Baseball Musings: Triple Excitement

March 22, 2005

Triple Excitement

Alex Belth notes his and Rich Lederer's excitement at Jason Giambi's triple. Giambi is batting .294 this spring with a .559 slugging percentage and a .444 OBA. He's drawn nine walks and struck out eight times. If Jason comes anywhere near these numbers in the regular season it would boost the New York offense even higher. It would also call into question how much steroids really help a ballplayer.

Giambi's a test case. Can a clean player perform as well as when he was using? Jason is doing well this spring. I'd like to see him sustain these levels for the whole season.

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Posted by David Pinto at 11:54 AM | Players | TrackBack (0)

Comments

Any good modern scientist knows that if the theory is not supported by the facts, reinterpret the facts...

If Giambi has a big year it will only mean that the cheaters should be banned for life, since it will now be clear that the advantages don't wear off... Use 'em once (even by accident) and you're contaminated for life...

Hey there's an idea-- why don't we start an "unclean" league to see whether the fans actually care? It can be like the NL vs AA in the 1800's-- beer and Sunday ball vs. thuggery and intimidation... There's a nucleus of experienced umpires availiable, and some of them are pretty seriously expanded too...

But seriously folks do we even have a clue if or how quickly the "competitive advantage wears off?" I've never heard even a hint of such a study...

Posted by: john swinney at March 22, 2005 12:29 PM

How do we know he's not still on the juice?

Posted by: Mike at March 22, 2005 12:55 PM

This is Spring Training. Who cares what he is doing in terms of stats. How many people have had great spring trainings because of pitching and lack of game plans and when the season started were down in the Mendoza line?

Posted by: John at March 22, 2005 01:16 PM

Swinney, that is one of the stupidest posts I've ever read on here.

John is right, Spring Training means absolutely nothing as far as predicting someone's season goes.

Posted by: sabernar at March 22, 2005 01:25 PM

The triple was a routine flyball that Casey Blake completely misplayed. This is an example of why triples should be treated with kid gloves when discussing a batter's power ability. The ball Giambi hit should have been nothing more than a long out caught before the warning track.

Posted by: J.P. McIntyre at March 22, 2005 03:37 PM

Well, I think Bonds was probably clean last year, and he seemed to do just as well. I agree that it probably means that you don't necessarily need to be *on* the drugs to receive the residual benefits. It's partly why I think the testing regimes in the NFL and MLB miss the mark, as 65% of the strength and muscle gained during off-season use would be retained, thus leading to a performance benefit.

Which is not to say that I favor off-season testing of pro athletes--I don't.

And I predict that we'll see fewer than 5 suspensions this year.

Posted by: Tim Schultz at March 22, 2005 03:38 PM

Tim, you are absolutely correct, except about the 5 suspensions. That is completely ridiculous that you even attempted to predict how many players will be suspended! Honestly Tim, admit that you made that comment to sound educated, when rather you made yourself sound mentally impaired! You (alongside every other common man in this nation) have no clue how many players have used steroids during their MLB careers, therefore possessing no knowledge whatsoever about how many players will be brought down.

Posted by: Danny Hurst at March 22, 2005 04:10 PM

J.P., I think the point was that Giambi was running hard the whole time, meaning his knees were in pretty good shape.

Posted by: David Pinto at March 22, 2005 04:49 PM

Sabermar I'm a little disturbed that you thought it was stupid-- it was meant to be silly.

I'm not even sure whether you thought I was serious or whether you thought I should have been serious?

I was serious about thinking its interesting that there hasn't been much if any discuassion as to whether a player who stops taking steroids altogether really returns to his "prejuiced" level of play.

The Oversight committee either believes or wants us to believe it believes that half a million highschool athletes are on steroids, and that this is a consequence of _their_ belief that major leaguers take 'em.

But no one has claimed that the minor league testing system is inadequate-- so it seems reasonable to ask whether it is possible to juice in school and enhance your chances of getting to the majors without having to juice in the minors? Or whether there are any circumstances in which use outside of testing can improve your performance after you return to testing? Would it be a good career move to play in Taiwan or Columbia for a year or two to be untested while you build up your physique? (Or does WADA already rule everywhere else?) If we're designing systems to prevent something, shouldn't we establish what it is and what prevents it as part of the process?

I think and have said that the whole fuss is about A.) demagoguery and B.) the desire of WADA have all the power in the field without having to represent any constituency-- the equivalent of privatized prison management, only without the drawback of actually having to mangage prisoners. Whatever real issues there are are being ignored in favor of "Burn 'em-- Hang 'em High!" and "Just let us handle it-- we're the Best Practice." And so I think one of the appropriate responses is to encourage the debate to focus on "what is known" before it gets to "who's going to take the blame?" and "who gets to make money in the name of fixing this?"

If this is stupid, educate me?

Posted by: john swinney at March 23, 2005 02:18 PM

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