My 2013 Hall of Fame Ballot Would Be...

[brewcrewdue80]

I think a lot of these "Attached stigma to Steroids"' HOF ballot players will be held out for as long as possible awaiting the day the truth is exposed finally by someone else other than Canseco's musings. It took 5 long years to finally expose Armstrong with riders stepping up and confessing the truth.

These players may not come forward on their own but others may come out and tell their side. So rather than 1st ballot these 1st ballot HOFs on a stats perspective as well as in their prime being the best in their game, I see the Writers holding out. Some day someone will tell it all on one or more of the Steroid accused. How they did it, with whom they shared doing it with.

Maybe it will be 15years down the line or 20 and the majority of these steroids users are passing away, and it's as a long term effect of steroid abuse. Someone will accuse MLB of knowing all of their steroid usage, ignoring it for the sake of the game, but rather than restrict it with the obvious improvements it gave they turned the heads let it go not for once considering the health ramifications and here I lie in my hospital about to die.

That's how I see this eventually playing out, should the Steroid use leave a long term effect on their health.

It's like all the data coming up on NFL concussions and head injuries.

Down the road this will all be exposed either fully or in some way.

 

I am all for the writers leaving these players out for the next 8/9 votes. Seeing how this upcoming decade plays out with the lack of 50HR guys or will the cream accomplish 50HR seasons again. Stanton or Trout could be the players that make the steroid era seem legit if they go for 50+

[Ennder]

I did hear one interesting argument for putting them in the HOF. Baseball players have been cheating since the game was invented. Throwing games for gamblers, spit balls, scuffing the ball, stealing signs, taking greenies, being insulting to players of other race, spiking with cleats etc. All of these things probably break the character flaw. It isn't really fair to make a distinction on steroids just because it was more effective when the only reason these older players did not do the same is because they could only use what was available to them at the time. At the end of the day all of these players used whatever they could to get an advantage even if it was against the rules or against the law.

 

That player who did greenies to bounce back faster would have used steroids most likely if it were available. In effect these players are being punished for playing when they happened to play. I think the guy has a pretty valid point that the character clause itself probably should just be removed and it turned into a more historical award since it has been ignored for most of history so far.

[LouisEly]

Well it's not a great study you can look at all the players named in the Mitchell Report and see that most of them stayed pretty crappy. There are definitely some players who took steroids and it correlated with their career years, but correlation does not imply causation. I can see steroids having some minimal impact, I just think it is totally overblown and unproven. Even adding 15-20 HR is a huge effect unsupported by any credible evidence.

 

I also think there was just something going on in the league during the years that home runs peaked (whether expansion, or pitching quality, or a juiced ball, whatever). For example, who was third in MLB in 1998 behind McGwire and Sosa? Ken Griffey Jr. with a career-best 56 HR. I have never seen anyone accuse Griffey of taking steroids, and he had a major power spike in the same years.

 

1) No one is saying that steroids will make any random player a HoF-er. However, players have said that there were players who took PEDs hoping to gain the edge that would get them a major-league roster spot instead of a AAA roster spot. The difference in salary between the majors and minors was worth the risk to them. The point is whether steroids make you a better player - if they can turn an All-Star into a HoF-er, a random bench player into a starter (and a $30M contract), or AA-AAA fodder into a major league roster spot (making $500K/year instead of $50K/year).

 

B) There will be a handful of players in every generation who are going to be among the greatest of all time. The spike with KGJ though corresponded with his peak physical years (age 26 to 29), not his mid-late 30's. Looking at pure HR numbers it would appear to be a spike, however he was injured almost every year after age 30 and missed a lot of games; his SLG in 1999 when he hit 48 HRs was the same as 2005 when he hit 35 HRs and similar to 2003 when he hit 13 HRs but was hurt most of the year. He had a bit of a spike 2003-2005 in SLG, but that also corresponded with the opening of the "band box" stadium known as Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati in 2003 where he was playing at the time. Otherwise he had a fairly gradual decline in SLG after age 30.