood – you couldn’t tell the difference even from basic testing – but it performed like the most advanced aerospace aluminum. And let’s say someone made a bat out of it and some slugger used it in MLB. Everyone marveled at this slugger’s .445 average, 115 home runs and 234 RBI in a single season. Except later it was discovered that the bat(s) he used wasn’t regulation and was in fact made of this new aluminum. How would we regard his records? And if you don’t think cutting-edge PEDs like the ones Bonds took in certain ways distorted the game nearly as much (other than what they did for Barry himself, we have the evidence that they made Tim “I’m destined to finish fifth in every 100-meter race I enter” Montgomery the fastest man in the world), I would argue that you’ve never taken even the basic, street-level ones or known anyone who has.
The great thing is we can make our own judgments about these matters, about how far outside the rules we believe something like popping greenies or ingesting PEDs is and the degree to which it (unfairly) alters the game. In my case there’s no way I can be truly PED agnostic.
tag, I like your analogies, except for the implied degree of difference that PEDs produced in the batting stats. I think we really have no firm idea whether the net gain to someone like Bonds was 2% or 20%, compared to what he’d have done in a PED-free sport, since (a) hitting a MLB pitch involves far more than strength, and (b) many of those pitches were juiced themselves.
I, too, abhor cheating. But when it’s so rampant, I think that has to affect how we view the sins. Taking your analogy to an extreme, suppose that you knew for a fact that Gaylord Perry throws an undetectable greaseball. He’s pitching against you in game 7 of the World Series, after shutting you out in games 1 and 4. You believe that your only chance is to use that magic aluminum bat. How wrong would you be to use it? Would your act be enough to ban you from the Hall of Fame?
We know that a substantial percentage of hitters and pitchers used PEDs. We’ll never know enough about individual cases — when they used and what motivated them, much less what they gained — to pin down a degree of culpability. That’s why I say, let everyone in, but print the known facts on their plaques.
John,
You make excellent points and pose hard questions, as usual. So:
First, I think we can make fairly educated guesses on how much PEDs benefited specific players. And that’s how you need to assess these things, on a case-by-case, individual basis.
Bonds was a superlative baseball player unaided. But then he posted numbers in his late 30s, what, 25% to 33% better (offensively) than he had during his prime. He was able to harness all the experience he’d gathered in his 15+ years in the game and yoke that to his former 25-year-old physical self, had that former self itself been notably enhanced (the only thing he sacrificed was some speed). The same with Clemens. And McGuire. Sammy by contrast was a total PEDs creation in my book, as others who saw him with the White Sox would attest. (I’d wager that his improvement in power was well beyond 100%.)
PEDs obviously affects different people differently, just as weight training itself does. Some gain an enormous advantage, others do not. I agree with you that calculating that advantage isn’t easy, but there’s a lot of baseball history to fall back on, and I think we can come to some ballpark figure, so to speak, about the improvement it made to certain players.
As for that Game 7, no you don’t get to use the bat. You do get to: throw at Perry (anywhere south of his brainpan) if he bats, trying to take him out of the game; react to any pitch he throws close to you by Quentinesquely charging the mound and trying to take him out that way; bunt down the first-base line and Mack truck him into right-center field, etc. You get to use the unwritten rules to even out the written ones being so utterly disregarded.
If you in fact did succumb to the irresistible temptation and brandish the magic bat, no, you would not be banned from the Hall. The punishment has to fit the crime, and your crime, an understandable reaction to a serious provocation, would not warrant a lifetime behind barreds (like Pete and Joe), again so to speak.
tag, assessing each case for PED impact strikes me as both vastly subjective, and requiring such precise communication as to render the dialogue all but hopeless.
For instance, you call Sammy a complete PED creation. So I have to ask exactly what you mean, and what are your assumptions. Do you think he was juicing in 1993-97, when he averaged 34 HRs, 100 RBI and 116 OPS+? Or that he started some time around 1998, the start of his 5-year run averaging 58 HRs, 141 RBI and 167 OPS+?
And if we did reach consensus on when he started doping, how much of his improved performance came from that? He did, after all, develop some strike-zone judgment along the way, which was his main offensive weakness in his early years.
I would add that Sosa was viewed as a 5-tool prospect from early days. He was holding his own in the major leagues at age 20, which is all by itself a strong mark of future stardom.
I think that even you and I, two fairly well-informed people willing to delve into details, would have a hard time reaching agreement on how PEDs affected Sosa’s career stats. And it would be even harder to decide on his moral culpability.
John,
You nail every one of my imprecisions. I meant to say that the HOF-candidate, Ruthian-peak Sosa was a 100% PEDs creation. And you’re right I can’t pinpoint when he started taking PEDs. But I don’t think I need to. I can only note that he suddenly went from 36 to 66 homers a season (with the same number of strikeouts and not all that many more walks; yes, his eye would gradually improve, but not commensurate with those HR totals), and then maintained this Ruthian pace even more reliably than the Babe did for the next several seasons.
I never worked/played with Babe Ruth. I didn’t know Babe Ruth. Babe Ruth was not a friend of mine. Nonetheless, Sammy Sosa was no Babe Ruth.
P.S. I also don’t think we need to decide on his moral culpability. We’re not sending him to prison. We’re just concluding that he took PEDs and violated an important rule of the game.
John there are statistical methods for addressing those types of questions, which in statistical parlance fall under the general heading of the detection of non-stationarity, i.e. are the parameters of a statistical distribution changing beyond what would be expected at steady state, and/or, how likely are particular observations to have come from a stable distribution. You can in fact get probabilities and likelihoods on these things. McGwire, Sosa and Bonds in particular hang themselves with their numbers alone. You don’t even have to do a formal analysis to see that they’re not explainable by the HR rate distribution that characterizes MLB history as a whole, which is why I quoted the numbers that I did below. Rodriguez is a much more difficult case however, because his numbers don’t jump–they’re high but more consistent, like Aaron or Mays.
” He was able to harness all the experience he’d gathered in his 15+ years in the game and yoke that to his former 25-year-old physical self ”
This, I think, is an excellent description of the likely effect on the older guys.
I just returned to physical theatre at age 40, after several years off with injury.
And I tell you what, it is freakin’ awesome to be 40.
I can still go, and “the game has slowed down.”
… but it took plenty of well-timed coffee (et al) and three solid hours of stretching to get there every night.
Keep it up, Voomo. I turned, gulp, I can’t even write the number and still play tennis and beach volleyball with guys 20 years my junior.
But it hurts afterward. I’ve seen the improvement PEDS make with fellow bikers, but they can have them. I thank God for ibuprufen.
Sorry, the PEDs prohibition was made in 1991 by Fay Vincent. Bart had already died in ’89, of course.
I like the case you lay out to describe the serious changes that modern PEDs can effect on the body. I see it really as being way different to amphetamines or coke or whatever. Reaction time and attentiveness are important, but changing the inside of people’s bodies can be pretty profound. I’ve definitely read a ton on sports doping, and the effects of the PEDs Bonds, McGwire et al took can be pretty big… I liken it to the effects of oxygen-vector doping on more ‘endurance’ sports, like cycling, cross-country skiing, speed skating in the 90s (through to today). Increase the capacity of your red blood cells to take in oxygen and you can improve performance by 10-15%, which at the elite level can be the difference between being the best in the world and not having a job. It’s a bit more cut-and-dry in those sports because there isn’t the intangible ‘looking at the pitcher throwing a ball and having to hit it’ skill of baseball; turning the pedals of a bike is rather basic by comparison. Regardless, I firmly believe that the advantages given by PEDs in baseball in the last 20-25 years vastly outstrip the advantages given by taking amphetamines or doctoring a ball. (I think perhaps the ‘advantages’ of playing in an all-white era, or even an era before strong farm team systems which meant you played against the best of a small sample of people who played baseball, might be comparable)
So yeah, I think it’s simplistic to sweepingly say ‘people have always had unfair advantages’ and dismiss the importance of what’s gone on in the psat 20 years. The second part of this debate, of course, to what one thinks about PEDs, is what one thinks about people being in the hall of fame. And for me, the hall of fame (and especially the paragons of our culture, the Baseball Writers) acting as moral guardians has always left a bad taste in my mouth. I actually think that attitude rubs me the wrong way more than an athlete taking PEDs would. Setting aside the fact that people are different responders to drugs so we can’t know who got what advantage specifically, or that we can’t know definitively who took them and if we’re just rewarding someone like, say, Greg Maddux because they were so good at hiding their PED use that we just never suspected… setting aside that confusing aspect of the whole mess, I feel the Hall of Fame should be a celebration of the achievements of various eras in baseball, like a history museum. Outstanding and memorable individuals are part of that history, and should be included. They’ve set up this dumb system (I agree with Ed) where people get their own plaques and election is a big deal and there’s enough politicking about the whole process that there is overwrought arguments about someone being a ‘first ballot’ HOFer, or some no-brainers are left off a few ballots on purpose just because it would be some kind of historical insult to great players who didn’t get a unanimous vote-in.
So, yeah, I don’t want to brush aside PED use in the last 20 years as if it wasn’t/isn’t a different beast than things in the past. But I also think the Hall is a museum that celebrates the game, and wouldn’t be complete without documenting the complexities of modern sport. If we’re gonna go the way of giving people individual plaques, I have no problem with those listed above being in. Someone like Manny actually gets more slack from me because he lost playing time due to suspensions, whereas an obvious PED user that never lost playing time (like McGwire and countless others) did not. If baseball is going to make rules banning substances, they also have a responsibility to commit to being able to detect and punish use of those substances. It’s not like MLB brass didn’t know what was going on as early as 1994 or something (or, at least, you have to turn a very willful blind eye to not be aware of something like that). I feel that, correspondingly, my feeling of ‘a player has to adhere to the rules’ is put in check by the spectacular failure of the money/business side of baseball to recognize or address this as a problem. The way it’s coming out, by focusing on superstars and punishing those who got away with something that was not being stopped in any way by the owners or prevailing culture of baseball, is an embarrassing failure of dialogue, for sure.
In short, I agree that it’s hard to be ‘PED agnostic’, but for me I also feel like I have strong opinions about the culture in the sport and the Hall as an institution that provide a lot more context around whether I think a player ‘should’ be in the Hall.
Could not have stated it better tag. The only thing I can add to it is that the whole “I didn’t know I was taking a steroid” argument (see Barry Bonds, among others), is so preposterous as to be a first degree insult to one’s intelligence.
Let ’em all into the Hall, along with Gaylord Perry, while Rose is banned forever, no correction is made for the number of players (or extent of the pool from which drawn), over time, etc etc. I mean, it’s such a fair and utterly meaningful process and all.
tag, your arguments as well spoken.
A distracting issue, however, is that if your theoretical player posted a
.445 average with 115 home runs and ONLY 234 RBI,
our conversation wouldnt be about the bat,
it would be about the psychological issues he must have hitting with RISP.
Well as a hypothetical use case, he’s going to get intentionally walked a lot. Barry’s RBI numbers drifted well below 2RBI per HR when he was being walked with religious dedication. A guy putting up a line like that you have to wonder why he was allowed to swing after number 100 or so don’t you?
Well, let’s call it 600 PA
To get 115 homers, he likely has over 200 hits.
Let’s call it absurdly homer-extreme and give him 175 hits.
That’s about 390 AB for a .445 avg.
210 BB/HBP
Call it only 1.5 runs per home run.
That’s 170 RBI on the homers.
And 60 rbi off of the other 60 hits.
I retract, and also disagree with mosc.
Perfectly reasonable hypothetical player.
You know, I think 234 RBI is actually high for a .445 hitter who’s ~2/3rds (115/175) out of the ballpark. He’s not going to see many pitches in typical RBI situations. Unless the bases are loaded or empty the math is going to say walk him. How many bases loaded opportunities is the guy realistically going to get? Cabrera got 15 last year. Figure the league might take a while to catch on but still. He’s gunna break Barry’s IBB record pretty quick.
Man, I’m glad the feat is hypothetically possible. I pulled the numbers out of, um, thin air. Actually, my work colleague, who knows as much about baseball as I do about water polo, supplied the RBI total.
@56
Career-wise Bonds came to bat 241 times with the bases loaded. Maximum seasonal was 20.
After giving this lots of thought, I’d just completely eliminate the individual part of the HOF. Not just stop electing new players but completely do away with it. The idea was never well thought out in the first place, leading to poor implementation. And while the implementation has improved over the years, it still leads a lot to be desired. PEDs just further complicates the issue beyond any reasonable resolution.
Of course, I’d still keep the museum itself.
I think the PED issue is easier to approach if you follow tag (@34) and acknowledge that PEDs are a form of conduct different from “traditional cheating,” of either the greenie or spitter variety. I agree that it’s important to test this by arguing that they are all of a kind, but for me, those arguments are useful principally for demonstrating that despite their logic, they are unconvincing: PEDs are qualitatively different.
In addition to tag’s list of reasons, I see important aspects in two of John’s points: the unknowability of the effects of PEDs on individual players (and thus on game results), and the imperative to make cheating sport-wide. From the standpoint of the entertained fan, what disappears in a PED world is the meaningfulness of training, talent, and statistics – we have no model of what produces the results on the field. Perhaps World Series rings should just go to the trainers who design the individualized injected cocktails. From the standpoint of the person who plays baseball, serious engagement in the sport becomes a Russian Roulette of hormonal damage, which ultimately works its way down to little league. Ultimately, MLB morphs into WWE. It’s all entertainment, but I don’t think synthetic baseball is good entertainment: sure, it’s a form of humorless improv, but where’s the operatic appeal that wrestling offers the cognoscenti?
I’m neither agnostic nor devout with regard to the PED users of the ’90s. The basis of Hallworthiness in that era, statistics, is beyond repair, and since we really have no way to know which players may be blameless (Maddux, bells? – is nothing sacred?), no approach is assured of being fair – there’s simply no solution; the era was spoiled. I’m content to leave the choices to the BBWAA, whom I admire about as much as bells does. I could never vote with confidence anyway, not knowing whether I was voting for the player or the syringe.
Some numbers to consider.
From the right side of the plate, Jimmie Foxx hit 58 homers in 1932, at age 24. In 1938 he had his second highest total, 50, now age 30. Greenberg hit 58 that same year, then 27. When Ralph Kiner hit 54 and 51 for the Pirates in the 1940s, he was 26 and 24 years old, respectively. The only other RH hitters I’m aware of hitting 50+ in the pre-steroid era, are Hack Wilson, Willie Mays and Johnny Mize, who hit 58, 54, and 51 HRs at the older ages of 30, 34 and 34, respectively.
Fast forward to 1998. A 34 year old Mark McGwire hits 70 homers, 12 more than the previous Greenberg/Foxx record. Moreover, another RH hitter in the league, albeit age 29, hits 66. If I compare McGwire only to the other RH hitters of his same age (Mays and Mize), that’s an increase of 70/54 and 70/51, = 130 and 137 percent, respectively. The increase in schedule length, conversely, was only 162/154, or 105 percent. If we use instead Sosa’s 1998 numbers, age 29, he’s still a minimum of 66/58 = 114 percent above Greenberg, Foxx and Wilson, two of whom were still younger than he. In addition, McGwire and Sosa are performing these amazing feats in the era of four days rest (minimum) for starters, and specialized relievers tailored for the last two innings of each game, unlike the pre-steroid era hitters.
McGwire had one career year pre-1996 (his rookie yr, with 49 HR); his post-1996 numbers are completely different, including his batting averages. In 1996, age 32, he finally broke his rookie mark with 52 HRs–but in ~ 140 fewer ABs. Two years later he hits 70 in 509 ABs = .138 HR/AB. Comparing: Mays at 34 was 52/558 = .093, Mize at 34 was 51/586 = .087, Wilson at 30 had 56/585 = .096, Greenberg at 27 was 58/556 = .104, Kiner at age 26 was 54/549 = 0.10, and Foxx at age 24 was 58/585 = 0.10.
The next closest RH HR finishers in 1998 (Greg Vaughn and Vinnie Castillo) hit 50 and 46 HRs respectively; McGwire/Sosa numbers thus range from 132 to 152 percent of those. In the AL, no RH batter hit over 49 that year, even though sluggers existed who before 1998 woud have been considered as equal to McGwire and Sosa as power hitters (e.g. Belle, Canseco).
Looking at BA, Sosa had one anomalous year pre-1998, when he maxed at exactly .300. Otherwise he was a .230 to .270 hitter. Starting at age 29 in 1998, he becomes a .280 to .330 hitter for six straight years, before reverting to his former numbers for the last 3-4 years of his career. The story is more or less similar for McGwire.
Then 3 years later along comes a lefty hitter who’d never before hit even 50 HRs, who hits 73 homers in 476 AB, for a **0.153 HR/AB rate** that blows the McGwire ratio out of the water almost as badly as McGwire blew the historical ratios out, and which exceed Babe Ruth’s best numbers (of 54/458 = .117) by .153/.117, or 131%.
Make of it what you will.
Big Jawn threw right-handed but batted left-handed,
I’m not sure what you consider pre-steroids era, but George Foster hit 52 bombs in ’77 and Cecil Fielder hit 51 in ’90 or ’91. Neither was 30 years old yet, though their actual ages escape me… maybe 25 and 28?
Yeah I thought of those two later. Checked their ratios in those years and they’re worse than the early guys, < 0.09. Also checked best years of Frank Howard, Killebrew, Frank Robinson, Mike Schmidt, Bagwell. Same story, all. And btw, Sosa was at .011 in 1998.
So basically you either believe that McGwire and Sosa were the two most awesome, single season, right-handed power hitters ever in 1998, with McGwire's HR/AB rate exceeding by .138/.104 = 133% that of the next best season from a 27 year old Hank Greenberg, and the two just so happening to be so in the very same year, and that furthermore, Barry Bonds repeated the feat 3 years later from the left side, but even more dramatically still, or you think something's affecting performance.
I think something's up. In particular, I don't think any of the three of them come anywhere near the HR numbers or records they set, without PED use.
I consider the steroid era to have started around 1993/94, no later than 1996.
@57/JB,
1993?? Keep going back – HOF pitcher Pud Galvin was injected with monkey steroids back in 1889. No one got outraged.
Of course, cocaine was still legal, no FDA then.
Galvin needed the monkey steroids.
He only pitched 341 innings in 1889.
The previous ten years he averaged 495.
@61/Voomoo,
John Clarkson says “What a wimp!” -620 IP in 1889.