Did steroids really change baseball?

I think that baseball was invented so that statisticians would have something to think about while they jerk off.

 

Steroids have never helped a player square up a baseball. Power hitters are power hitters, with or without the juice. If they could not get good wood on the ball before taking steroids, they still could not after. And, by the way, pitchers were juicing as well. I think it all evened out.

 

Sweet. We return to the airtight "NERDS!!11!!" argument.

 

Dude. Come on.

 

Did steroids affect home run totals? Yes. Did the ball affect home run totals? Probably.

But what's never talked about is the effect of expansion on the home runs -- especially in the 1998-2001 period. Home run totals went up in every expansion period, significantly so in 1961-2, 1977 and 1993. The only time it didn't skyrocket was in the 1969 expansion, but that also came the year after the Year Of The Pitcher, so in a sense, they did.

Adding Arizona and Tampa Bay just five years after the previous expansion threw the pitching balance in the leagues completely out of whack. Note that I didn't say diluted, because over time, pitching dilution takes care of itself when the quality pitchers become more balanced out over all of the rosters.

But that's not true in the first few years after an expansion. Some of the teams that struggled with their pitching in the year or two before an expansion are going to get worse and the expansion teams themselves are going to be generally awful at first (though free agency helped Arizona get better quicker). The result is that sluggers can feast on those shit rotations and bullpens.

I think the "settling" effect of that era on the 30 teams' rosters is happening now. I think it's as big, if not a bigger, reason than steroid testing that home run totals are down in the last few seasons.

 

Are you debating this?

 

If you are stronger, you have a quicker bat, thus you can get around on many more pitches than you would have if you were not on the juice.

 

Or if you used a lighter bat. Or if you were not facing Roger Clemens or any number of the pitchers that were also on the junk. I think steroids helped already good hitters, but did not make any .200 hitters into guys that hit 40 bombs. For example, Brady Anderson. He could already get the bat on the ball before he hit 50+ home runs. Bonds, Palmiero, McGwire, etc. already could hit before they got on the juice.

 

Most of the new parks -- the HOK cookie-cutters -- have shown increased numbers of home runs, with a few glaring exceptions, like the original configuration of Comerica Canyon.

That's one factor. Steroids are another.

Hitting strategies, maple bats, etc etc are others.

 

I used a maple bat in my 38 and over league and it did make a pretty significant difference. I think the watered-down pitching from expansion is also a reason the numbers went up, like the poster said above.

 

Brady Anderson went from 16 home runs to 50. He never hit more than 24 again.

You're right. Steroids typically didn't turn lightweights into power hitters. Which is why I speculated that their effect on home run totals was quite top-heavy.

 

Areed. I liked how, I think it was at the 2004 All-Star Game, Sosa was in the Home Run Derby. He kept talking about how he was clean, then went out and hit 550-foot home runs when everyone else was hitting 400-footers. I would agree it made the power hitters hit more, and hit them further.