The prob is that they aren't testing MLB players. It's a charade. It's not a cfrime to dope so the FBI doesn't get involved. Instead the MLB office lets everyone know who/what/where/how is being tested so the player's agents know ahead of time and can arrange countermeasures.
Well all the current players are pretty much millennials who kept getting fed the narrative through the media and constant pushes of online marketing that drugs really weren't that big a deal. Millennials bought into it hard and now we have a huge opiate epidemic on one end of the social spectrum and huge performance boosting drug issue on the high end.
Of course I guess it isn't really true that millennials are to blame since boomers are the ones managing everything and they could have taken time and effort to control it but they were more concerned with their bottom line than things like ethics.
exthrower wrote:
So true....They're everywhere....and not one person will admit to using them.
I go to an 'old fart' gym and even the guys on HRT lie their azzes off about using. Jeez, I could respect them if they were honest about juicing and present an argument.
Same here; "old fart" gym with more guys on TRT than retirees on medicare. One guy I'm acquaintance with is 61 who doesn't look a day over 50. A muscular, rippped, buffed physique with massive biceps who also does triathlons. Trains 7 days a week, no recovery needed, always full-speed ahead. He's talk of the gym and a big-time showoff with a cranky attitude. He tries to tell me that it's all about the "diet," "sleep" & "clean living" (as if nobody has thought about that before). I acted as if I believed him when he pulled his cellphone out of his pants pocket to get a call when a business card from a local low-T center fell out.😅 He turned red faced and walked away.
They guys should just be honest about it and try not to pull a fast one that they discovered some diet & lifestyle changes that only works for them.
2017 is the height of the "Major League Baseball Steroid Epidemic" that's for damn sure. The record number of HRs prove so.
MLB is as phony as UFC ;-( wrote:
2017 is the height of the "Major League Baseball Steroid Epidemic" that's for damn sure. The record number of HRs prove so.
More like GHRP-2?
So are the distance runners. Top b-ball players are making in one game what "elite" runners hope to make in a year. I think from its risk worth taking.
Stanton will probably just barely crack the top 10 all-time this year and Judge might make the top 75.
Overall the league might be hitting more, but nothing will compare to the late '90s and early 2000s.
Gashouse Gang wrote:
Another issue is the size of the players and how pervasive weight training is. You have more players like Aaron Judge (6'7"/280lbs) and fewer small speedy players. It's also now expected that players will hit the weights, where in earlier generations they worked out by lifting beers and hotdogs.
Undetected doping is probably a piece of the HR total but there are other confounding factors that make it hard to pick out what percentage might be caused by doping.
Considering José Altuve (5'6", 165lbs) is one of the front-runners for AL MVP, I would say the little guy is far from dead. But the fact that even he has 24 johnsons this year speaks to the difference in approach.
What sorts of new performance enhancing drugs are being used today? It's getting really bad.
Status Report wrote:
What sorts of new performance enhancing drugs are being used today? It's getting really bad.
Pitchers throwing harder, strikeouts not frowned upon, harder balls...
I was listening to sports talk radio and the guest attributed this to two factors.
The manufacture of baseballs changed... something to do with how the air flows over the seams. He said it started right after the all star break (last year? Not sure, but it was after one of the all star breaks. He said there was enough leeway in the rules surrounding how a baseball is made to do with without breaking the rules. Apparently a very tiny variation in the thickness of the seams and how far they stick out from the ball changes it's aerodynamics by 30+ feet. That's often the difference between a fly ball and a home run.
The second factor was the swing. He said some player swung up on the ball and was having success and over time a lot of batters switched to do the same.
Technology has enabled instrumentation to be so accurate, athletes are able to have doctors and technicians dodge the limits. Hence, dopers are now hitting a record number of home runs. It's sad.
fisky wrote:
I was listening to sports talk radio and the guest attributed this to two factors.
The manufacture of baseballs changed... something to do with how the air flows over the seams. He said it started right after the all star break (last year? Not sure, but it was after one of the all star breaks. He said there was enough leeway in the rules surrounding how a baseball is made to do with without breaking the rules. Apparently a very tiny variation in the thickness of the seams and how far they stick out from the ball changes it's aerodynamics by 30+ feet. That's often the difference between a fly ball and a home run.
There have been conspiracy theories about "juiced balls" for years--every time there is a change in the number of HRs people attribute it to MLB secretly changing the ball. But there's never been any credible evidence to support it.
The "juiced ball" in the 90s turned out to be from juiced players. Undetected doping is more likely a factor now than juiced balls, although there are also changes in managing and playing style and average size and fitness level of the players that are probably additional factors as I posted above.
Most cable sports journalists talk about the "juiced ball," not the juiced players. Maybe it is the ball.
B.S on excuses used to downplay the obvious doping .
off course everything is not just one or other but many factors.
but regardless can say doping as one of major factors .
IGF-1 lr3 like in many other sports is very much all over the big hitters
something that allows you to swing faster ,
and also throw faster with a souped up nervous system .
just look at mens javelin and all those german men ,
and they have not changed the javelin , and clearly largely hormone free
so what is going on .
this is the peptide that is largely pushing numbers up in both batting
and piching at same time .
belief the obvious or believe lies of wada .
It is pretty interesting how ESPN, baseball writers, etc., will automatically dismiss any power hitter from the 90s, even ones who haven't been proven to be dirty, but yet their tongues are lolling out of their mouths at the numbers Stanton, Judge, etc. are putting up this year. Maybe these guys today are clean, but damned if one of them is willing to raise the question we're all asking in our heads. Also know as, doing their job as a journalist...
Designer drugs are the key. It's so apparent baseball in 2017 is in the Golden Age of Drug induced alterations.
No Testing in MLB wrote:
The prob is that they aren't testing MLB players. It's a charade. It's not a cfrime to dope so the FBI doesn't get involved. Instead the MLB office lets everyone know who/what/where/how is being tested so the player's agents know ahead of time and can arrange countermeasures.
Actually many of the steroids are illegal. I am thinking it is just not a priority with the FBI unless they are pulled into it like the college basketball thing.
For all of you claiming that the HR total this year is caused mostly by doping, can you link to anything proving or supporting this belief in widespread doping in baseball other than the HR total itself?
Or is this something people are supposed to belief on faith?
gahuga wrote:
It is pretty interesting how ESPN, baseball writers, etc., will automatically dismiss any power hitter from the 90s, even ones who haven't been proven to be dirty, but yet their tongues are lolling out of their mouths at the numbers Stanton, Judge, etc. are putting up this year. Maybe these guys today are clean, but damned if one of them is willing to raise the question we're all asking in our heads. Also know as, doing their job as a journalist...
I have yet to hear a discussion on radio or TV where the subject of PEDS has not been raised. And it is usually dismissed with something like "Nothing would surprise me, but they are being tested, and they weren't before", and then all the other possible reasons are cited, as many have listed above.
So your statement that none of them are willing to raise the question is patently false. What is not false is that the camera clearly shows more players swinging up at the ball, and that the metrics show that the increased HR totals outweigh the increased strike out totals.
So while I say, just like all the writers and talking heads, that nothing would surprise me, PEDS are definitely NOT the only reason.
And as an aside, I was saying the 90s guys were on steroids long before that became the mainstream opinion. Hell, it was an early 90s spring training when Lenny Dykstra told the writers the reason he was so much bigger was because he was taking "the magic pills". I have no idea why everyone later was so shocked, shocked I say!