This is a tremendously fascinating article analyzing (in a more-or-less armchair fashion) how many of Bonds's home runs may actually be chalked up to steroids. The answer? 98, putting him at 616 currently. Still a prodigious number, but it would put him pretty far out from Aaron.
Anyway, the analysis is interesting, even if it may only be speculative, and the bits about baseball physics are pretty cool.
I have problems with this article, the biggest one being that it says, when trying to figure out the age factor, that we should give Bonds the benefit of the doubt and assume he's an ageless guy, drugs aside.
ReplyDeleteHorse hockey. Everyone not named Roger Clemens drops off, even Randy Johnson is finally slowing down. Bonds numbers would drop not just for lack of strength but for age as well, so he would have even less than this article suggests. I also disagree with its formula on figuring out how much age would affect him IF it did affect him. They include McGwire, Sosa, and Palmeiro in the equation, but we know numbers 1 and 3 were on drugs, and I'll bet Sosa was as well. Hardly a control group.
So we're to believe that if he weren't on drugs, he still would have hit 50 home runs in 2001, despite his previous best being a drug-induced 49 in 2000? After a 20 year career, he finally hits 50 despite only moderate power (30-35/yr, Fred McGriff style) before? I don't buy it.
This article doesn't deflate Bonds' stats enough. I think that without drugs, he would have hit 500 dingers and stolen 500 bases, and easily been the best, if not one of the best, players of his generation. He doesn't need the steroids, but took them anyway and smeared the name and reputation of this glorious game. I give a mad shout out to Dan Wheeler, setupman for my Houston Astros, for intentionally plunking the bastard. Wheeler is no position to judge - none of us are - so deserved the suspension he got, but I'm not crying that someone finally gave Bonds part of what I feel he deserves. Now Selig needs to step up and give him the rest.