Bonds, Juries and , Steroids oh my!

Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, we, along with the rest of the world got the news that Barry Bonds was found guilty of "obstructing justice" today. For the most part this to me is a non-story. BFD, some millionaire got a slap on the wrist for helping to damage the integrity of his sport by cheating then lying in court about it. BFD. But the ensuing discussion got me to thinking yet again, about what to do about Bonds and other athletic greats who will eventually come knocking on the door of the hall of fame. I've noodled this through before, but never taken the time to put pen to paper about it so to speak. So here it is, my theory on how Hall of Fame voters should handle this issue when it comes up. Because I was not a baseball player at a high level, I have to go to sports that I AM very familiar with for guidance on this. The most obvious being track and field. Perhaps the easiest example to dissect would be Ben Johnson. For those too young to remember Ben Johnson, he was the 1987 World Champion at 100 meters and the 1988 Olympic Champion at the same distance who was later shown to have been on a veritable cocktail of steroid during that time span. Prior to getting on "The Juice" Johnson's best time in the 100 meters was a respectable 10.14. This is an excellent time and would have earned him a good deal of money and his share of wins on the international circuit. However Johnson apparently became frustrated with losing repeatedly to Carl Lewis and that frustration led to obsession which turned into cheating in the form of doping. So Ben went to the juice. The result was that within a very short span of time he improved from 10.14 to 9.79 in the 100 meter final in the 1988 Olympics, shattering the then world record of 9.93 previously held by Calvin Smith. Johnson had actually broken the record in the 1987 World Championships in Rome with a 9.83.

But enough of the history lesson. This is about trying to quantifying the impact of these drugs on performance. The Ben Johnson example gives us an easy starting point for the calculations. We can see here that steroids allowed Johnson to trim .35 seconds off his time in the 100 meters. Or roughly a 3.4 % improvement. Now this is a ridiculously short race and the degree of improvement would actually increase over greater distances. But I don't know anything about greater distances.. But I do know a thing or two about the 100 meters, having run it a few dozen times in college and having been a track and field junkie since birth. So if I apply the "3.4% rule" to baseball, it turns an 90 mph fastball into a 93 mph fastball. Or a 95 mph fastball into 98.3 mph fastball. Applied to a hitter, I have to account for both the fast twitch muscle to get around on a 90 mph fastball and added power from the boost in brute strength. So I double the improvement rate for hitters to 7.8%. So the power to drive the ball 390 into a warning track fly ball to straightaway center suddenly travels 420 feet and leaves the yard in many venues. Or at the very least bounces off the wall. Get ahold of one that would travel 400 feet without steroids and you've added 31 feet to its flight with the juice. Now since we know hitting a baseball isn't only about speed and power but it is also about quickness of reflexes and hand to eye coordination. So we have to assume that all other things being equal, steroids do not aid in those areas. However if you are a baseball player, we have to assume you already have some of that stuff. What it does help with though is recovery time, as in ability to play at a high level day after day after day as well as to recover from injuries more quickly. This was especially important for Mark McGuire, who played less than 150 games each year between 1992 and 1996. McGuire's body was quite simply giving out as he entered his 30's. McGuire played in an average of 87.4 games between '92 and '96.. but magically got healthy in his mid 30's and played in exactly 151 games in '97, '98 and '99. Go figure. Clearly without the juice, McGuire probably retires in '96 and surrenders to his breaking down body long before desecrating the home run record books. But McGuire was a great slugger before steroids, as was Bonds, though neither at the post-steroid levels. Still in the interest of science, I will stick to the 7.8% rule. So I will subtract 7.8% of McGuire and Bonds' hits from their post-steroid numbers. So I yank 22 of the 306 home runs McGuire hit between 1996 and 2001 , 52 of his RBIs and 63 of his 809 hits. So McGuire finishes his career getting credit for 520 dingers and 1563 hits, with1362 RBIs. Hall of Fame worthy? Perhaps.. but he's gonna have to wait. Doing the same math with Bonds. Assuming he started juicing in 2000 Bonds hit 317 homers, 697 RBIs and 925 hits between 2000 and 2007. Lopping off 7.8% from those numbers and we get 292 homers, 643 RBIs and 853 hits, leaving his career totals at 737 HRs, 1942 RBIs and 2863 hits. Even stronger Hall of Fame numbers. One can assume that either would likely have either suffered a severe dropoff in production in his late 30's based on declining skills or injuries but that's a matter for another discussion.

Applying the math to a pitcher is slightly more complex. On the surface I would assume that strength and speed gained from steroids would be at least as big a boon for pitchers as hitters. But figuring out how much is tricky. In the case of pitching, number of innings pitched are probably the best way to gauge. We assume that as a pitcher ages, his ability to go deep into games wanes. Taking the case of Roger Clemens, in 1993-1995, the three seasons prior to his "rebirth" he pitched 191, 170 and 140 innings. Miraculously, the next three seasons he pitched 242, 264 and 234. So we can see a huge boost to his stamina after the juice-provided assistance. The strikeout numbers were equally pronounced. After 160, 168 and 132 he jumps to 257, 292 and 271. In light of these numbers lopping off 7.8% of Clemens' numbers seems to be not quite enough. In fact it leads me to want to re-examine the hitter numbers as well. Perhaps I was too hasty in dismissing the impact of being able to stay on the field all those games well into one's late 30's. I will have to noodle on this more later.