Tulowitzki is asking for a trade. What would you give up for him?

[DrungoHazewood]

McGwire hit 49 HR as a rookie. I think he might have hit 500 without 'roids. Same with ARoid. He's still hitting them at 40 and one would suppose he isn't on anything. Not sure about Sosa.

I am quite sure that some players saw large gains from taking PEDs. But there were players who saw huge jumps in performance in 1880 or 1920 or 1940, clearly without anything like modern PEDs. Now all players who have performance spikes are attributed to PEDs. What happened to all of the natural variation in performance?

[DrungoHazewood]

I know, you'd like to attribute that to juiced baseballs and smaller stadiums. We've been through it before.

Yes, and I'm sure you've just forgotten that I've repeatedly said that the jump in offense was attributable to a large number of causes, including smaller stadiums, juiced balls, increased workout regimens, better diet, and yes... PEDs. To attribute all of it to PEDs is unwarranted, in my opinion.

From 1984 to 1987 and then 1988 we saw homers go up about 40% then fall by over 25% in one year. Interesting that the players conspired to ramp up steroid use from '84 to '87 then immediately stop taking the stuff in '88. And it's equally odd that we saw a giant spike in offense just as labor unrest set in in '93-94... it's almost as if the league told them to use steroids to make up for the off-field issues. Or I guess they could have wound the balls tighter, but that's just silly.

[El Gordo]

I am quite sure that some players saw large gains from taking PEDs. But there were players who saw huge jumps in performance in 1880 or 1920 or 1940, clearly without anything like modern PEDs. Now all players who have performance spikes are attributed to PEDs. What happened to all of the natural variation in performance?

In his 11 year career Maris never hit more than 28 HR except for 60(39), 61(61), 62(33). Greenies and nicotine?

[DrungoHazewood]

In his 11 year career Maris never hit more than 28 HR except for 60(39), 61(61), 62(33). Greenies and nicotine?

Norm Cash went from .286-18-63 to .361-41-132 in consecutive years at age 25 and 26. Nobody could do that naturally.

[OFFNY]

In his 11 year career Maris never hit more than 28 HR except for 60(39), 61(61), 62(33). Greenies and nicotine?

In a common tale in baseball (and other sports, too) Maris suffered a wrist injury in Spring Training in 1962, and tried to come back too soon from it. He never completely recovered, which is likely the biggest reason for his large dip in home runs between 1961 and 1962 (61 to 33), and his continued drop in home runs from 1963 until the end of his career in 1968.

[DrungoHazewood]

They had a special on Ben and he was interviewed. He talked about the roids. I don't remember much mention of anything else being given the credit for the increased performance. Of course, it allowed him to train even harder.

There have been other track stars who were caught and fessed up. Silly them, they seem to think it was the steroids that boosted their performance.

I don't understand why you have to segment things out like this. The athletes think all of the PEDs have benefits or they wouldn't do them. Nobody was doing greenies to be part of the cool clique and get a better date to the prom. They were doing greenies to play baseball better.

[Chavez Ravine]

When Ben Johnson wanted to run an 9.83 100 meter dash to shatter the world record and win the Olympic gold medal, did he choose to train on a regimen of greenies or steroids?

He used the same Winstrol that the East Germans and current Dominicans use to get huge.

Probably both, plus some other stuff.

Here are the 100m times plotted against year (I think through 2012). I am not sure when the steroid era began in international track and field, but it is hard to pinpoint from this graph.

[DrungoHazewood]

My argument with you is they way you'd like to lump greenies and steroids into the same bucket as if they are equal... I don't claim that the players of yesteryear have any moral high ground over the players of today.

Yes, I think that you can lump steroids and greenies and all the rest into the same moral bucket. That has nothing to do with specific effects on performance.

You will dispute this, but I think the Bonds case proves how much a difference they could make. That's the best case we have to go by if you believe Balco guy and the numbers. Show me a player who took greenies and went from a average player to a great player or from a great player to the best hitter to ever play the game in his late 30's.

No, I won't dispute that PEDs can help some players a great deal. They apparently did that for Bonds. But each player, each PED, each instance is unique. There is no magic formula. A few players may have gotten outsized gains, but for all we know just as many saw their careers stagnate or disintegrate.

[Chavez Ravine]

Your graph would appear to show that athletes just naturally get bigger and faster from generation to generation which I agree with 100%. And yet, we have examples of runners who boosted their peformance from run of the mill to world record times. There may have been clean runners (Carl Lewis?) who were faster than the previous generation. That makes sense. But there are also runners who do it the cheating way.

Yeah, I agree. That type of comparison overlays a lot of things (nutrition, training, not having to work a full time job at the steel mill) that have progressively changed and mask the individual (or yearly) enhancements in performance caused by cheating. Also, another issue with the 100 m dash…or MLB performance for that matter…is that we may be reaching the limits of inherent human physiology. So on a graph like this, the real impact of steroids gets muted because the absolute magnitude of the increase in performance is not that great. But in terms of winning the Olympics in 2016 it can be profound.

[CA-ORIOLE]

No, I won't dispute that PEDs can help some players a great deal. They apparently did that for Bonds. But each player, each PED, each instance is unique. There is no magic formula. A few players may have gotten outsized gains, but for all we know just as many saw their careers stagnate or disintegrate.

Steroids and HGH were the key combination I think. BALCO (and probably some others) were on that cutting edge and I doubt too many guys were doing it on their own with great success. How many got on that bandwagon before it ended I have no idea.

[Can_of_corn]

Steroids and HGH were the key combination I think. BALCO (and probably some others) were on that cutting edge and I doubt too many guys were doing it on their own with great success. How many got on that bandwagon before it ended I have no idea.

Don't forget diet and workout regiments.

[TonySoprano]

Back on topic...

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Rockies?src=hash">#Rockies</a> SS Troy Tulowitzki, after meeting agent today, says he will not demand a trade, calls upon himself to play better to end the losing</p>— Thomas Harding (@harding_at_mlb) <a href="

">May 14, 2015</a></blockquote>

<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

[weams]

Back on topic...

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Rockies?src=hash">#Rockies</a> SS Troy Tulowitzki, after meeting agent today, says he will not demand a trade, calls upon himself to play better to end the losing</p>— Thomas Harding (@harding_at_mlb) <a href="

">May 14, 2015</a></blockquote>

<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

OK. End of discussion I guess.