Giancarlo Stanton Stokes Baseball's Great Home-Run Debate

SoxJox

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Interesting WSJ article from Jared Stanton.

As Miami Marlins slugger Giancarlo Stanton continues his march toward 60 home runs, his power surge has reignited one of baseball's fiercest debates: What makes a player the "true home run king?"

From a strictly numerical standpoint, this isn't a complicated question. Regardless of one's opinion about performance-enhancing drugs and their legacy in the game, Barry Bonds holds the single-season home run record with 73, a total he reached in 2001. As Major League Baseball's official historian John Thorn puts it, "There's no getting around the arithmetic."

If only it were that simple. Bonds' connection to PEDs has cast a shadow of illegitimacy over his achievements in the eyes of many. The same goes for Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, two other steroid-era mashers who surpassed Roger Maris's hallowed mark of 61. Stanton himself has stoked these flames, telling local reporters last month that "considering some things" he views 73 as tainted and that 61 had "always been that printed number." "But at the same time, it doesn't matter," Stanton said. "The record is the record."
Article also speaks to why the discussion of home runs, unlike many other sports, even generates such passionate interest and debate, and why historical and situational context is a factor.
 
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smastroyin

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I wonder if the question is nearly as interesting if he ends up at 57.

Actually, I mostly don't think it is interesting at all. Like a political argument, it simply comes down to whether you are an asterisk type or if you are not. MLB has decided that the "steroid era" doesn't need asterisks. And frankly they shouldn't. I understand it is in our recent memory. But, you know, I don't hear a lot of calls for Chris Sale to be acknowledged for his innings because he's not pitching in a 4 man rotation era, etc. It really only seems that the HR record gets people all twisted in knots. Which I guess is interesting psychologically in terms of fandom.

Anyway, Stanton needs a hot streak to get there. He has 19 games left and 54 HR. 30 of his 54 HR came in a 48 game stretch from July 5 - August 29. That's an incredible pace that is unlikely to continue. In the 13 games since August 29 he has hit 3, which matches his pace from before the streak.
 

Marciano490

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Ruth predated steroids, but I never understood why people were so sure Maris wasn't on them.
 

Kliq

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Ruth predated steroids, but I never understood why people were so sure Maris wasn't on them.
Bonds' record season was +24 over his previous career high. Maris' record season was +22.

Another thing about the steroid guys is that they were hitting against pitchers who were also often juicing. The effects on a pitcher juicing vs a hitter juicing are different, but it is part of the discussion. The steroid guys were not hitting of the same pitchers Ruth and Maris were teeing off against.
 

Marciano490

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Are pitchers helped as much by steroids as hitters? Weren't guys like Johnson and Matthewson throw in the mid-90s even way back when? Seems like there are a lot of scrawny guys who can still hit upper 90s; I can't think of too many fellas with a slight build that were hitting over 40 home runs. I know that's not super scientific.
 

Kliq

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Are pitchers helped as much by steroids as hitters? Weren't guys like Johnson and Matthewson throw in the mid-90s even way back when? Seems like there are a lot of scrawny guys who can still hit upper 90s; I can't think of too many fellas with a slight build that were hitting over 40 home runs. I know that's not super scientific.
Someone else has much more knowledge on this than I do; but I've read years ago that pitchers use steroids more frequently than hitters. The idea being that they aid in the recovery process that pitchers need in between starts.

We have no idea how fast dead-ball pitchers were throwing; I imagine that it was significantly slower than the average speed today. Matthewson wrote in his book "Pitching in a Pinch" that one of the flaws of many pitchers of the day was their desire to throw fast all the time and that he would only break out his hardest stuff a couple of times a game. I think the fact that these guys were able to throw enormous amounts of innings with little time to rest and they were effective for decades kind of proves that they were not putting the strain on their arms that the pitcher of the modern day does; which means they were probably throwing a lot lighter.
 

doc

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Ruth predated steroids, but I never understood why people were so sure Maris wasn't on them.
It's remotely possible that Maris was on them, the first known use of anabolic steroids in sports was synthetic testosterone in the 1956 Olympics among Russian wrestlers. Baseball players in general were late to the game with weight training to improve performance so I doubt it.


Oh and those early steroids date back to the 30's so Ruth doesn't pre date them by much.

Maris probably used amphetamines, but looking that up I found the story of Mantle and Dr Max Jacobson. Apparently the hip abscess Mantle had in 1961 was from an injection of amphetamines and primitive steroids.
 
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Marciano490

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It's remotely possible that Maris was on them, the first known use of anabolic steroids in sports was synthetic testosterone in the 1956 Olympics among Russian wrestlers. Baseball players in general were late to the game with weight training to improve performance so I doubt it.
Do you have a source for that? I thought I'd read it was around 1938, but I'll check that as well.
 

doc

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Do you have a source for that? I thought I'd read it was around 1938, but I'll check that as well.
Only Wikipedia right now, I'm looking through their sources. I did find that some pitcher in the 1890's injected himself with ground up monkey testicles. Sounds like a good way to get AIDS or some other horrible virus.

Also look at my edit on the fly above.
 

Marbleheader

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I think we need to start treating baseball records like all the other sports, they really don't matter all that much. We can appreciate what Stanton is doing independent of Ruth or Bonds or anyone else.
 

Marciano490

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Only Wikipedia right now, I'm looking through their sources. I did find that some pitcher in the 1890's injected himself with ground up monkey testicles. Sounds like a good way to get AIDS or some other horrible virus.

Also look at my edit on the fly above.
Yeah, that's all I've found so far, but I could've sworn I read something about Nazi experimentation, as they were being used to treat patients in the early 1930s. But, maybe that was just an Indiana Jones movie?
 

doc

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Yeah, that's all I've found so far, but I could've sworn I read something about Nazi experimentation, as they were being used to treat patients in the early 1930s. But, maybe that was just an Indiana Jones movie?
No the Nazi's and the Russians did things with steroids and speed with soldiers, The right mix of the 2 and you can elicit a pre-psychotic rage where they can follow simple orders but don't need to sleep or eat for days and really, really like to kill.
 

Marciano490

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No the Nazi's and the Russians did things with steroids and speed with soldiers, The right mix of the 2 and you can elicit a pre-psychotic rage where they can follow simple orders but don't need to sleep or eat for days and really, really like to kill.
Yeah, I think half the guys I used to lift with figured out that same combo.
 

kenneycb

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I think the assumption is that if he's been doping, he's been doing it since he entered into the league. His power profile has remained more or less consistent when not getting hit in inopportune places by pitchers.
 

trekfan55

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What makes people assume Stanton is clean? I have no idea, but the dude is pretty jacked.
I know it's not perfect, but there is widespread testing now in MLB. Several players have divulged how many times they have been tested. Maybe the Union will agree to blood tests and to freezing samples but at least players are being tested now.
 

E5 Yaz

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Stanton's own comments from the WSJ article were a truncated version of what he told a group of Florida reporters. He's much more nuanced about it than was presented by the WSJ

So after saying he considered Maris’ record the real one, after saying 61 home runs always was the number he knew as a kid, he thought about it for a while in the Marlins’ clubhouse following their 8-1 win against San Francisco.
He wanted to clarify his thoughts some more. So he did something he rarely does. He walked back over to the group of reporters who left him 10 minutes earlier and took another stab at the question.
He admitted he’s “at a crossroads” in an internal debate over what to think about all this. If PED users like Bonds, McGwire and Sosa need an asterisk by their name, he said, so does Babe Ruth since he only faced white pitchers.
You’ve heard this argument. Each generation, Stanton was saying, has its own issue that doesn’t translate well to succeeding baseball generations. Maris and Hank Aaron, for instance, played in an era infested with “greenies,” or amphetamines to give a pre-game pep.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/miami-marlins/fl-sp-hyde-marlins-stanton-20170816-story.html

Imagine the hubbub if the Marlins still had last season's hitting coach
 

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A friend of mine played OL in the NFL from mid-70's to the mid-80's. One of the guys he played next to was shooting testosterone straight out of corpses in the 70's. Not sure when that practice originated or if it would have an ongoing effect without being injected every gameday.
 

Lose Remerswaal

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Imagine the hubbub if the Marlins still had last season's hitting coach
Oh you didn't know?

Marlins slugger Giancarlo Stanton, who leads MLB with 51 homers — including seven in his last 10 games — revealed this week he’s been turning to Barry Bonds for advice at the plate.

“Barry’s been huge for me,” Stanton told the Miami Herald. “We talk all the time. He’s guided me along this year.”
Looks like he called someone!

51-home run man Giancarlo Stanton is still getting advice from an old coach — Barry Bonds.

“Barry’s been huge for me,” Stanton told Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald. “We talk all the time. He’s guided me along this year.”
 

NJ_Sox_Fan

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I know MLB tests now, but I'd imagine they're fairly easy for people who want to, to beat. I have a hard time believing that all of a sudden a juiced ball is what's causing the most HRs ever, and by a wide margin.

Either way, I'm fine with it
 

BigMike

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No the Nazi's and the Russians did things with steroids and speed with soldiers, The right mix of the 2 and you can elicit a pre-psychotic rage where they can follow simple orders but don't need to sleep or eat for days and really, really like to kill.
Yes there were experiments with Steroids and soldiers etc dating back to the 30s

Doc is right in that the first known effective use of steroids in Athletics was in the 1956 Olympics. Doesn't mean other people didn't try to cheat prior to that. Doesn't mean there wasn't even someone who lucked into some physical improvement prior to 1956, but that is the first real case of proven success,

And it was somewhere in the early to mid 1960s where they really started to become more common, and then probably into the 1980s when the science really matured. I do have no doubt in my mind there are members of the hall who have used them. Won't make accusations, I have no idea, but it seems very unlikely that given the 30-35 year span from when steroids were common for athletes to the point where baseball started caring that none of the best players used.

In terms of Stanton. Could he be natural. Sure why not. I have no doubt a person with dedicate strength training for 15 years, specifically focused o the sport could achieve that physique. Could he be enhanced, certainly, he did sure seem to have a huge jump from a junior in HS to his draft day, especially in weight/strength (was listed at 165 as a Jr in HS, 205 at draft), but that might be just sloppy measurements.

What I don't believe in any way is that 2017 is a product of Stanton suddenly starting to use PED
 

simplicio

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I know MLB tests now, but I'd imagine they're fairly easy for people who want to, to beat. I have a hard time believing that all of a sudden a juiced ball is what's causing the most HRs ever, and by a wide margin.

Either way, I'm fine with it
I find that more believable than the idea that massive league-wide organized doping started abruptly at the all-star break last year, don't you?