How good is Barry Bonds? For real?

[Guest]

After the 1998 season Barry Bonds had 411 HR's. He also became a member of the 400HR/400SB club during the season. Up to that point he had won 3 MVP awards. Barring a career ending injury, he likely would have hit 500 HR's and still could have stole 500 bases as well. He would likely have been a first ballot HOFer without the roids which is what makes him (likely) doing roids so much more confusing. He didn't need to. I read the book "Juicing the Game" by Howard Bryant and in there he stated something along the lines of "steroids can make an average player good and a good player great, but what affect will steroids have on a great player?" Barry Bonds is the example of that. They make the great player superhuman.

Has anyone ever run any quantitative studies that actually document steroids improve performance? I'm not saying they don't, but I'm also not willing to just accept that they can make a great player superhuman (or a good player great). They certainly didn't turn Alex Sanchez into anybody's definition of "great".

 

btw - I understand the theory of making the athlete stronger, quicker, yada, yada, yada. But the mainstream is just as convinced a corked bat will make the ball go further and that just isn't the case when they test it.

[rawaction]

The only reason why he isn't still the best player in the game is because he isn't healthy enough to play everyday. Bonds is probably the best player ever. I don't care what he took. He wasn't the only one. He was a first ballot HOF BEFORE his best seasons. The only reason he doesn't deserve his own wing is because of the cheating. But I'd argue that his steroid use was just keeping with the game. He played in the steroid era. If you devalue what he did, you might as well throw out the last 20 years of baseball like they never happened.

 

Bonds' career reminds me of Jordan's. Early on, he was exciting all around player. Explosive offensively (40/40 player), great defensively, energetic. As he aged, he changed his game and still maintained his standing as the best. Steroids or not, that can't be overlooked. He became more patient. More powerful, with obvious help. And more productive, despite being have lesser ability than a lot of players.

[WrigleyField 22]

Do you guys think the drop in power numbers is due to his age, lack of steriods, or both?

 

I think the drop in power numbers is due to the fact that nobody can slug .700+ every year. He's still slugging .534 this year. That's a great percentage.

He's also lost around 100 points on his slugging this year simply due to the drop in his batting average. If he were still hitting .350, his slugging would be around .650.

 

Even .650 would be a sizeable drop from his previous 3-4 healthy season, so its obviously not all tied to BA.

[Guest]

Do you guys think the drop in power numbers is due to his age, lack of steriods, or both?

 

I think the drop in power numbers is due to the fact that nobody can slug .700+ every year. He's still slugging .534 this year. That's a great percentage.

He's also lost around 100 points on his slugging this year simply due to the drop in his batting average. If he were still hitting .350, his slugging would be around .650.

 

Even .650 would be a sizeable drop from his previous 3-4 healthy season, so its obviously not all tied to BA.

Well, he also has turned 42 and lost an entire season due to a knee injury that hasn't completely healed. I think his decline is more related to the knee than anything else. It's been visible since the beginning of the season that he can't move to cover the low and away pitches as well as he has in the past.

[CubinNY]

The only reason why he isn't still the best player in the game is because he isn't healthy enough to play everyday. Bonds is probably the best player ever. I don't care what he took. He wasn't the only one. He was a first ballot HOF BEFORE his best seasons. The only reason he doesn't deserve his own wing is because of the cheating. But I'd argue that his steroid use was just keeping with the game. He played in the steroid era. If you devalue what he did, you might as well throw out the last 20 years of baseball like they never happened.

 

Bonds' career reminds me of Jordan's. Early on, he was exciting all around player. Explosive offensively (40/40 player), great defensively, energetic. As he aged, he changed his game and still maintained his standing as the best. Steroids or not, that can't be overlooked. He became more patient. More powerful, with obvious help. And more productive, despite being have lesser ability than a lot of players.

 

I concur.

 

He's the best player any of us wil ever seen in our lifetime.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

Has anyone ever run any quantitative studies that actually document steroids improve performance? I'm not saying they don't, but I'm also not willing to just accept that they can make a great player superhuman (or a good player great). They certainly didn't turn Alex Sanchez into anybody's definition of "great".

 

btw - I understand the theory of making the athlete stronger, quicker, yada, yada, yada. But the mainstream is just as convinced a corked bat will make the ball go further and that just isn't the case when they test it.

 

I don't know that performance tests are necessarily needed to prove that a stronger person will hit a ball farther.

 

Steroids are probably more often taken for the healing effects which I would guess was the major reason pitchers juiced.

[Guest]

Has anyone ever run any quantitative studies that actually document steroids improve performance? I'm not saying they don't, but I'm also not willing to just accept that they can make a great player superhuman (or a good player great). They certainly didn't turn Alex Sanchez into anybody's definition of "great".

 

btw - I understand the theory of making the athlete stronger, quicker, yada, yada, yada. But the mainstream is just as convinced a corked bat will make the ball go further and that just isn't the case when they test it.

 

I don't know that performance tests are necessarily needed to prove that a stronger person will hit a ball farther.

 

Steroids are probably more often taken for the healing effects which I would guess was the major reason pitchers juiced.

So you're suggesting it is a linear relationship? Arnold should be able to hit the ball a country mile, then, right?

[Ding Dong Johnson]

Has anyone ever run any quantitative studies that actually document steroids improve performance? I'm not saying they don't, but I'm also not willing to just accept that they can make a great player superhuman (or a good player great). They certainly didn't turn Alex Sanchez into anybody's definition of "great".

 

btw - I understand the theory of making the athlete stronger, quicker, yada, yada, yada. But the mainstream is just as convinced a corked bat will make the ball go further and that just isn't the case when they test it.

 

I don't know that performance tests are necessarily needed to prove that a stronger person will hit a ball farther.

 

Steroids are probably more often taken for the healing effects which I would guess was the major reason pitchers juiced.

So you're suggesting it is a linear relationship? Arnold should be able to hit the ball a country mile, then, right?

 

It depends on what they're taking and how they're taking them. Alex Sanchez was likely not doping in the same way that Barry was, therefore he won't have the power spike. He probably had some nagging injury that was slowing him down a little and wanted a quick heal.

[Abe Frohman]

After the 1998 season Barry Bonds had 411 HR's. He also became a member of the 400HR/400SB club during the season. Up to that point he had won 3 MVP awards. Barring a career ending injury, he likely would have hit 500 HR's and still could have stole 500 bases as well. He would likely have been a first ballot HOFer without the roids which is what makes him (likely) doing roids so much more confusing. He didn't need to. I read the book "Juicing the Game" by Howard Bryant and in there he stated something along the lines of "steroids can make an average player good and a good player great, but what affect will steroids have on a great player?" Barry Bonds is the example of that. They make the great player superhuman.

Has anyone ever run any quantitative studies that actually document steroids improve performance? I'm not saying they don't, but I'm also not willing to just accept that they can make a great player superhuman (or a good player great). They certainly didn't turn Alex Sanchez into anybody's definition of "great".

 

btw - I understand the theory of making the athlete stronger, quicker, yada, yada, yada. But the mainstream is just as convinced a corked bat will make the ball go further and that just isn't the case when they test it.

 

I am sure Brady Anderson just miraculously figured out how to hit 50 HR, but then forgot how he did it. Same for Luis Gonzalez.

[Guest]

After the 1998 season Barry Bonds had 411 HR's. He also became a member of the 400HR/400SB club during the season. Up to that point he had won 3 MVP awards. Barring a career ending injury, he likely would have hit 500 HR's and still could have stole 500 bases as well. He would likely have been a first ballot HOFer without the roids which is what makes him (likely) doing roids so much more confusing. He didn't need to. I read the book "Juicing the Game" by Howard Bryant and in there he stated something along the lines of "steroids can make an average player good and a good player great, but what affect will steroids have on a great player?" Barry Bonds is the example of that. They make the great player superhuman.

Has anyone ever run any quantitative studies that actually document steroids improve performance? I'm not saying they don't, but I'm also not willing to just accept that they can make a great player superhuman (or a good player great). They certainly didn't turn Alex Sanchez into anybody's definition of "great".

 

btw - I understand the theory of making the athlete stronger, quicker, yada, yada, yada. But the mainstream is just as convinced a corked bat will make the ball go further and that just isn't the case when they test it.

 

I am sure Brady Anderson just miraculously figured out how to hit 50 HR, but then forgot how he did it. Same for Luis Gonzalez.

Just as likely:

 

He took roids to hit 50 home runs, but then either decided not to take roids anymore or they stopped working.

[soccer10k]

After the 1998 season Barry Bonds had 411 HR's. He also became a member of the 400HR/400SB club during the season. Up to that point he had won 3 MVP awards. Barring a career ending injury, he likely would have hit 500 HR's and still could have stole 500 bases as well. He would likely have been a first ballot HOFer without the roids which is what makes him (likely) doing roids so much more confusing. He didn't need to. I read the book "Juicing the Game" by Howard Bryant and in there he stated something along the lines of "steroids can make an average player good and a good player great, but what affect will steroids have on a great player?" Barry Bonds is the example of that. They make the great player superhuman.

Has anyone ever run any quantitative studies that actually document steroids improve performance? I'm not saying they don't, but I'm also not willing to just accept that they can make a great player superhuman (or a good player great). They certainly didn't turn Alex Sanchez into anybody's definition of "great".

 

btw - I understand the theory of making the athlete stronger, quicker, yada, yada, yada. But the mainstream is just as convinced a corked bat will make the ball go further and that just isn't the case when they test it.

 

Steroids alone aren't just going to improve a players performance on the field because the player still has to work at getting better. If you just take steroids and don't work out at all, they aren't going to build muscle mass because you still have to go and lift weights. A baseball player still has to work out to get bigger and stronger.

 

Somebody else mentioned that steroids help a player heal faster and recover from the daily duty of playing a baseball game. Look at a player like Mark McGwire. Nobody will deny that he had home run power - as evidenced by his 49 HR's as a 23 year old rookie in 1987. But he was also known just as much for his inability to stay healthy. He had 4 great years in 1996-1999 in which he hit 42% of his career home runs (245/583). Steroids likely helped McGwire stay healthy. And there have been studies to prove that steroids do help people heal quicker. This also allows athletes to play a baseball game and then go have a hardcore workout in the gym after the game.

 

The other way steroids help is the bat speed. In defense of potential steroid users I always hear "steroids don't help you recognize/hit a curveball or a 95 mph fastball." This is true. But since steroids help make a player stronger, they also help a player swing a bat faster. If you can get your bat through the zone a split second quicker, you have an extra split second to recognize what the pitch is. That split second is the difference between no contact and contact as well as between bad contact and good contact. That makes all the difference in the world. For a player like Barry Bonds, who has the ability to recognize pitches extremely well, that extra split second will allow him to make better contact on the ball more often than he used to and the extra muscle mass from steroids will help him hit the ball harder and subsequently, with the right swing, farther than he used to.

 

I don't know how much Alex Sanchez worked at being a better baseball player. I also can't comment on the workout habits of other players like Brady Anderson and Luis Gonzalez. But I do know that Barry Bonds worked extremely hard at being a better hitter and worked out hard in the gym as well because the Giants (along with the A's) are the home team out here that the newspapers cover. They detail his offseason regimens and talk about how he gets up early to work out. "Game of Shadows" also talks about how Bonds would frequent a gym with Greg Anderson. That's how he became one of the best players in the game and won 3 MVP awards. It's wasn't the steroids. As myself and rawaction said, Bonds would have been a HOFer and likely would have been a first ballot HOFer even if he didn't, allegedly, take steroids. Bonds was a great player anyway and was likely to go down as one of the best to play the game. But because of the steroids he enters into the discussion of being the best hitter the game has ever seen (i.e. superhuman) and did things nobody has ever done before.

 

To quote my original statement: "steroids can make an average player good and a good player great, but what affect will steroids have on a great player?" The key word is "can". Steroids can make an average player good and a good player great. They won't do that every time if the player doesn't continue to work to make himself a better player. And I do firmly believe that Bonds is the example of what could happen if a great player takes steroids.

 

Steroids are almost akin to natural talent. You can have all the natural talent in the world, but if you don't practice and apply yourself, you are never going to reach your potential. Sure, steroids can help you, but if you don't work at what you do, in this case playing baseball, you aren't going to reach the heights you could reach.

[Fro]

He's still on HGH and probably insulin and a lot of the other drugs he was taking. The guy was a great player but he's a huge cheater (and still is).