Mitchell steroid probe; Latest - Clemens headed to Court; Congress

[Robideaux]

In 1998, Vaughn's age 32 season, he hit 50 HR & set his career-high .597 SLG%. 1999 saw 45 bombs. In general, a player's peak power comes around his age 27-29 years, not as late as Greg's.

TooLiveBrew,

I'm not trying to defend Vaughn (because I have absolutely no idea what he has or has not done), but just anecdotally I can think of a number of players whose power numbers got better on the wrong side of 30 (Hank Aaron, for example). Is it possible that the peak power actually comes a little bit later than 27-29 (or at least that an uptick in power from 30-33 might not be all that aberrant?)

 

[iluvlamp]

Don Fehr= Jerk. Instead of maybe looking out for the players that do want change and maybe others who have lost their jobs to these steroid freaks, he basically poo-poos the report. Nice. Sorry about the run-on.

[Ennder]

Most players power peak is at age 30-31. It grows from 24 to 29 and peaks at 30-31. An age 32 peak really isn't that odd.

[Brawndo the Thirst Mutilat]

Here's a nice alternative perspective on the Mitchell Report I found linked off of BBTF that I like quite a bit:

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/1476

Not saying I agree with everything Zirin argues, but his instincts line up with mine.

[TooLiveBrew]

Ok, sorry guys. That's what happens when I try to think I understand stats. Crap! Sorry for going off on an unsubstantiated tangent (maybe I should just make that my signature). In any event...

 

So far I'm up to page 111. Two things that stand out to me thus far:

 

1) The more recent the estimate/testimonial (as in, 'I think __% of MLB players use/d PEDs'), the greater the percentage that's put forth. At this point, I'm reading around 2007, and the recent accounts/estimates have used phrases like, 'overwhelming majority,' and, 'nearly every...'

 

2) What stands in the way of any real investigation is MLB the Ol' Boys' Club! There's a code of silence involved here of which any organized crime syndicate family would be proud. One former player who refused to 'name names' said it'd be the "death knell" for any hope he'd have to coach/manage in MLB.

 

Seriously, the incidents reported include very sharp details (save names) provided by certain witnesses and the sort initially. However, when it came time to talk with the Mitchell Probe or law enforcement, all the statements/quotes resemble: "I have no recollection of..."

[Brawndo the Thirst Mutilat]

TLB - you're correct in that 27 - 29 represents the peak of a normal development curve. Power may peak later than overall play, as Ennder suggests, but I haven't seen those studies, so I would have been right there with you assuming 27 - 29 to be the best power years as well.

 

That said, I've never liked using on-field results as a means of judging steroid use / non-use. Just because someone's power spiked doesn't necessarily mean he was using, just because someone remained a punch and judy singles hitter doesn't mean he wasn't. Not that it matters much to me if Vaughn used or didn't, but I really don't think those who do care should make judgments based SOLELY on statistically anomolous performance, since outlying datapoints are really par for the course.

[RU Rah Rah]

Has anyone seen Gammons and Co. on ESPN? Gammons called the informants "sewer rats" and generally suggested that the whole report was too thin to be believed. I suppose he expected a picture of Clemens injecting himself in the rear end....

[TooLiveBrew]

For an example of the code of silence mentioned:

"In an [ESPN The Magazine] article in 2006... [Paxton] Crawford admitted to using steroids and [HGH] while with the Boston Red Sox. He described an incident in which syringes he had wrapped in a towel were spilled on the floor of the Red Sox clubhouse, which he said caused laughter among his teammates. Crawford declined our request for an interview…and that he just wanted to be left alone. In the course of this investigation, we interviewed… 6 persons who were with the Red Sox at the time of the reported events. While some said that they had suspicions about Crawford's use of steroids when he was a player, no one could recall the incident that Crawford recounted in the article." (p. 111, doc. page #)

Or here:

"At the end of a 2004 season, a clubhouse employee was cleaning out the… Tigers locker room when he found a black toiletry kit that was locked. He and another Tigers employee opened the bag and found unused syringes and vials that they determined were anabolic steroids. They did not report the incident. The employee said that he could not remember who the bag belonged to." (111)

There are many, many more examples of this, but it'd obviously be too much to try & post them all.

[jackalope02ca]

The whole report is basically based on 2 sources. I doubt all major leaguers use just two guys to get there drugs. What it shows is that this is a huge problem in baseball. Some have posted that thankfully none of the Brewers kids were named. There are very few young guys as the report was 2 years in the making and these sources weren't supplying up to date. If anything it casts more doubt on our and everyone else's younger guys. Caminiti was likely low when he guessed 50% of major leaguers were on them. I'd guess it's significantly higher than this.

 

I doubt very strongly that any MVP in the past 10 years hasn't used at some point and would guess that somewhere between 60-70% or more of all the current Brewers and every other team for that matter have used. Just because someone wasn't named doesn't mean they don't or haven't used.

 

Good luck to Mr. Clemens in getting into the hall of fame. I don't think it will happen now for him or Bonds.

[TooLiveBrew]

No offense, jackalope, but the whole report is certainly based on far more than just two sources.

 

Not that it matters much to me if Vaughn used or didn't, but I really don't think those who do care should make judgments based SOLELY on statistically anomolous performance, since outlying datapoints are really par for the course.

I agree, BTTM, with that logic. However, Vaughn's power spike (going from a max of 30 HR at a peak age to 50) was so extreme that it really caught my eye. Not that I know squat, though.

[GAME05]

I don't know, maybe I see this whole thing as something of a waste of time. I mean, it takes 20 months to come out with this report and what we get is a bunch of anecdotal evidence about a handful of players. I'm not really sure I see this report ever being the impetus for any real change in the current system.

 

What does this report really shed light on, in the end? That some baseball players took steroids? That some scouts/teams knew about steroids? Hasn't all that been fairly well obvious to everyone for the past five years?

[iluvlamp]

RU,

 

just like Kruk just said we should all be inclined to believe the players. That's why ESPN sucks. And Kurjianlsjhakn just said he will vote them all in. Small wonder.

[sgtcluels]

I understand that going forward perhaps we should absolve the past and just look forward to the future. but the problem here, is the MLBPA holds all the cards and I'm sure, as their press conference makes it seem like, could give a poo about implementing drug testing with series teeth. The MLBPA needs to get off their butts and implement an aggressive roids and PED testing. People who use, can get off the junk during this off season, and it will save face and "bring us into a new era of baseball". I'm willing to forgive players for making these mistakes as long as the MLBPA puts into effect something to REALLY prevent this from happening in the future.

 

But the fact of the matter is, we are locked into the CBA till 2011. And the fact is we have very short attention span, and this will fade from the forefront and bam.. we'll be stuck with a weaksauce drug testing and the cycle will continue.

[RobertR]

I'll be really surprised if any substantial retroactive punishments come out of this. At least that stick. Selig will probably dish some out, the Union will argue before an arbitrator that the CBA clearly spells out the means and methods for suspending players for PEDs, the arbitrator will overturn Selig's punishments, Selig will blame the "evil" players union for not being tough on steroids, and the MLBPA will have another reason why they think they can't trust ownership. It's likely to just be another shadowplay without meaning.

 

Robert

[RU Rah Rah]

RU,

 

just like Kruk just said we should all be inclined to believe the players. That's why ESPN sucks. And Kurjianlsjhakn just said he will vote them all in. Small wonder.

Right. Kurkjian said (paraphrasing), "Well, I don't really knowing exactly how much Bonds and Clemens may have cheated, so, gee, I guess I have to give them the benefit of the doubt and vote them into the HOF." That seems exactly backward to me. I'd refuse to vote for them because I didn't know exactly how much they cheated.

 

[Brawndo the Thirst Mutilat]

It's likely to just be another shadowplay without meaning.

 

Agree 100%. Only other possibility is that Selig anticipates this outcome, and doesn't ever bother to try to punish anyone in the first place, most likely "after long deliberation". My guess is that MLB waits to see just how much popular / media / congressional pressure exists to punish the named evildoers before it attempts to act, if it attempts to act. If it does, I think you've nailed the eventual results perfectly.

[brewcrew00]

The only thing ESPN is good for are their commercials and information resources. You can't pay attention to any of their commentary as it's just babble, but they do tend to break good information.

 

That and the Seth Hayes commercial is one of the best of all time. "Jimmy Key, what is he like 40?" That's good stuff.

[Cadillac4274]

Why is Derrick Turnbow's name on the front page of SI.com he wasn't mentioned in the report was he?

[nBo Baseball]

Turnbow is listed as failing a steroid test while trying out for the Olympic team I believe. It's listed on Fox Sports

No Suprise to Me!!!!!!!!!!!

[brettac1]

That's really old news.

[RU Rah Rah]

Has anyone else seen Haudricourt's blog tonight?

I apologize, but an earlier post I put on my blog with comments from Scott Boras, the agent for reliever Eric Gagne, were misconstrued by me as being on the record. I just spoke again with Boras, who wanted to make sure he didn't comment publicly about Gagne in particular because he felt it inappropriate regarding an investigation.

In other words, I had a miscommunication with Boras, which was unintentional, so I removed that post.

Without commenting specifically on Gagne, Boras said, "The integrity of baseball is defined by rules set by the governance of the sport on both sides. To make a judgment on the conduct of players prior to 2005 (when the current drug program went into effect) is something we have to look closely at.

"It's my understanding most of the report is dependent on hearsay evidence. Without clinical evidence, any report must be reviewed with great scrutiny."

I wonder what the "off the record" comments were....

[crewcrazy]

Some interesting quotes from DM in one of Haudricourt's blog posts tonight, too: Link

 

"We're trying to put together the best team possible with the information we have at hand," said Melvin. "While we were disappointed to see Eric's name in the report, it was four years ago. At the time, HGH was not banned by baseball.

 

"We don't condone what players might have done in the past but we do have to move forward and build our team the best way we can."

 

Melvin said he would take no disciplinary action against Gagne nor try to void the contract. He said it would be up to Commissioner Bud Selig to impose any sanctions on players in the report.

 

"We use the information at hand to make decisions on players," said Melvin. "If teams were worried about players being on the Mitchell Report, there wouldn't have been any signings or trades."

[TooLiveBrew]

I'll post this one a tad out of order, since Turnbow was already mentioned.

 

"In January 2004, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency announced that Derrick Turnbow, a pitcher who then played for the Anaheim Angels, failed a drug test administered during training camp for the U.S. Olympic baseball team the previous October. In its announcement, USADA said that Turnbow had tested positive for 'a steroid violation, which resulted from taking nandrolene, norandrostenedione or norandrostenediol.'

Turnbow was subjected to a 2-year ban from international competition, but he was not disciplined under the MLB joint drug program. According to statements by Gene Orza, COO of the MLBPA, Turnbow had tested positive as a result of taking androstenedione, which was not a prohibited substance under the MLB joint drug program at the time. Orza reportedly said: 'Derrick Turnbow did not test positive for a steroid. He tested positive for what the [iOC] and others regard as a steroid, but the U.S. government does not.'

Later in 2004, Congress passed the Anabolic Steroids Control Act of 2004, under which... the definition of anabolic steroids was amended to include androstenedione and other substances... As a result, those substances automatically became substances that were banned under the MLB joint drug program." (p. 84, doc. pg. #)

 

Ok, I - for one - simply can't get over that they named it the joint drug program! Couldn't they have used "cooperative"? Sheesh. Anyway, that's it on T-Bow. And, as brett mentioned, old news.

[cooprules]

I wonder what the "off the record" comments were....

I happened to see it before he changed it. He (Boras) pretty much made some disparaging remarks about Radomski. About how we're supposed to believe a felon whose just trying to cover his own butt. I wish I would've printed it out.

[TooLiveBrew]

This one's going to be even longer than the others, so bear with me. This picks up on the discussion of McGwire & how his use of the then-over-the-counter andro really piqued Selig's interest in pursuing this further. To lead in by paraphrasing, after the AP released the story about McGwire having andro in his locker & admitting to using it...

 

 

"The Cardinals organization issued a statement that the club did not object to McGwire's use of the supplement because it had 'no proven anabolic effects nor significant side effects.'

...

"Dr. Lewis Maharam, a prominent sports medicine practitioner who is now the race doctor for the NYC marathon, was a vocal critic, saying that, 'f McGwire is truly taking this, then he's cheating.' He criticized McGwire for failing to warn young athletes about the dangers of using andro. Sometime thereafter, Dr. Maharam received a call from Dr. Robert Millman, a physician who at the time also served as the medical director for MLB.

"During the call, Dr. Maharam said in an interview, Dr. Millman told him that 'everyone in MLB is irritated with you' and that 'if you don't shut up, they are going to sue you.' Dr. Maharam was unfazed, but a week later he received a second call in which Dr. Millman told him that if he was willing to 'shut up in the press,' he would be invited to make a presentation to MLB & the MLBPA about the dangers of steroids and andro. Two weeks later, Dr. Maharam made a one-hour presentation to Dr. Millman, another official from MLB, and Dr. Joel Solomon, the medical director for the MLBPA. Dr. Maharam recalled that, at the conclusion of the meeting, Dr. Millman expressed the view that there was not sufficient medical evidence that andro raised testosterone levels enough to be a cause for concern.

"During baseball's winter meetings in Nashville in Dec. 1998, baseball executives and team physicians heard a presentation from Dr. Millman and Dr. Solomon on baseball's drug policy. One attendee, Dr. William Wilder... then the team doctor for the Cleveland Indians... [wrote a memorandum after the meeting to then Indians GM John Hart, in which] Dr. Wilder reported that the presentation focused on the benefits that could be obtained from testosterone. He was disturbed by the presentation, observing... that whether or not testosterone increased muscle strength and endurance 'begs the question of whether it should be used in athletics. He believed that there was 'no reason tat some preliminary literature can't be sent out to players concerning the known and unknown data about performance enhancing substances.'... Dr. Wilder reiterated these observations and views in our interview with him.

"Bill Stoneman, who retired in 2007 as the GM of the LA Angels, had a similar recollection of a presentation by Drs. Millman and Solomon. He remembered wondering at the time why MLB had permitted the presentation, which to his recollection included the assertion that there was no evidence that anabolic steroids were bad for you. He said that the baseball executives in attendance were universally frustrated with the message of leniency that was being conveyed

 

...

"After the events of the 1998 season, MLB & the MLBPA jointly funded a grant for a medical study to determine whether ingesting [andro] tablets would raise testosterone levels in young adult males... the [andro] study was conducted by several prominent endocrinologists who concluded... that taking certain doses of oral [andro] did, indeed, increase serum testosterone and other hormone levels in healthy men.

...

"As noted [previously], the 2002 Basic Agreement included for the first time a mandatory random drug testing program in MLB... However, that agreement did not prohibit the use of [andro], despite the conclusion of the study two years earlier... Instead, the parties agreed 'that they [would] encourage Congress to revisit the question whether [andro] should be categorized a Schedule III substance,' which would result in including andro among the program's prohibited substances." (p. 79-84, doc. pg. #s)

 

 

The Anabolic Steroids Act of 2004 mentioned in my post regarding T-Bow, is where Congress named andro as a Schedule III substance. ("As a result, those substances automatically became substances that were banned under the MLB joint drug program.")