Archive for November 15th, 2005

New Steroid Policy

Jeff J. Snider Sports

According to anonymous sources, Major League Baseball and the Players Association have agreed to a new steroid policy, which calls for a 50-game suspension for the first positive test, 100 games for the second, and a lifetime ban (appealable after two years) for the third offense. The new agreement also included testing for amphetamines, with different consequences. The first positive test results in an automatic second test. A second positive calls for a 25-game suspension, with 80 games for a third positive. The consequences for a fourth positive test are left to the commissioner’s discretion, with all decisions reviewed by an arbitrator.

I think this is a positive step for baseball, especially if it will get Congress off its back. But after reading all the reports in ESPN the Magazine, I still can’t help thinking that the issue here isn’t as much in the penalties as in the actual testing. According to BALCO head-weiner Victor Conte, the current testing system is very easy to beat. As long as that is the case, it won’t matter how tough the penalties are, because only the stupid people will get caught anyway.

So yes, this is a good step forward, but until there is an effective (and flexible, to account for new technology) testing plan in place, there is still work to be done.

Add comment November 15th, 2005 at 01:39pm

National League MVP final thoughts

Jeff J. Snider Sports

UPDATE: I’m glad to say that Albert Pujols won.

Okay, I am going to make this quick. I wish I didn’t think Andruw Jones was going to win this award today, but I do. Should he? Absolutely not. Let’s look at the statistical categories in which he led Albert Pujols and Derrek Lee: home runs and RBI.

Home runs are nice, but really, the point is to score runs, and it doesn’t really matter how you do it. A better indication of a player’s power contribution to his team is slugging percentage, because it gives credit to hits of all kinds, with more credit going to the bigger hits (like home runs). Andruw Jones, despite having five more home runs than Derrek Lee and ten more than Albert Pujols, still trailed them in slugging percentage by 85 and 34 points, respectively. A lot of that comes from the fact that Jones had many fewer extra-base hits that weren’t homers (27, compared to 40 for Pujols and 53 for Lee). You also have the fact that Jones had far fewer singles (76) than Pujols (114) or Lee (100).
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Add comment November 15th, 2005 at 10:16am

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