Impact of Steroids on HR Stats (1 Viewer)

[oso diablo]

Been wondering about the effect of steroid usage on baseball stats, particularly that of Home Runs. Not entirely sure if we can figure it out with any reasonable certainty, but i wanted to dive deeper into the numbers.

The first thing i looked at was the # of homers per team (or, more accurately, HR/game) throughout baseball history. There's a solid, almost linear trend upward, looking at 1901-2009, with an obvious bump in the late 90 / early 00s - the so-called Steroid Era. Trying to sift out those years, i think a reasonable baseline for the modern game is 1 HR per game per team.

Next, i took the difference between the observed values in the Steroid Years and that 1.0 baseline. The peak gap was year 2000 (in somewhat of a surprise, as Bonds hit his 73 a year later, and the MLB leader in 2000 only had 50 HR), a full 17% above the baseline. Now here's where it gets really tricky. We can't just deflate all the HR totals by 17% for that season, as we can reasonably assume that not every player was juiced. Was it 50%, 25%? I don't really know. But in the end, i decided to take the HR inflation league-wide, and multiply it by 3. So, continuing the 2000 example, take the 17% x 3, and you get 51%. I then took that new number, and deflated the HR amounts for players in question like McGwire, Sosa, Bonds, etc.

Repeat this process for all the inflated years.

Results: Bonds loses almost 100 homers, finishing just ahead of Willie Mays on the career HR leaderboard. He doesn't break the single-season record, peaking in the mid-50s. That all feels about right to me, a statement many may find wholly unsatisfying. BTW, if you doubt it's plausible that a guy would post career best power-numbers in his mid to late 30s, please review the record of one Hank Aaron, who posted career bests in OPS, OPS+ and Homers at age 37.

(I will post some others later.)

 

[Tau837]

There are two issues that could help increase HRs. One is improved strength. The other is improved health, meaning power hitters got more at bats. I assume you are addressing both here, right?

Assuming so, these issues that have to be addressed to answer this question IMO:

1. What about the fact that pitchers were on steroids? We can't assume it had no effect. Even if we discount increased velocity, PEDs could have enabled better pitchers to throw more innings.

2. How can you be sure you are adequately accounting for continuing evolution of everything that goes into staying healthy and performing well? Things like continuing improvements in understanding of and application of proper nutrition, training, sleep, film, travel, etc. In other words, that you have accounted for the right amount of improvement that would have occurred without any PEDs.

 

[TLEF316]

In my personal opinion, the body armor that Bonds wore had almost as much to do with his home run spike as the steroids did. Because of that monstrosity that he wore on his right elbow, he was allowed to hang over the entire plate without fear. There was basically only an 8 inch x 8 inch area where you could pitch to him.

Of course, once you threw it to that area, the steroids played a big part in him jerking it into McCovey cove. I've never seen bat speed that fast, and thats not something that improves naturally at age 35.

 

[oso diablo]

There are two issues that could help increase HRs. One is improved strength. The other is improved health, meaning power hitters got more at bats. I assume you are addressing both here, right?Assuming so, these issues that have to be addressed to answer this question IMO:1. What about the fact that pitchers were on steroids? We can't assume it had no effect. Even if we discount increased velocity, PEDs could have enabled better pitchers to throw more innings.2. How can you be sure you are adequately accounting for continuing evolution of everything that goes into staying healthy and performing well? Things like continuing improvements in understanding of and application of proper nutrition, training, sleep, film, travel, etc. In other words, that you have accounted for the right amount of improvement that would have occurred without any PEDs.

good questions. first, i purposely did NOT account for improved health, mostly because i really didn't know how to analyze that. I agree that it's real (it's the stated reason these guys take PEDs in the first place). I'm not sure there's enough of a control period to compare to.1. Not sure what to do with this either. It's definitely not a simple problem here. Open to suggestions.2. That's where the linear uptick in HR/game comes into play. I wish i knew how to post a graph; it's pretty interesting to see.

 

[oso diablo]

Results: Bonds loses almost 100 homers, finishing just ahead of Willie Mays on the career HR leaderboard. He doesn't break the single-season record, peaking in the mid-50s. That all feels about right to me, a statement many may find wholly unsatisfying. BTW, if you doubt it's plausible that a guy would post career best power-numbers in his mid to late 30s, please review the record of one Hank Aaron, who posted career bests in OPS, OPS+ and Homers at age 37.

(I will post some others later.)

Others...Sosa - loses 94 HR, dropping from 609 career to 515.

Palmeiro - loses 74 HR, from 569 to 495

'

McGwire - loses 61 HR, from 583 to 522

btw, the years of adjustment were 1995-2009

 

[Chairshot]

It's an interesting idea, but I don't think you can take the numbers across MLB and then apply them to individual players. As you said, we don't know who was juicing and who wasn't. The jump in HR totals could have been basically from 40% of the players. Or 80%. Or 90%. We don't know because we really don't know how many were juicing.

Further, just because we see a bump in HR numbers across the game over a couple years, doesn't mean that players weren't juicing outside those year (or were juicing inside those years).

Also, looking only at HRs only tells part of the story. It's very likely that steroid use had a high impact on the number of doubles hit. Additionally, more power makes a player more feared, which could very likely lead to a higher OBP as pitchers pitch around them.

And, of course, we have pitchers to deal with, as well.

I think we can analyze the era, for sure, and see the rough impact that roids had on the game. I think what you did here helps look at the era and is valuable in that way. I'm not sure how much it helps us when looking at individual hitters.

 

[oso diablo]

i agree that it's quite complicated, but i'm not satisfied leaving the stats where they are (from an analytical standpoint), nor just tossing them all out the window and throwing my hands up in the air. I think if we are seriously going to come to grips with the PED era, then we have to start thinking through these issues, and making some calls.

 

[Genghis Khan]

What a messed up situation baseball has created for itself. This for a sport which has placed the highest emphasis on statistics.

 

[culdeus]

There are two issues that could help increase HRs. One is improved strength. The other is improved health, meaning power hitters got more at bats. I assume you are addressing both here, right?

Assuming so, these issues that have to be addressed to answer this question IMO:



1. What about the fact that pitchers were on steroids? We can't assume it had no effect. Even if we discount increased velocity, PEDs could have enabled better pitchers to throw more innings.

2. How can you be sure you are adequately accounting for continuing evolution of everything that goes into staying healthy and performing well? Things like continuing improvements in understanding of and application of proper nutrition, training, sleep, film, travel, etc. In other words, that you have accounted for the right amount of improvement that would have occurred without any PEDs.

Didn't someone post an article on this site that said basically pitchers on steroids actually helped out HR production? The logic and stuff there made some sense at the time, but I can't find it.

 

[Genedoc]

In my personal opinion, the body armor that Bonds wore had almost as much to do with his home run spike as the steroids did. Because of that monstrosity that he wore on his right elbow, he was allowed to hang over the entire plate without fear. There was basically only an 8 inch x 8 inch area where you could pitch to him.Of course, once you threw it to that area, the steroids played a big part in him jerking it into McCovey cove. I've never seen bat speed that fast, and thats not something that improves naturally at age 35.

Agreed. I was stunned that many more players didn't mysteriously suffer from elbow ailments that allowed them to carry a pavise to the plate.

 

[Bottomfeeder Sports]

Why Bother?

The term "juiced" for baseball players certainly predates steroids and what are we going to do with gene doping?

 

[dparker713]

This methodology is complete conjecture and entirely worthless. It is no more or less supported than McGwire's contention that steroids only helped him remain healthy.

 

[oso diablo]

This methodology is complete conjecture and entirely worthless. It is no more or less supported than McGwire's contention that steroids only helped him remain healthy.