Bashbrothers

The Angels were a better team by far on paper in 2012, yet the Rangers and A's bested them. I don't think we should engage in offseason paper championships. The results on the field in 2014 will determine who is better. They were also picked by many to win the division last season as well. Who gives a shit.

 

Put a solid team together and see what happens.

Better team on paper if you are going by name recognition.  I don't think you could have made a good statistical argument for the Angels being better than the A's or Rangers that year.

Scientists have determined that hitting a 98 MPH baseball is a superhuman ability.   You basically have to be in the 99.7 percentile of hand eye coordination to do it + mechanics.   I'd say hand eyed coordination makes them pretty athletic. 

I hate the Tigers and all the bullshit narratives that won't stop now.

Both teams are playing outstanding defense so far.

I ****ing hate the Tigers.

I think Boston is going to do it.

Angels can end the Rangers season and that's awesome.

To think for even a minute steroids don't increase performance is laughable. I never took the leap, but know dozens who have. I know a lot more about it than average joe.

Steroids increase performance. No different than any other drug effects your performance.

Sure, steroids won't make you or me suddenly be able to play sports like pro athletes. The natural skill will always be more important. But if you don't think being stronger will help (in any sport), you're fooling yourself.

Why the sudden drop in power throughout baseball in the more aggressive testing era? Did they change the ball again? Why are so many players slowing in their 30's now, as opposed to a decade ago when the star players were still the same hitter at 32 years old and up?

Is there less power or is there less contact?  Strike outs are way up.

You can't use common sense when discussing data.  The evidence shows there is no increase from users and non users.   Obviously, it's hard to get a sample without bias and it's not ethical to do a controlled study. 

It's rather easy to explain.  Power is not only generated through the lower body (anybody who has played baseball can testify to this) but baseball is such a mechanically dominated game as well as hand eye coordination.

Being beefy up top doesn't help you hit home runs or pitch better. 

that was a long and interesting read.  took awhile when you follow all of the links and look up the related medical references.  It was actually something I've been meaning to delve into in a greater degree of detail for a while.  Having a lot of that in once place was useful. 

 

having a medical background and spending the last 20 years in the field on both the clinical and research side of the industry, I must say this set of articles does not represent the scientific method in any way shape or form.  The conclusions are based on assumptions of other assumptions from two lines cherry picked from medical journal articles that if you read in their entirety completely and utterly refute the initial assumption and therefore the conclusion. 

 

While reading this, the one thing that kept running through my mind was this quote:

 

"Mr. Madison, what you've just said;... is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul..."

 The conclusion of the thesis was that steroids have no effect on performance, and there is no evidence to the contrary to that. 

Arthur De Vany is a professor of economics at Cal State Irvine.

 

Will Carroll is a sports writer that has no diploma.

 

Jonathan R. Cole is a professor of Sociology at Columbia University

 

 

None of these guys are physicians or have any medical background.

Will Carroll has a medical background.  I didn't say the others were in medicine.

If you want more information on the medical effects: http://steroids-and-baseball.com/medical-effects.shtml

Sources and detailed explanations

I didn't mean to suggest that the movie should have gone out of its way to mention the Angels. I just meant to say that as an Angels fan, I was struck by the scene where Beane tells players in the clubhouse he doesn't want them to bunt or steal. You as the casual viewer are being led to believe that this is some revelation from Beane and Brand (and by extension, Bill James), but the first thing it made me think was "Hey, we didn't do too badly offensively that year doing both of those things. Our team improved a hell of a lot more than Oakland's did from 2001 to 2002."  

 

I really liked the movie the first time I watched it. The second and third time around I started noticing the flaws. That's true of any movie, though. Except midget porn.

Sacrificing a lot doesn't mean you will have a bad offense, it just means you are suppressing your offensive value.  Stealing may or may not be beneficial.  But you have to hit above the break even point.

Let me know which expert is fully behind the concept that Bonds may or may not have, knowing or unknowlingly, took PEDs.

 

A list of the Bonds Truthers, please, BashBrother.

You are missing the point, yk.  The article is a bit dated (All the data is still relevant) so it says stuff like this, but if you read carefully instead of trying to cherry pick this is ultimately irrelevant.

Also, for people who think steroids can make you super human looking, that's wrong.   I think most of these myths come from misconceptions and ignorance about steroids.

I don't get it.  Bonds is/has been/still is well conditioned and this doesn't do anything to challenge the numbers.

Yeah I have no idea who any of those people are.

 

And as MT said, athletes aren't going to take a potentially life-threatening drug if it wasn't going to help their performance. For what other reason would they take it?

I am surprised you don't know guys who work in stats and medicine  for a living are.

Read between the lines.  The implication was it didn't matter either way.  The question is did it improve his performance or is the power spike due to random variation and a different ball?
 

Saying the idea sounds crazy does nothing to disprove it. 

Appeal to authority?

 

Also please list these "reputable statisticians". I'm guessing they will be people I have never heard of.

It would be the appeal to authority if there wasn't countless data I just showed through the link.   People often want to get credentials when stuff like this comes out to add validity. And it's also peer reviewed.  All important in making conclusions.  It is in fact, how we go about disproving everything else in science.  Study, find results, conclusion, rinse and repeat.

Professor Arthur DeVany

Will Carroll (Medical Effects of PED's)

Professors Jonathan R. Cole

http://deadspin.com/the-astros-drew-a-0-00-nielsen-rating-1372996857

"It's not as bad as it sounds. The Nielsen numbers are calculated by extrapolating a limited number of meters, in this case 581 of them. So it's more accurate to say that of 581 randomly selected Houston-area households, none tuned into the Astros game.

A more significant issue is that most of the Houstonians who want to watch Astros games can't. CSN Houston has been waging a year-long battle over carriage fees. At a stalemate since the channel went on the air last October, it's still not carried on AT&T, Time Warner, DirecTV, and Dish Network. It's available in roughly 40 percent of Houston households."

Listen, there are a lot of butthurt angel fans on this thread, who sound ridiculous, complaining about a movie b/c it doesn't give the Angels "their due".

 

 

That said, your linked article is asinine.  Ridiculous.

 

The Bonds part:

After the move to the new park-of-many-names (originally PacBell), his PF generally--just as one might expect in a player in his late 30s--began a zig-zag but obvious decline. The single exception, of course, was the famous one-shot spike in 2001, when he shattered the home-run record. The extent to which that year was a freak, even for Bonds, is glaringly obvious from the graph above.

 

Bonds'"obvious decline" in late thirties is still so far every mortal man, and what Bonds did during the so-called "prime years" of his career. 

 

Don't insult anyone's intelligence here w that article.

Eric Walker is anything but asinine.  He showed Bonds power spikes and used him as a case study.  The power spike isn't as crazy as people believe. There is a reason why this guy has been a consultant for thirty years.  Just because you disagree with it because of common sense most likely, doesn't make it asinine.   Nothing is common sense in data. Still, ignoring Bonds completely, it's pretty obvious you didn't read the entirety of the article. Or even that part fully.  Not only was the spike completely natural, but that was also when they changed the composition of the ball.   That explains Bonds completely.

Outside of the case study you'd be hard pressed to refute anything in there.  How steroids couldn't possibly help with power as they help with upperbody and the power of a swing is generated through your lower body, no variation between users/nonusers, no difference in ERA's other than when they changed the baseball.

Eric Walker and every reputable statistician who has ever done work on steroids has found no evidence for them helping.

And a whole lot of PEDs....    Lets not pretend all those guys who found the fountain of youth weren't partaking of chemical assistance..

http://steroids-and-baseball.com/actual-effects.shtml

The guy who has made this thesis has worked as a statistician and a consultant for baseball teams for over thirty years.  Every other statistician who has done thorough and brilliant work on PED's have found no positive effect or negative. 

The movie is really good.  It's a retelling of the past, but the movie, unlike the book, is more about how the underdog overcomes. 

A's fans show up to playoff games = good for baseball. Texas fans show up = bandwagon

 

A's win division with a payroll of 66 million = good for baseball. Texas wins the division with a payroll of 55 million = hated

Our fans aren't fairweather.  They just never show up.  Win or lose.

No one dumber than John Rocker. ****ing idiot!

 

His reddit AMA was a fantastic train wreck

Which Ranger fan said after the Rangers beat the A's in a series that the Rangers would run away with the division?

Were you born in 1932 or is Oakland, FL your hometown?

The Oakland Hills are really nice.

I like going to the games... It adds character

It does look gross, but going to the games are totally fine.  Everyone is really chill.