@ HAVE PITCHERS GOTTEN BETTER OR HAVE STEROIDS DISAPPEARED? [5/11/11]

We can argue until the cows hit home runs what effect steroids had on major league baseball players.  And the haters will point to the apparent sudden drop off of home run totals as exhibit A to prove their point but is it that simple or obvious? Not by a long ball my friend!

Oh there is no argument that the over all numbers have dropped off. But you also had a guy in Jose Bautista who had never hit more than 16 HR’s in a season belt 54 in 2010! Now he did have 69 more at bats than his highest previous season where he hit 15 HR’s. But talk about your suspicious spikes in stats!

But regardless here is the bottom line. The history of baseball has gone through the pendulum swing of the periods of whopping offense and periods of stifling pitching. Don’t believe me? Check it out for yourself!

During those times you often see an improvement or adjustments  in the approach to hitting or in the number of quality pitchers. Heck sometimes even the league changes things to help one catch up. Like raise the mound for example. Think about it even during the “STEROID ERA did the Atlanta Braves staff of Smoltz, Glavine, and Maddux give up an unusual amount of HR’s? Absolutely not! And how many staffs during those times had an ace let alone a couple?

In contrast can you deny that more teams have accumulated better pitching overall during the recent decade? I mean the Phillies staff is legendary on paper but it is unfortunately not head and shoulders above as many staffs as we want to believe. The fact is pitchers overall have improved over the recent decade.

Part of the reason is that starters are made to throw more quality pitches and more quality strikes. Just throwing strikes has changed things some. For many years now hitters have been conditioned to make pitchers get there pitch counts up and to get ahead in the counts. Now more and more pitchers are going right at the strike zone while many hitters are still looking. But I believe it is even more than simple things like that.

Take an example in our own backyard. Cole Hamels in the early to mid 2000 to 2010 was clearly a GRADE A prospect and yet he was really a 2 pitch pitcher. And one of his 2 was not overwhelming. He had a good to very good fastball and a devastating change up. Oh he did throw a curve but it was not major league level. As a result he had early success due to his talent and the lack of familiarity of his pitches from the league hitters he faced. In time his 2 pitches were not enough and it began to show. The fact is he returned to elite status as he developed another pitch and improved his curve enough. Now picture the number of 2 pitch pitchers with half of Cole’s talents who had been pushed along to the major league?

The fact is velocity is over rated. Take Jamie Moyer. He is a very solid to very good pitcher because location and variety of pitches. Now don’t get me wrong a relief pitcher can get away with 1 or 2 pitches. Mariano Rivera has dominated with 1 true pitch. But even he proves another factor. Movement is enormous! His balls move! (I feel bad for those who immediately had a male anatomy reference in their mind, lol) But it’s true, his ball never goes straight. It goes up, down, in and out to left and right hand hitters!

The reality is pitching is much better as there are far more quality pitchers than there has been in quite a while. No they are not all Roy Halladays but there are a lot more pitchers who are trying to be. Pitchers nowadays are learning to pitch before they get called up and learning the difference between pitching and throwing. Hey it’s not bad to bust a 98 to 100 mph fastball but that does not make a great or good starter. Take a kid like Bud Norris of Houston. He has 4 good pitches and he can bust a 94 to 96 mph fastball which is pretty good. His lack of success is do to his slow learning of how to mix speeds. He would routinely throw a 95 mph heater and then drop a 91 mph curve and a 88 mph change up. That is not going to fool a MLB hitter. It is not enough of a speed variance despite the fact that the pitch does look a little different. Lately he has learned to keep a consistent arm movement and take enough off that he is getting pretty good.

The fact is many pitchers are learning that at Double and Triple A now. This is a big reason that the hitting domination is over. But you are saying “Andy you’re just an idiot and you are one of those losers who just doesn’t like to admit it was all steroids!”

Okay I’ll give you the idiot part, but really it was all steroids? Again how does that explain the monster numbers in years past? I mean Roger Maris did hit 61 HR’s and Hank Aaron did hit 755 HR’s. Those are not small numbers.

But you are saying “yeah but everyone did it in the 1990′s!”

Oh yeah everyone? Isn’t that a bit of an exaggeration? I mean there was a long long time before anyone hit 500 HR’s and then suddenly within a reasonably short time there was a handful. Should that have been suspicious? And forget HR’s do you know that the year Ted Williams hit .406 he DID NOT WIN THE MVP AWARD? That’s because there was a ton of offensive forces in those days! With all the juicing and the gift it gave you why didn’t anyone match or surpass DiMaggio’s hitting streak?

Realistically and frankly if you anyone thinks that the lack of steroids means everything and anything than you need a shrink! Because the fact is I guarantee you that HGH is extremely prevalent. In fact there have been recent reports saying just that. And Pujols is still putting up power numbers that even the mighty Babe did not post!

Listen folks the pitchers have gotten better as ERA’s fall in an age of smaller parks with the exception of some monster size parks like Petco and even Sun Life or whatever the Miami stadium is presently called. And whether you like it or not players are still looking for an edge and what many call “cheating” and many are doing it right now as we speak! Trust me on that.