Juiced: Guilt by Graph?

re: Juiced: Guilt by Graph?

hop2171 — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 02:48:48 GMT

What a bunch of garbage Sharon!! Please!! Lets talk about Roger's numbers shall we? You even admit that in the 2nd half of 1996 his numbers really got better. Well in 1997 he not only won the pitching triple crown and the Cy Young Award but he had one of the best seasons ever by a AL pitcher in the DH Era. So why is that important? Easy, he didnt' even know McNamee yet!! Yeah lets talk about the numbers and lets talk about if they tell us something shall we? They tell us he was on top of his game "Before" he ever met this lowlife!! So I guess i am supposed to believe that a guy coming off the season he put up in 1997 decided he needed help??Help for what?? Look at the numbers lady!!! I will tell you one thing, his numbers go along with him developing his split finger fastball which he did NOT have until 1996 but it does not go along with McNamee story so try telling us the truth for once!!! Pathetic!!

re: Juiced: Guilt by Graph?

bucsfan1 — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 11:52:18 GMT

I think the point, hop2171, is the very fact that while he had "one of the best seasons ever by a AL pitcher in the DH Era" (your words)in 1997, he was 35 years old. If he would have retired at that point, yes, I'd say there would have been no doubt that he was one of the greatest pitchers ever.

BUT...consider "His 1.87 ERA was the lowest in the major leagues, the lowest of his 22-season career, and the lowest by any National Leaguer since pitching great and contemporary rival Greg Maddux in 1995" (Wiki) IN 2005, when he was 43...This is where most people have problems believing there wasn't SOMETHING going on.

So yes, look at the numbers (which you tend to STOP looking at in 1997). Some of his best years are after he met the "lowlife", when he was getting older and older, yet better and better. I think something's fishy.

re: Juiced: Guilt by Graph?

eshuster — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 14:08:50 GMT

The numbers are damaging and difficult to refute, except to say Clemens completely defied the odds against the game's greatest pitchers. That alone is difficult to believe. However, when you add the stats to Clemens' recent behavior you have a nearly unrefutable story of a man who cheated and can't find a clean way out of it. In court you must prove the defendant to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in order to convict. At this point there isn't much reasonable doubt left for Roger. I love the guy, and I love baseball, but I'm finding it difficult to defend one of my heroes any longer.

re: Juiced: Guilt by Graph?

JAMF — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:07:37 GMT

These stats are interesting. I do not know if they could be considered conclusive, however I would like to see the same stats on Nolan Ryan(not that I think he was jucied) because as we all remember he was great into his 40's and seemed to improve(or at least not decline much) with age. Does anyone have any stats on Ryan that could be used as a point of refference for the same comparison?

re: Juiced: Guilt by Graph?

ConspiracyTheory — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:48:20 GMT

Nice intelligent statistical analysis followed by bottom feeder mentality. Just like Freakonomics. This is ridiculous. I am not a Clemens fan, not a Yankees, Astros or Red Sox fan, but accusing Clemens of steroid use simply because his stats got better after age 40 is bottom feeder mentality, ala Fox News, ABC, Entertainment Tonight, etc. etc. What about Satchel Page? His numbers got better after he was 45? What about accouting for the differences in what we know about the human body, training and conditioning, etc.today compared to when Cy Young played in 1920.

re: Juiced: Guilt by Graph?

jessix01 — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:11:06 GMT

Very convincing statistics, but, for some reason, I don't care if these performers took steroids. If not steroids, what else would they be using to give them an edge?

Something could be said about the way Clemens used steroids - not excessively but just enough to allow him to continue at his chosen profession for years past his normal retirement time.

Imagine the frustration of a professional athlete, once the best, now fading not because of a lack of dedication or hard work, but due to his own body breaking down - totally out of his control. Along comes a solution - a "cure" of sorts. This solution allows him to continue for many more years than those few that athletes are restricted to due to aging.

One could make a case that this is a medical treatment for the effects of aging. How is the use of steroids by an athlete any different than the use of prescribed medications by the public to enhance one's quality of life"? The use of steroids to prolong a career is no different from having a surgery to prolong life. It is the same as taking medication to keep one's blood pressure normal. It is no different from adding insulin to a diabetic's menu to allow normal assimilation of food. It's the same as taking pain medication to allow one with severe arthritis to function normally.

How many of us could honestly say we would not do whatever we could do to prolong our exceptional careers if it was possible? There is a problem in that the athlete taking performance enhancers is ingesting something into his or her own body. He or she involves nobody else and the substance used as the performance enhancer may or may not be "legal". Who has the right to tell me what I can do with my own body? Who determines what enhancer is OK to use? This approximates the Roe v. Wade decision of the Supreme Court. Who has the right to control what a woman does with her own body? With her own life? The same can be said for athletes. Who has the right to tell an athlete what he or she may do to maximize his or her performance?

Following a prescribed diet is an attempt to enhance performance. The use of a trainer is considered a performance enhancing action. Having an injury treated by a physician is a performance enhancing action when the injury heals faster due to the treatment. The athlete using a banned substance to enhance performance rationalizes that it is his own body that is performing to its own capacity. Whether or not attainment of this capacity is encouraged by a substance is immaterial because it is still his body that is performing.

If I took steroids, I would not be able to demand a contract from the NY Yankees! I am not going to be a Roger Clemens no matter what I put into my body. How can we sit around and pass judgment on the means by which an athlete attains greatness? Where do we draw the line? Can we say for sure whether or not Babe Ruth's alcohol dependence affected his home run hitting ability? Perhaps without a "nip" the great Babe would have been too nervous to see his pitch clearly. Alcohol is a drug. It is every bit as dangerous as steroids, but somebody arbitrarily made alcohol "legal" where steroids are not.

If we start separating performances by presence or absence of substances normally found in one's body we get into big trouble. Look at Erythropoietin (EPO). This injectable substance increases the number of red blood cells, the oxygen carrying substances in one's blood. Oxygen-carrying capacity increases endurance. Years ago, athletes often trained at high altitude in an attempt to get the body to naturally increase the red blood cell count. How is this different from injecting EPO regularly to do the same? Testing methods cannot accurately detect the presence or absence of EPO. Does this make it legal?

The bottom line in the steroid debate is that the athlete and his or her own body is responsible for a performance, with or without enhancers. Without a definite method of detecting and eliminating each and every foreign performance enhancer, one cannot penalize an athlete for using such a substance. Can anybody say with certainty that if Roger Clemens is given an asterisk in the record books there are no other athletes at the same time who are using performance enhancers?

What about marginal athletes who take steroids to be able to make the major leagues? Will they be detected? Not likely, but they are just as "guilty" of steroid use as are the Roger Clemens' and Barry Bonds'. These marginally "gifted" athletes using performance enhancers still steal spots from legitimately "gifted" athletes who do not use such substances. How does one differentiate? Is there a difference?

Until we can eliminate each and every form of performance enhancer from professional sports and insure all are eliminated, NO SINGLE PLAYER can be eliminated or condemned for use of such. My suggestion is that new guidelines be set up so use of substances can be regulated and kept at safe levels. Athletes will still have a choice whether or not to use a substance, and their usage will be safer if regulated and kept within "safe" levels.

The goal of such a program would be to encourage maximum performance from each individual according to the capacity of his or her own body limits, while eliminating dangerous overuse of unregulated drugs which are potentially harmful. With such a program in effect I predict the same exceptional athletes will remain at the head of the pack, with few exceptions and fewer disastrous effects from improper use of performance enhancers.

Anybody have a better suggestion?

re: Juiced: Guilt by Graph?

bob101 — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:38:53 GMT

hey jessix01. There is a big diffenrece between using steorids to prolong a career and using legal means liks surgery. The difference !!!!!! it is illegal. Who has the right to tell me that. THE GOVERNMENT!!!!. You may hate it or I may hate it but IT IS THE LAW. You disagree then tell your congressman about it. But until it is changed, Clemens is and will always be a cheater. You dont believe me ask his wife, ooops that is another matter isnt it. : - )...

re: Juiced: Guilt by Graph?

Mandelay — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 18:23:33 GMT

Never have so many tried to hard to take down one athlete... and enjoyed it so much.

Whether or not Roger Clemens was "on" anything still remains to be proven.

But what were the rest of us "on" to have savaged him and for that matter, Barry Bonds, to such an extent? It does not say much for us. And those are our own pathetic stats, as human beings.

re: Juiced: Guilt by Graph?

1poohbear — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 22:55:32 GMT

I don't know if the man is guilty or not. I would love to think he didn't use steroids or HGH or anything else because I really enjoyed watching him pitch while he was in Houston--simply, I don't want that joy to be tarnished. By the same token, he has not made it easy to believe him.

Now, here's the thing: As hard as it may be to put aside the emotional aspect of this story, the man is innocent until proven guilty in the eyes of the law.

And another thing, I wonder if O'Gara normalized Clemens' ERA for the fact he posted his best ever number in a year when the Astros were one of the best defensive teams in the Majors and most of the NL Central teams were struggling to score runs. I couldn't tell you off hand which teams Clemens faced that year. But I would just about bet that if you took any pitcher that was dominate against the high powered, run scoring AL teams and put him on a very good defensive NL team in a division where offense is not exactly a strength, he's probably going to allow fewer runs over the course of the year than he did playing for the Yankees or Red Sox. It is a team game after all.

Now don't go slamming me because I only looked at one year. I have no idea what would happen if you normalized every pitcher's ERA's to account for their teammates and opponents play. My point is be careful how much you read into statistics. Numbers can be sliced and diced to say what ever you want them to say and rarely can a single stat tell the whole story.

re: Juiced: Guilt by Graph?

hop2171 — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 21:08:26 GMT

Well bucsfan01 the point here that you failed to grasp is in 1997 he never even KNEW McLiar and put up one of the greatest seasons of all time (pitching triple crown) yet i am supposed to believe the next year (as McLiar claims) he decided he wasn't good enough in "97 and needed a helper. Yeah okay believe that one and i got a bridge for sale! Now the year you are talking about was 2004 when he had a 1.87 ERA, well there are a few things you left out there kid so i will correct you and educate your sorry a$$. A. he was mainly a 6 inning pitcher that year, he was no longer going deep into games like he once did B. If he posted that 1.87 ERA in the AL i would agree something was unusual but lets be honest, the NL suks and they have no hitting period. The biggest bat in the Central was Pujols in St Louis, after him who did he have to face most of the time? If he pitched in the AL that same season his ERA would have been around 3.50-3.80, yeah thats how much better the AL is than the NL. Educate yourself before calling me out next time or i will leave you in the dust again.

re: Juiced: Guilt by Graph?

BulldogJack — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 19:59:33 GMT

Posted by Jack OGara:

Sorry, I've been on travel and am only now getting back to the site.

In response to Mr. Birmbaum's article that was posted as acounterpoint to my thesis, let me point out that I had stated, “Clemens is the only pitcher who gets progressively better as he ages into the post-40 category.”

In his rebuttal of an article prepared for the New York Times by four Wharton professors, sabermetrican Phil Birnbaum stated, ‘There are three pitchers with similar career trajectories, and nobody is saying ‘they’ took steroids.” These three are Curt Schilling, Randy Johnson, and Nolan Ryan.

My point was the issue of getting progressively better as the pitcher ages into the post-40 category. None of his three came close to achieving this.

Mr. Schilling’s career appears to be over at 40; and Mr. Johnson’s ERA Margins have fallen markedly – from an outstanding average of 1.57 for ages 35 to 40 period to .06 after age 40 (through 2007). Mr. Ryan averaged .52 from ages 35 to 40 and .49 thereafter – quite good, but not progressively better.

Mr. Clemens averaged an outstanding 1.18 from ages 35 through 40 – and then raised it to 1.30 for the five-year period following.

Mr. Birnbaum says, “And the answer is: if you acknowledge that Schilling, Ryan, and Johnson have roughly a similar career trajectory as Clemens, and you believed that none of them took steroids, then … your first estimate of the probability Clemens cheated should be approximately ‘zero’.”

Obviously, I do not think his threesome have similar post-40 trajectories. As to the latter condition, my vote is still out.

Thanks, Jack OGara July 30, 2008