Sessh

Back then, this stuff wasn't that big a deal. You wouldn't expect to see a ton of stories on it. Pud Galvin was the first to use testosterone as a performance enhancer in 1889 and actually saw a brief resurgence in his career. Whether or not the elixir actually did anything is debatable, but it proves that athletes have been willing to risk it all for a longer or more productive career for over 100 years. Ruth using sheep testosterone after this happened is by no means unreasonable to believe nor is it a significant revelation really. To add to the general discussion, Cocaine was legal into the early 1900's and methamphetamine was synthesized in 1887, so that has also been around for a long time. Anabolic steroids were synthesized in the mid 1930's and won a Nobel prize. Steroids were being used by olympic athletes in the 1940's and were rampant in MLB in the 60's according to Tom House. Amphetamines were available in every clubhouse as well. The whole idea of a "steroid era" is ridiculous. PED's are as old as sports themselves and aren't going anywhere. People will just do a better job of not getting caught. There's plenty of undetectable PED's that have been around for years. Why any players still use the detectable stuff is a mystery to me. Drug prohibition doesn't work, it never has and never will. It only creates a thriving black market to meet the demands. Clemens also never failed a test and neither did Bonds. The testing program only catches the ones with the bad chemists. Keeping players out of the HOF now for using PED's is also ridiculous. Mays, Aaron, Mantle and probably just about everyone back then used some form of PED's especially greenies. Both amphetamines and steroids were rampant in baseball for a long time. The HOF is overflowing with "cheaters" and it is hypocritical to decide now to start keeping guys out while considering all the accomplishments of the PED users of the past to be completely legitimate despite having the help of PEDs that players today can't have and whose numbers would immediately be discarded as "tainted" or some word like that. Yeah, that seems fair and logical. I don't care who uses what, it's their bodies. Whether people like it or not, performance enhancing drugs are part of the fabric of sports and have been for a long, long time. People will just get around the testing program, it's easy with the drug technologies today and the smart players can do it and I'm sure they're doing it right now. It's not a winnable fight as the drug wars in general have proven over and over again.

At footstrike, his arm isn't up and he also takes his arm behind his body.

Sure! Another problem with all of this is that applying torque on the shoulder actually increases velocity while also increasing the chance of injury, so "bad" mechanics actually produce desirable results.. for awhile. Unfortunately, it also increases the chance of injury along with velocity. Elbow and shoulder injuries happen due to wear and tear over time and not from a single pitch or anything like that, so the elbow and shoulder gradually wear down until something "breaks". We also notice that velocity is often the first thing to go. This can all be summarized into something called Valgus Elbow Stress and there have been studies done on this. Here is the abstract of one such study if you wish to read it. The following four variables account for 97% percent of variance with valgus elbow stress: Shoulder abduction angle at instant of stride foot contact (positive correlation) Peak shoulder horizontal adduction angular velocity (positive correlation) Elbow angle at instant of peak valgus torque (negative correlation) Maximum shoulder external rotation torque (negative correlation) The second point, for example, basically refers to a pitcher who takes his arm behind his body during his delivery. The arm must get to the ready position in order to throw, so it's further away from where it has to be in order to throw and must "catch up" to the right position before a throw can be made. This produces a slingshot type effect which is where the increased velocity comes from, but it's at the expense of the ligaments whose limits are exceeded over and over again with each pitch until something breaks. Plenty of the guys in the pics above do this. There's also the thing that pitching coaches are hesitant to mess with a pitcher's mechanics for fear of "messing them up". Proper mechanics should be taught at an early age, but there's so much emphasis on velocity that this kind of stuff is facilitated. More and more pitchers are needing TJ surgeries even kids and though the success rates are decent, it's still a big problem and it starts at the little league level IMO.

Yup, that's more or less how a pitcher should look at footstrike. The biggest contributor to arm injuries is the arm not being up in that ready position at footstrike which means it then has to "catch up" to the body very quickly. This puts a ton of strain on both the shoulder and the elbow because in order to catch up, they must rotate forcefully and quickly. Look at these images of pitchers who have had or are having arm injuries and look at where their arm is at footstrike. It's not up. Of course, there's always exceptions, but this is exceedingly common to find in pitchers who have had arm injuries and can be, to some extent, a predictor for the future. I've not much doubt that the biggest cause of arm injuries are bad mechanics that put unnecessary stress on the arm and shoulder. Of course, such things can also cause sudden drops in velocity. Dylan Bundy Jordan Montgomery Mark Prior Shaun Marcum Adam Wainwright AJ Burnett BJ Ryan Stephen Strasburg Hunter Harvey Chris Ray Yu Darvish Joel Zumaya Chris Carpenter John Smoltz Compare that with guys that were able to stay relatively injury free over their careers. Justin Verlander Nolan Ryan Greg Maddux Roger Clemens I can't really think of too many guys that avoided serious arm injuries for an entire career, though. There are certainly other risk factors, but I was pretty serious about researching into this particular thing many years ago and there certainly does seem to be a high level of correlation with this and incidence or likelihood of injury. It's so common in baseball. Others of note: Kevin Gausman Shohei Ohtani (wow is this bad looking) Masahiro Tanaka Chris Sale

Here's his highlights from yesterday's game: Flaherty robs Herrera of a hit Three Run No Doubter Broken Bat RBI Single The question is not whether he can hit .400 or something ridiculous like that, but if he can be a serviceable everyday player over the course of a whole season. The Braves are certainly going to give him the opportunity. Good on him. Let's see what he does with it.

Perhaps. There's also the possibility that he's not trying to hit for power and crank everything out of the park like the Orioles do. He's also striking out less and walking more. Flaherty is probably best suited to be a contact hitter anyway. Of course, it's way too early to draw any conclusions as you say, but there may be more to this than just statistics. It's not like they don't have a book on Flaherty this being his 7th year in the league.

Uh huh, but both are below average and both are really bad seasons. The point is he has played this badly before and it shouldn't be surprising considering how much he was valued by the teams he has played for. That is to say he wasn't valued much at all and now, we have people on here suggesting we do a salary dump on him as well. Also not a surprise. Trumbo isn't a very good overall ballplayer. We would have been better off with Kim in left and Mancini in right than to have Trumbo/Smith in right field. Also, agree about Hays. I don't know why people get so worked up about guys doing well on the farm. It is inferior pitching/hitting they are facing and is nothing compared to what they will see in the majors. I want to see a solid season in the majors at the very least before I start getting excited about someone on the farm. Sure, it's encouraging to see guys doing well, but it doesn't mean anything if they can't replicate that success at the highest level. Most can't. We really won't know if Hays can since it's more important to have him on the bench instead of on the field.

He put up an almost identical slash line with Arizona in 2014, but in fewer games, so it shouldn't be that surprising. Thing is Trumbo is just the kind of player to suddenly fall off a cliff production wise. I would even say he may not even be in baseball at all in five years. He can't play D, he can't get on base, he doesn't run well and he doesn't hit for average. All he does is one thing and doesn't do it nearly well enough to offset how bad the rest of his game is. What he did in 2015 is basically who he is and he's not going to get better. 2014 (88g) - .235/.293/.413 (.707 OPS) 2017 (134g) - .240/.293/.413 (.707 OPS)

The thing is Trumbo has bounced back. He bounced back to the guy he really is. You know, the guy that was so bad that the M's traded him for Steve Clevinger just to get rid of his salary? We even got C.J. Reifenhauser on top of Trumbo for Steve F'in Clevinger. That guy. The guy that hit 47 home runs last season almost certainly had some help and was not something that would be sustainable. Every team in baseball knew that except the Orioles, of course. This is who Trumbo is... without the help. Of course, I can't prove that he used something, but seems pretty obvious to me. Contract year as well. Even still, it was an anomalous year.. obviously. I can't see how anyone would reasonably expect him to be that player going forward.

I know I am in the minority here, but I've just never been that high on Schoop. I don't see anything "wow" about him. He seems like the typical "boom or bust" hitter with no discipline, BA in the .260-.270 range, OBP south of .300 and slugging around .450. I don't know, I just don't see it or his power holding up. He had very little power above A ball in the minors and he gets to the majors and suddenly, he has power? I still don't know where it came from. Maybe he just "filled out" or whatever, but it strikes me as odd. He currently has a wRC+ of 94 and I know there's a lot of season left, but Schoop does not have the batting skill to make up for his almost complete lack of discipline. He is not as good a hitter as Jones who has been able to get away with it up to this point and I don't think Schoop's "power" is real or sustainable. I know some of you could throw stats at me to show how wrong I am, but until I see something other than what I've seen from him, I don't think I'll budge off of that opinion. He is a good defender at least, but is prone to mental collapses that result in two error innings on a random basis. He's done that at least twice this year already, I believe.

The bat didn't go in foul territory. It went down the third base line in fair territory.

In every country and league where baseball is played, home runs are pimped. Bat flips and pimping is all over the place in the KBO and NPB because they realize baseball is a game and want to see players having fun out there. Who doesn't cry about bad strike/ball calls? Who hasn't and doesn't? No one cries about that more than fans and their cries for "robo umps" and players will always get away with roiding. If you want to place blame for that, there's plenty of people in line ahead of David Ortiz. Anyway, no one's mind will be changed and it wasn't my intention to try to do that, but that's some pretty heavy weight to put on one guy for doing things that are widespread in baseball. In Japan, they juice the ball and don't even try to hide it anymore. The cat is out of the PED bag in MLB and you can't put it back in now, so that's a lot of hate to spread around and a lot of energy wondering who is doing what instead of just enjoying the games which is what I prefer to do most of the time.

I guess I just don't have enough "homer" in me. :laughlol: Gregg kind of instigated that incident, though.

I don't get all the hate for Ortiz just because he went ballistic in the dugout. This is an emotional game and far from the first time a guy has gone ballistic in the dugout in one way or another even with a bat. There have been NHL coaches throwing benches on the ice in protest and what about Bobby Knight throwing chairs? Didn't Machado throw a bat at Donaldson on purpose and then lie about it? How many players have broken bats over their knees in anger? I get that people here hate the Red Sox or any team not the Orioles, but you'd think Ortiz was the only guy to ever lose it over balls and strikes or for any reason and give themselves over to anger in the dugout afterwards reading these boards. Several water coolers have lost their lives in MLB dugouts as well. [video=youtube;L7LKbCWe8Eo] [video=youtube;McNasAVgKxc]

Nor do I.

Who cares? The discussion is what matters. No one cares or remembers who starts the threads. Seriously, who cares? You're going to argue with the mods over this? He asked you to PM him, so why continue the discussion here and derail the thread?

Oops, added the link.

This is an interesting article examining things like steroids and pitchfx and shows pretty definitively that both are responsible for killing the offense in baseball. This quest for "perfection" will continue to kill baseball and all this micromanagement and open heart surgery that so many people think is better for the game actually isn't better at all. I don't want a "perfect" strike zone at the expense of a further decline in offense.

Source Lack of intent was proven. Lack of intent means MLB believes he did not knowingly or intentionally ingest this substance.

Nor will I. Fans of other sports just want to see the players play and be entertained with their competitive sport of choice. They don't sweat the small stuff. I wish baseball could be that way, but it never will be again.

As a matter of fact, PED's did the game well in the late 90's after the damage the strike did. Anyway, I'm off to the game thread for now.

The scandals and witch hunts do far more damage to the brand than the drugs themselves. Why should there be leniency everywhere except MLB?

I know, but you don't seem to allow for accidents and would punish them all the same. Is that how you would prefer to be treated when you have made or make an honest mistake or would you prefer for someone to be understanding? If there's no intent, I see no reason to get draconian with this.

I'm not sure I would word it quite like that, but I see your point.

I know it, bud. I was just taking your expression a step further.