Make No Mistake, They Hate You: Why It's Worse When Better Players Juice
by jessef on Feb 8, 2012 12:11 PM EST
in Toronto Blue Jays Analysis
Email
PrintWith Tom's recent post asking which former Jay folks would like on their team, the issue of, possibly the most polarizing (nah, that's not the right word, polarizing people can be liked) player the Jays ever had came up quite a bit. I will not say his name because then I'd be tempted to use foul language (which, according to our bylaws here, would be allowed, which, in turn, is why it would be so tempting).
Anyway, this comes up a lot when we discuss players who took advantage of some of the wonders of 20th century biochemical advancements, but I figured it was worth discussing -- if only to see what you all think about it. It's been posited that, because most players had access (and many also took advantage) of the aforementioned external subsidies to performance, it does not make sense to discredit the more exceptional players who did.
However, I think it behooves us to remember how baseball talent is distributed. Now, of course, as one gets to the upper levels, "baseball talent" refers to specialized talents, but I'm pretty sure you all get the idea.
Pardon the obviously crude illustrations.
How much talent each level of play requires:
How talent is distributed:
Now, the point of all this is to illustrate just how good players in the MLB are. Even Jeff Mathis, he of the .194 / .257 / .301 lifetime line (his career OPS was 50 points lower than Jose Bautista's 2011 slugging average), is so far at the tail-end of the distribution that he is likely one of the top 1500 or so players in the world. Considering that there are probably 50 million or so people who play baseball*, the ratio of players worse than Mathis to players better than Mathis is about 33,332 to 1.
Now, keep in mind how much just little differences in talent make. The actual difference in relative talent between a Jeff Mathis and a Kurt Suzuki is extremely small. The difference between a Kurt Suzuki and a Mike Napoli is tiny. The difference between a Mike Napoli and a Brian McCann is miniscule. The difference between Brian McCann and Joe Mauer is microscopic. The difference between Joe Mauer and Mike Piazza is infinitesimal. The difference between Mike Piazza and Mickey Cochrane is practically immeasurable. And yet, the way we actually do purport to measure the differences in those players makes those differences in talent actually seem relatively larger at each step. Which means that small advantages become bigger advantages for players that start at the tail-end of that distribution.
And that's why the fact that he-who-shall-remain-nameless was chemically enhanced elicits such disgust. We're talking about someone who was already at that Mike Piazza level, maybe even above that level. When guys like that cheat, it makes huge differences. Jason Grimsley, probably a fringe major leaguer, parlayed juicing into a respectable major league career. Jay Bell and Bret Boone, solid starters already, became All-Stars. Rafael Palmeiro, a perennial All-Star already, turned a Will Clark-like career into an Eddie Murray-like one and Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire turned 40 HR power in their 20's into 60 HR power in their 30's. But what a bona fide Hall of Famer could do on steroids still boggles the mind. From ages 36 to 40, Barry Bonds posted the four best offensive seasons of his career, with wRC+ between 2001 through 2004: 236, 245, 214, and 234. Roger Clemens, at 34, suddenly went from being a Hall of Famer who'd seemingly entered the twilight of his career to his two seasons with the Jays, during which he posted the best strikeout-rates of his career (against the lowest BABIPs). He went on to win another two Cy Young Awards after leaving the Jays.
Now, regardless of my personal opinion, I'm not trying to say that it is necessarily any morally worse for the best players to cheat. This is a statistical argument, not an ethical one. All I'm saying is that we should never underestimate what can happen when you make changes at the tail end of a distribution.
Thanks to Ted Leo and the Pharmacists for today's post title.
*I am making this number up out of thin air.
61 comments
|
1 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
Great Post
I’ll admit what bugs me most about the man is that when it came out that illegal stuff was delivered to his house, it blamed it on his wife. Only a scum of the highest magnitude do that. Aren’t you supposed to be protecting your wife above all else?
I blog, therefore I am.
by Tom Dakers on Feb 8, 2012 12:32 PM EST reply actions 3 recs
He cheated on his wife with an underage girl
I doubt his wife’s feelings crossed his mind much at all.
Hic sunt fortuna dracones
There is only 1 "n" in Hutchison
I can't disagree with you there
The man bothers me far, far more than the player. But that doesn’t mean the player doesn’t bother me some as well.
"Look at me! I'm Tomokazu Ohka of the Montreal Expos!"
Completely off topic
but I have been reading the auto-biography of Tony Iommi (guitarist for Black Sabbath) and he said that when they were looking for a new singer after Dio left, Michael Bolton actually auditioned for the role (and was, of course, rejected).
Because he’s a no-talent * clown.
"Captain Picard Day is for the children." : Captain Picard
"Wu-Tang is for the children." : ODB
by neilrqm on Feb 8, 2012 1:21 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
nice article
and I’m not sure if anyone actually cares, but I’m trying to get some info on the copyright of my seminar paper on the economics steroids in baseball. if Queen’s tells me I’m allowed to post it (and anyone wants to read it), I will
I would definitely enjoy reading it...
Need a new signature? Why not Zoidberg?
by dannyofbosnia on Feb 8, 2012 10:04 PM EST up reply actions
I don't hate Roger Clemens because he cheated
I hate him because he used to beat the Jays’ brains in as a pitcher for the Red Sox. That and getting Cito fired. Oh, and his time spent as a Yankee. I loved his two Cy Youngs for the Jays’ though.
As for the other “cheaters”, I loved watching them hit homeruns. I loved the McGwire/Sosa chase of Maris’ homerun record. I loved watching every Bonds at-bat.
Hic sunt fortuna dracones
There is only 1 "n" in Hutchison
Do you still love them
Even though thousands of young athletes might say, “Screw my testicles, kidney, liver, brain, and whatever, I’m cheating and taking the ’roids. Bonds, Sosa, and others did it and got a huge boost in performance from it”?
Lots of young athletes will do things to give them an edge that will wreak havoc on their bodies later
It used to be amphetamines (last I checked, those aren’t good for you either), then it became steroids.
Being a professional athlete, in of itself, is probably one of the worst things they can do to their bodies. Pushing your body to its physical limits and beyond for years on end will take a toll. For just one example, pitching is very unnatural and places a great deal of stress on the arm. I’ll wager old, retired pitchers live with arm pain for the rest of their lives.
However, at the end, it’s the choice they make. If they want to ruin their bodies for my entertainment, I don’t really care. The rewards for them are far greater than the rewards I get for going to school for years and racking up thousands in student loans.
Hic sunt fortuna dracones
There is only 1 "n" in Hutchison
Good points all.
I find it odd that in our society we allow people to smoke all the cigarettes, drink all the alcohol and eat all the junk food they like, just for the sake of pleasure, but we forbid steroids - taken in order to do a better job - because they are bad for our health. no inconsistency there
by Defense Counts! on Feb 8, 2012 7:41 PM EST up reply actions
... taken in order to do a better job ...
… should not have been struck out.
by Defense Counts! on Feb 8, 2012 7:48 PM EST up reply actions
Devil's Advocacy
1) I would argue the biggest effect to steroids was that it allowed players to maintain a higher standard of play later in life, where their bodies would otherwise start to break down, and then they move back towards the mean. So for someone like Roger Clemens, it helped him stay Roger Clemens much later than he other wise would have. With hitters, it helped them hit more HR, but they still needed baseball talents like batting eyes, ability to make contact, etc that do not age (or at least to the same extent, as far as I know).
2) The most important question to me is, where do we draw the line between which advances are ethically/morally okay and which are not. Steroids help the body recover more quickly than they otherwise would, but as I said above, they don’t help other baseball skills. Lasik eye surgery improves the vision of players who may have great baseball skills but have below average vision (look at the difference in JPA’s AAA seasons after he had surgery) that inhibits their ability to take see the ball and leverage those skills. So how do we differentiate between a player whose body is below average at physical recovery, which inhibits his overall play and a player whose eyes are below average which similarly inhibits his play? One can have a procedure which remedies his problem, or the other can’t do anything about it? What about Tommy John surgery? A player who blows out his arm because he puts a lot of stress on it throwing better pitches can have the arm repaired, and that’s okay. My point is, why are some of these things routine and accepted, and steroids are magically so morally/ethically bad? They are all “artificial” improvements to a player’s born, innate, natural abilities.
3) You write:
Now, regardless of my personal opinion, I’m not trying to say that it is necessarily any morally worse for the best players to cheat. This is a statistical argument, not an ethical one.But the paragraph above where that is written begins:
And that’s why the fact that he-who-shall-remain-nameless was chemically enhanced elicits such disgust.This seems awfully strong if not making moral/ethical judgment.
by MjwW on Feb 8, 2012 2:07 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
indeed
while we’re at it, jessef makes a strange turn from the underlying assumptions. it’s implicitly noted that everyone has something to gain from steroids (turns players into better players) but that a really good player shouldn’t take because they’re already very good? it’s simple game theory, whether or not it’s right on aggregate
The point isn't that it's morally okay for Jason Grimsley to be on steroids
In fact, I went out of my way to say that it’s not necessarily morally worse for the best players to cheat. The reason it’s statistically worse when the best players are cheating is because cheating alters our perceptions of how those players perform way more than it alters our perception of how mediocre players perform.
Moral exceptions aside, as someone interested in baseball analysis, seeing distortions like that bother me.
"Look at me! I'm Tomokazu Ohka of the Montreal Expos!"
I can understand the concern
On the other hand, the most often comparisons made are historical (Bonds to Ruth, etc etc), and over time the distributions of talent have greatly changed. As the overall talent level moves towards the right tail, the disperation becomes much more compacted. Dan Fox of Baseball Prospectus wrote an interesting article in 2007, The Myth of the Golden Age. I could have sworn that when I read it, there was a link to a Google Books chapter from Gould’s book, which was an interesting read, but I’m sure you can find it if you’re sufficiently interesting (I recall it as being interesting, though a little unfocussed – then again, Gould wasn’t writing for a purely baseball audience).
Disagree with point 3
He is stating the fact that “he-who-shall-remain-nameless” receives such disdain, not making a personal declaration about the morality involved (i.e. the second statement is simply an observation rather than commentary). I suppose he could have used a weaker synonym to disgust … would you feel the same if “dislike” was used?
by Playoffs!!!!1 on Feb 8, 2012 3:35 PM EST up reply actions
Dislike is more neutral
But that’s irrelevant. The disgust is not referring to Clemens, at least the way the sentence is actually constructed (jessef may have intended it to apply to Clemens, I’ll leave it to him to clarify is he desires). The observation of disgust is elicited by "the fact that [he] was chemically enchanced, which has to do with the use of steroids, not Clemens himself.
I think you're missing my point, or maybe just disagree with it
The statement where you are saying he is making a moral/ethical judgement is an observation about the stance of a segment of the population (which the author may or may not be a part of), not an overarching statement of which side of the argument is right or wrong. He is not saying it is disgusting Clemens used steroids, he is saying that is why a segment of the population think it is disgusting Clemens used steroids. The use of the word disgust does point to the author’s personal views on the subject, but as you say, that is irrelevant.
by Playoffs!!!!1 on Feb 8, 2012 4:08 PM EST up reply actions
Alright
I’ve read that statement about 5 times and I can see now what you meant – a passive description of the general view on Clemens. I didn’t read it that way, it’s a plausible construction and probably just bias on my part in the way I read it. So my point #3 ca be ignored.
They is a great documentary on that questions called "Bigger, Faster, Stronger"
It discusses how students can take Rhitalin, men in the Us army take aphetamines, how Tiger had lasik, and despite that, Steroids are criminilized
Need a new signature? Why not Zoidberg?
by dannyofbosnia on Feb 8, 2012 10:10 PM EST up reply actions
Sure
1. The whole point of the article is that athletes on the tail-end of the distribution don’t merely benefit by being able to play longer. Again, Clemens posted the best strikeout-rates of his career in his mid-30’s and Bonds posted the best wRC+ of his career in his late-30’s. That’s not merely maintaining peak performance for longer, it’s drastically raising peak performance at a time when it should be dropping precipitously.
2. I think we can draw the line with steroids pretty easily. The substances were illegal at the time and banned from baseball, to boot This argument is hackneyed. It’s basically akin to saying that steroids are no different than weightlifting, which was not a common practice among MLB players until Honus Wagner did it. If you want to make the argument that MLB should allow steroids, that’s fine, though I’d think most people would disagree because the negative health impacts of long-term steroid usage far outweigh the negative health impacts of Tommy John surgery.
It’s true that being a professional athlete puts a lot of wear-and-tear on the body, but there’s a huge difference between having arm pain and liver failure.
"Look at me! I'm Tomokazu Ohka of the Montreal Expos!"
Steroids were illegal, but at the time they were not explicitly banned from baseball. Ampethamines were widely used throughout baseball for decades, and they were similarly not banned, though illegal. Where’s the outrage about all the players who used them? In the same vein, caffeine is a steroid, which improves the attention span and capacity to perform. The only difference I see is that it’s a legal steroid – it can also result in health problems (addiction to caffeine, heart problems, etc)
I think the comparison to weightlifting is a red herring. It is improving one’s body and ability, but through legitimate hard work that any other player can do as well if they want to put in the effort. There’s absolutely nothing wrong, or artificial about that, which is what I was arguing.
Coming back to the health concerns, since it seems like that’s your main argument for why we can easily draw the line. Now, I’ll disclose that I’m pretty much a libertarian when it comes to the control of substances, since it seems that strongly affects the perception of this issue (steroids and other controlled substances are illegal, largely to the bad effects they have on health in the case of steroids). My basic stance would be, let the players weigh that decision for themselves, the costs against the benefits. A player who makes the majors, even if they just stick around as a back-up, will earn millions. If steroids are the difference between making it and not making it, then maybe the player dies at 60 of liver failure instead of 80, but they live a higher quality life for the shorter time, and guarantee their children a better education, etc. It might not be the choice that you or I would make, but it seems to me that to say that choice is inherently wrong is to cast a value judgment, which is inherently morally/ethically based. Now, I’m not saying it’s wrong to do that, just that you can’t separate moral and ethical judgments from making judgments about “artificial enhancements”.
And fwiw, it’s not limited to baseball either, these same moral judgments are involved in a lot of medical decisions. We don’t need to go there for the purposes of this discussion, other than to note that I don’t think it’s nearly as clear cut as what you are maintaining.
Oh, I don't think it is clear-cut in the absolute sense
but in the sense of, “What should be considered cheating?” I think there’s a pretty sound reasoning that players who used steroids cheated.
There are, of course, numerous other factors at play. I do think the laissez-faire attitude that you suggest is a bad idea, partially because I think it sends the wrong message to millions of kids who will never become major leaguers.
"Look at me! I'm Tomokazu Ohka of the Montreal Expos!"
this was one thing I really wanted to explore in my paper, the externalities
but I didn’t have the time nor resources to make it happen, so I kind of had to throw it in as an afterthought. that was pretty disappointing
Yeah, kind of difficult to internalize them all
still, looking forward to reading it. hope you can get it posted soon.
"Look at me! I'm Tomokazu Ohka of the Montreal Expos!"
going to go to the copyright office tomorrow
the department head said I probably hold the copyrights, but I should just make sure. I’ll try to post it sometime tomorrow!
by benk on Feb 8, 2012 9:05 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
Were players who took ampthamines cheaters?
Because I guarantee you plenty of stars took them for decades, and they would have done the same things to the talent curves, at least in relation to players who didn’t.
The greenie thing is a bit different
It’s still cheating, but it’s a different kind of cheating. Go back before they were a banned substance and I don’t think it was cheating at that time. As Walter Sobchak said,
There are rules.
"Look at me! I'm Tomokazu Ohka of the Montreal Expos!"
Sorry, I can't get on board with this
It’s still cheating, but it’s a different kind of cheating.
What exactly does this mean? Players who took ampethamines prior to 2006 (when testing began) were still taking an illegal substance for the express purpose of improving their baseball abilities. That is the exact same situation as players who took steroids prior to testing – like, for example, Roger Clemens. I fail to see how one is better, or worse, than the other.
When you say go back to before they were a banned substance, it’s unlcear to me what exactly what you mean – banned by baseball or banned legally? If the former, it’s the exact same as steroids. If it’s the latter, I haven’t been able to find exactly when they a controlled substance, but its got to be at least a couple decades before baseball began testing for them in 2006 (from what I’ve seen, they were illegal during at least parts of the 70s, so at least 30 years).
from what I can tell
baseball cracked down on greenies and cocaine in the late 80s, so continuing to take them past then, while no more “illegal”, is pretty expressly more “wrong”
If you are not going to distinguish
between popping a greenie to relieve a hangover or jetlag and engineering an entire offseason regimen to build more muscle mass, it’s not worth continuing the discussion.
And, whether or not you agree with me here, MLB does. According to the MLB Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment program, amphetamines are not considered a performance-enhancing substance, they are considered a stimulant, with regulations, testing, and enforcement as such. So, yes, it is absolutely a different kind of cheating.
Also, for the record, I was referring to a time when the MLB took an official stance on greenies but before they actually started testing for them.
"Look at me! I'm Tomokazu Ohka of the Montreal Expos!"
But that's the rub
As I understand it, most of the players who used greenies didn’t pop them once and a while the way one might use an aspirin to occasionally relieve the headache. Maybe some of them did, but as I understand it it, a good number used them systematically, night in and night out in order to maintain and improve their performance over the course and grind of a 162 game schedule. So amphehamines were used systemically for 6 months in-season, and steroids were used systemically for 6 months in the off-season. Both were used for the express purpose of improving the performance on the field.
As for MLB, I’m not very interested in what they label as performance-enhancing on paper – I’m interesting in how they regulate and punish use. They may not call them “performance-enhancing substances” because they have another scientific name for them, but if they are not performance enhancing, why does baseball regulate and pnish the use of them? The second positive test for them results in a suspension of 25 games, which granted is less punative than positive tests for steroids, but a serious offense nonetheless.
And coming back to the original topic, your problem with steroid use by very good players was that it had bigger relative effects on better players – amphetamins would do the exact same, though as I understand it the magnitude of the effect is smaller than steroids.
I don't know that "stimulant" is such a "scientific name"
The drugs involved work in different ways and produce very different effects. As I said before, amphetamines are cheating, but they are a different type of cheating, which seems to have affected the game — and particularly the statistics that players produced — markedly less than steroids. Furthermore, the differences between the steroid and amphetamine policies are quite dramatic: steroids are a 50 game suspension for the first positive test. With amphetamines, players names aren’t even released until the second positive test, at which point it is only a 25-game suspension. So, while MLB does take amphetamine use seriously, it does not view it as nearly as bad as steroids. You’re welcome to disagree with MLB, but I don’t think what you’ve been maintaining is consistent with their policy at all.
And, yes, in the spirit of the article, greenies likely had a greater effect on the better players so greenie usage by star players also distorts our view of the game more than usage by average players; however, as you yourself say, the magnitude of that distortion seems to be far greater when considering steroid usage, which is what the whole point of the article is.
"Look at me! I'm Tomokazu Ohka of the Montreal Expos!"
What this really comes down to a difference in worldview. You are looking at practical effects and trying to draw lines on that basis, which I find by nature arbitrary (according to the individual) and there’s really no way to definitively say, this is okay, this is not, or at least frame those kind of distinctions with meaningful and coherent criteria .
I start with incentives – I see pursuing incentives as human nature, and I have a hard time condemning people for following the powerful incentives put in place by a system. It’s really difficult for me to say I would have necessarily done differently, because I’ve never been faced with similarly massive potential payoffs, so I find it difficult to judge. For a poor Latin American player, they might be the difference between getting off the proverbial island and escaping crushing poverty. Not saying it’s right, but I completely understand why they do. Throughout baseball history, there have always been players trying to gain an advantage through whatever means necessary – spitballs, scuffing the ball, etc. Steroids were really just the next step. And I’d argue that MLB was at least complicit in the use, because they liked the big HR numbers. It was great business, until it wasn’t. Then suddenly they had a problem.
I prefer to try and put a conceptual framework together, in order to make more objective distinctions. By nature, this will somewhat obscure the gray areas, but once you have a high-level framework you can make smaller distinctions. So if we start with a legality screen, we have two activities that were both illegal, and not banned by the MLB. Now, context and magnitude matter, just as there’s a meaningful difference between stealing a loaf of bread and robbing a bank. But, both activities were done with the explicit intent of obtaining an unnatural advantage over opponents, and so I cannot see them as very different from a moral/ethical standpoint. I don’t really think there’s a large distinction, at least one where you can say, the motives were different, etc. The effects weren’t as big, but so what? The intent was the same. Had they had more powerful substances to use, I imagien they would have, because the incentives were the same. Maybe this is ideological, but I don’t really think so. You’ve also suggested a health screen, in terms of harm to the player. That would separate some activities from another in meaningful way. I personally don’t like the health screen, though for purely ideological reasons – the decisions people make that affect their health are their own. So long as there are not large direct externalities affecting others (it would be difference if they caused communicable health problems). That said, I’m not sure what factors I’d use to draw the line myself. The legality one makes sense, but not it’s own. Whenever I start thinking about this, I get deep into philosophical concepts of fairness, equity, technology, etc, so it’s not an easy topic. But I’m wary to draw arbitrary (meaning case-by-case) lines, because everyone will do it differently and it’s doesn;t seem particularly robust from an analystical perspective.
As for the magnitude of the distortion – we’ll never really know.
Just as we don’t really have any systemic understanding of PEDs, beyond some players who posted crazy power numbers. A number of observers believe the falloff in offense is realted to the testing of amphetamines, though similarly there’s nothing concrete there. But I’d agree the effect is larger than convetionally thought.
I don't understand where you're going with this
If anything, that suggests to me that amphetamine usage is not as serious as anabolic steroid usage.
"Look at me! I'm Tomokazu Ohka of the Montreal Expos!"
Well, all I was doing was just correcting my mis-usage of the term.
I’m not an expert in science, much less the science of steroids, but even if the health consequences are not as large, and even if the performance enhancing aspects are not as large, it is still artifically enhacing one’s performance (going back to my original post). And my original point was, where do you draw the line. You’ve draw the line at steroids, somewhat draw the line at amphetamines (cheating, but a different kind) and everything thing else is permissable. I don’t see a particularly meaningful line between steroids and amphetamines, and I’m not sure there is a meaningful distinction between artifical steroid enhancements and other forms of enhancements, from a moral/ethical standpoint of having a level playing field (certainly, as you point out, some of these are safer for players than others, I’m not particularly interested in that because people can make decisions for themselves and live with the consequences of their actions in my view).
I would be curious on your opinion of the following. A while back, I read an article on growing trends of univeristy and high school students illegally purchasing Adderall (on the black market) to use when studying and taking tests – in increases the ability to focus. Relative to other students who don’t break the law, they are at an advantage. Is this cheating (or academic misconduct)? Is this fair? Should there be testing and and should those who test positive without prescription be sanctioned (ignore practical considerations)? For the record, my answers are yes, no, and unsure, but leaning yes. And I don’t see this as very different at all from taking steroids in baseball.
Yes, you're right, you have to draw a line somewhere
I think the problem here is the argument which you made (not to pick on you or anyone, particularly as you identified it as a devil’s advocacy) relies heavily on ideology, when, in fact, there are always going to be shades of grey.
I don’t know that I’d say “everything else is permissible” but certainly most of the “enhancements” you referred to are. I think it’s rarer than people think that pitchers actually deliberately go through Tommy John surgery and I’d imagine that any pitcher who does likely regrets doing so at some point.
I think the safeness of a practice does need to be incorporated into the ethical standpoint, simply because if something is perfectly safe (obviously nothing is technically perfectly safe, but I’m sure you get the drift, again, we’re not entertaining ideological arguments because they are impractical) other athletes do not need to impose harm on themselves merely to “keep pace” in that aspect.
As to my feelings on adderall, I do think it’s cheating and I’m pretty sure it’s almost certainly against most university policies. It is unfair, and not only because it favors students who have the money and access to the drugs over those who don’t (though I think anyone who argued that it didn’t would be wrong). I do not think there should be testing, though, if a university instituted a testing policy, I’d think there should be some sort of consequences (likely just a warning the first time, though with mandatory treatment). On a personal level, I took an adderall once and it made me so distracted that all I did was unbutton and rebutton my shirt for four hours straight. I think adderall is analogous to amphetamines and institutionalized cheating in fraternities as analogous to steroids. Though I’ll admit that I’m biased against both steroids and fraternities as a general rule.
"Look at me! I'm Tomokazu Ohka of the Montreal Expos!"
well, that may have been poorly worded
perhaps I should have said that I’m biased against douchebag fraternities as a general rule. Very nice work on your paper, by the way!
"Look at me! I'm Tomokazu Ohka of the Montreal Expos!"
I responded for most of this above, because I think it fit well with the rest
My argument wasn’t that pitchers would have Tommy John to intentionally gain an advantage (and I think that intent is a meaningful criteria in drawing lines), but that’s an artificial intervention that can change the relative talent distribution and the playing field.
By this I mean, before TJ surgery, if a player blew out the UCL he was done, and his career was basically over as a player. As a result, pitchers wanted to avoid the surgery. So if they had a really good curve or slider, maybe they didn;‘t use it much to avoid taxing the arm. Today, though, with TJ surgery and recovery, pitchers can use their whole arsenal, and if they blow out the arm, their career isn’t over. Which probably means more pitching effort, and better results (at the expense of hitters). Now, maybe this just raises the replacement level, but there’s still an effect. Personally, fwiw, I don’t have a problem with Tommy John surgery – there’s no evidence it makes the player better, it’s only restorative and not even in all cases. And importantly, there’s no intent – guys don’t want to blow out their pitching arms/elbows. But, it’s part of a continuum.
As for the adderall, I have nothing to add, except a personal thoughts. First, in my view, making a policy against something, and not have testing but basically useless. It relies on individual ethics, and raw incentives will almost always trump that, at least for a significant eough minority that it will induce others to want to do it to keep up lest they fall behind. It’s just simple game theory – it’s not an equilbrium, and really, the same thing that happened with amphetamines and steroids. Is it a cynical, and a dim view of humanity? Yep, but it is what it is. Maybe it’s not enough of a problem to need testing, but that just means the drugs aren;t effective enough. Eventually, there will be more effective ones, and we’ll see what happens. In a related event, as someone with somwehat borderline ADHD (never sought diagnosis, but I had enough teachers with experience tell me I exhibited similar symptoms), I’ve often wondered what adderall would do for me. But I prefer to avoid drugs unless absolutely necessary, and while I can massive problems focussing on tasks, I also benefit from the way my brain is wired, and I’m not sure I would even want things to be different (on the whole). I’m not a grass is always greener type, but again, that comes down to making personal decisions about costs and benefits, and the incentives and consequences I face.
I really don't see how it is practical to test for something like adderall
it’s also used as a club drug so how would universities discern between recreational use and studying use? And if you decide to enforce it for both, that implicitly provides an incentive (to use your terminology) for clubbers to use ecstasy or meth. I think that the incentive you provide is that you tell everyone why they shouldn’t use adderall to study and leave it at that.
And, yes, you’re right that times have changed. The point here is that there are rules that you are supposed to play by. I don’t hold it against Ed Delahanty that he played against predominantly white people. I do hold it against Cap Anson that he helped institute that rule (as long as I know, Delahanty did not). Whether I agree or disagree with the rules is irrelevant in terms of who is and who isn’t cheating — we aren’t talking about civil disobedience and apartheid here, we’re talking about grown men playing a kids’ game.
"Look at me! I'm Tomokazu Ohka of the Montreal Expos!"
We’re talking about someone who was already at that Mike Piazza level
Oh the ironing.
"We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct."
- Niels Bohr
Sorry, unauthorized hotlinking of copyrighted material not permitted.
Every year around the Hall announcements
The talk on MLB radio turns to steroids for a couple of weeks. I think baseball should take a different approach to the issue. I think MLB should have doctors and researchers discover what the best, and safest enhancers are, and come up with an approved supplement plan that will bring out the very best in the athletes, with the absolute minimum in side effects. create a level playing field that way.
MLB could then just announce that it is a new era in baseball, and player achievements are not comparable to those in the era before it. that would solve all the dysfunction that is going to take over the Hall vote starting next year.
I’m not so quick to just dismiss performance enhancers as simply cheating. They reduce recovery time from injury and fatigue, allow athletes to perform at peak levels consistently, and allow star quality players to be effective players into their forties. Over a twenty year stretch, that would be a huge collection of talent at one time, baseball would be looking at a golden age. I’m not at all convinced that getting rid of them is the best course of action for the sport.
When guys like that cheat, it makes huge differences.
Interesting article – it’s funny that this small sample of the population at the extreme high end of talent benefit the most from taking steroids. For these guys, it could means more years, more money playing pro ball – huge incentive.
For me, I might hit clean up in my softball beer league.
Let me get this straight
I can say Roger Clemens is a piece of shit?
Cool!
Man who has four balls cannot walk
by Beer Leaguer on Feb 8, 2012 5:29 PM EST via Android app reply actions
Buck Martinez
"We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct."
- Niels Bohr
Sorry, unauthorized hotlinking of copyrighted material not permitted.
Whoa Jessef
I thought of the same graphs last night. Good thing one of us decided to get off the couch to write an article! Great job as always.
Follow me @Minor_Leaguer
And I admit it.
I took performance-enhancing drugs to make it up to Michael Bolton level baseball.
Follow me @Minor_Leaguer
by Minor Leaguer on Feb 8, 2012 9:18 PM EST up reply actions 2 recs
I took performance-enhancing drugs to make it up to Michael Bolton level baseball.
Did it help you in baseball leagues on the seven seas?
"We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct."
- Niels Bohr
Sorry, unauthorized hotlinking of copyrighted material not permitted.
Just as long
as you were better than Garth Brooks
"Look at me! I'm Tomokazu Ohka of the Montreal Expos!"
hi everyone
my paper is now posted in a FanPost. you can find it here: http://www.bluebirdbanter.com/2012/2/9/2786946/benks-honours-paper-the-economics-of-performance-enhancing-drugs-in
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Recommended FanPosts
Recent FanPosts
Baseball Nation Recent Stories
In Association With
Big League Stew - MLB - Yahoo! Sports
- The Juice: Nelson Cruz matches career high eight RBIs, Pujols stays hot in Seattle
- Benches clear at Fenway as Red Sox-Rays rivalry heats up
- Keeping good company: Albert Pujols becomes fourth-youngest player to hit 450 home runs
- Giancarlo Stanton misses cutoff man, and Logan Morrison is thankful he did (Video)
- Snoop Dogg delivers memorable first pitch at U.S. Cellular Field
