MLB caught Cano. Why can't it catch Nelson Cruz

[vilehoopster]

I think you have to be extremely naive to not think Nelson Cruz is on PEDs. The fact that he is having far and away his best years after he turned 32 just reeks of PED use. 

Look at the article from FanGraphs. Look whom it compares him to. It's all but saying he's on PEDs. 

From there, Cruz hasn’t looked back. Since beginning his age-33 season in Baltimore, he has batted .283/.359/.553 with 235 homers, good for a 147 wRC+ and 182.5 offensive runs above average. Before turning 33, he was worth a total of just 44 offensive runs above average for his career. For context, just 20 players in history have accumulated more offensive runs above average after their age-32 season than Cruz, 15 of which are in the Hall of Fame, with three others being connected to the Steroid Era (Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, and Rafael Palmeiro). Meanwhile, 829 players compiled more offensive runs above average than Cruz through their age-32 seasons. For nine seasons, he was essentially equal in offensive value to Marcus Giles. Since then, he’s been Manny Ramirez, and it doesn’t appear he’s slowing down soon.

This article is from 2019, but look at the names it compares him to, all famous PED users. I just think it's ridiculous not to believe Cruz is on something and has been for years. Yet to my knowledge, he has never flunked a drug test. For his suspension in 2013, it was (to my reading up on it) because he was included in the records of the Biogenesis Lab, not for ever failing a drug test. The Biogenesis thing is what caught Braun and A-Rod. 

I just don't quite get it. Why can't MLB catch him at it? You have to think he's being tested continually. And I understand that it's a contest of science: One side masking the drug use and the other side trying to detect the drug use. But still  . . . .   Like I said, if MLB can catch Robinson Cano, twice, why can't it catch Cruz. 

My example of how a guy can avoid detection for years is Lance Armstrong. He was winning all those Tour de France titles in the 90's and everyone knew he was on PEDs and continually testing him, yet he didn't get completely exposed and confess until around 2010. So clearly, there is the science to mask and hide drug testing. 

I just find it very frustrating that MLB can't catch Cruz and others like him. 

 

 

[iWiN4PreP]

I think that you are fighting a losing battle if you try to vilify players for steroids. 

 

[reiks12]

yeah its obvious, wonder how hes doing it

[southsider2k5]

To be fair, Cano was stupid and was busted with the easiest to detect of steroids.  If Cruz is doing something advanced,  no on might have caught up with him yet.

[ChiSoxFanMike]

Cruz is absolutely on PED’s, what he has done the past few years is not normal. It’s only a matter of time before he gets caught.

[Eminor3rd]

The fact that you know MLB is catching players, meaning you know they are testing and that it's working, and that hasn't affected your hypothesis that Nelson Cruz is on steroids at all is almost a textbook example of bad logic.

[Vulture]

3 hours ago, Eminor3rd said:

The fact that you know MLB is catching players, meaning you know they are testing and that it's working, and that hasn't affected your hypothesis that Nelson Cruz is on steroids at all is almost a textbook example of bad logic.

Bad logic is employing a faulty premise, in this case, all players who use banned substances are tested as positive. If you use the sounder premise that some players who are not tested positive may be users of banned substances, then the above logic is perfectly reasonable. Given that we know that it is possible to use a banned substance and test negative, the latter is clearly logical but the former, not so much.

Some not tested positive are users. Cruz is not tested positive. Therefore cruz may or may not be user.

Some A are B. All C is A. Therefore C may or may not be B is perfectly valid structure

Edited November 25, 2020 by Vulture

[wegner]

This is the same kind of baseless rumor that used to be leveled against the East German Olympic track and swimming teams.  You should all be ashamed of yourselves.

[Eminor3rd]

21 hours ago, Vulture said:

Bad logic is employing a faulty premise, in this case, all players who use banned substances are tested as positive. If you use the sounder premise that some players who are not tested positive may be users of banned substances, then the above logic is perfectly reasonable. Given that we know that it is possible to use a banned substance and test negative, the latter is clearly logical but the former, not so much.

Some not tested positive are users. Cruz is not tested positive. Therefore cruz may or may not be user.

Some A are B. All C is A. Therefore C may or may not be B is perfectly valid structure

If your Bayesian prior is that all old players that are elite are steroid users, and a particular player repeatedly fails to test positive despite others testing positive, you should shift your prior based on the new evidence. Assuming that there must be something wrong with the testing is a refusal to consider that your initial hypothesis could be flawed. 

Edited November 26, 2020 by Eminor3rd

[Vulture]

53 minutes ago, Eminor3rd said:

If your Bayesian prior is that all old players that are elite are steroid users, and a particular player repeatedly fails to test positive despite others testing positive, you should shift your prior based on the new evidence.

What's the new evidence?not sure what you're referring to. Are you claiming all other users tested positive since there have been positive tests? 

I would say Cruz is more than just an old elite player. I'd say he is an old elite player who reached peak production at age 40. If you take the above argument that simply concludes cruz may or may not be a user, then look at players with peak production at age forty (eliminate knuckle ballers here as irrelevant) what's left? Bonds and Clemens? Maybe I'm missing somebody. So we have either 2 of 3, or 3 of 3 players reaching peak production at age forty who used steroids, depending on Cruz. Considering the tens of thousands of mlb players in history, and that either 67% or 100% of peak production at 40 were users, and that Cruz may or may not be user, it must be at the least somewhat likely that Cruz is in fact a user. We're talking about something like 0.015%(3 of 20,000) of players reaching peak production at 40. If testing caught users in 99/100 cases over the course of testing, it would still be 67 times more likely for a user to test negative than a player reach peak at 40, but if I had to guess it would be closer to 9/10, if that, which would put it closer to 670 times more likely. To be the only player to reach peak without steroid would put that at 201 and 2010 times. I don't think it is unreasonable to conclude, given there are substances difficult to detect as well as methods to mask use, that it is far more likely that cruz is one of the undetected users(1 to 10% approx.) than the first player in major history to peak at forty plus at an elite level (0.015%) without the benefit of either steroids (0.005%) or a knuckleball(looking at you Hoyt Wilhelm).

Edited November 25, 2020 by Vulture

[Vulture]

I have to admit I thought Cruz was 41 for some reason. Still he has been at his peak level age 38-39, I think above still holds. Don't believe there is any other non steroid user who has peaked at elite level at those ages.

[Dominikk85]

Because only low IQ idiots get caught. Cano took a steroid from the 80s, famous doping doc victor conte said you need to be an idiot to get caught.

There are modern substances and methods that are almost undetectable, lance armstrong spent millions on not getting caught and only got caught due to wistleblowers.

I think it is no coincidence that mostly latin players get caught. Obviously latin players are not more stupid than us players but they leave school at 16 and really focus on baseball since they are 12 so their formal education is not great.

That being said cano has over 100m in the bank, I can understand that a latin minor leagues who barely speaks English and doesn't have a HS degree gets caught but cano has the means to afford a good team and even hire a doc, not sure why he is injecting that old stuff into his ass.

[Balta1701]

3 hours ago, Dominikk85 said:

Because only low IQ idiots get caught. Cano took a steroid from the 80s, famous doping doc victor conte said you need to be an idiot to get caught.

There are modern substances and methods that are almost undetectable, lance armstrong spent millions on not getting caught and only got caught due to wistleblowers.

I think it is no coincidence that mostly latin players get caught. Obviously latin players are not more stupid than us players but they leave school at 16 and really focus on baseball since they are 12 so their formal education is not great.

That being said cano has over 100m in the bank, I can understand that a latin minor leagues who barely speaks English and doesn't have a HS degree gets caught but cano has the means to afford a good team and even hire a doc, not sure why he is injecting that old stuff into his ass.

1. Has everyone in here forgotten that Cruz did get caught? Maybe not by a test but because his supplier got busted.

2. Modern tests are well beyond the abilities of the tests that didn’t catch Armstrong. While there may still be holes such as times during the year when he isn’t tested, it is actually possible to watch for a shift in the isotopic ratios of hormones in the body now and it’s nearly impossible to avoid that happening if you take a steroid. You would need to match the composition of the steroid to the individuals body beforehand and that would be really difficult.

One hypothesis: Tetrahydrogestrinone kept hitting home runs in San Francisco for years after BALCO was busted, and was out of the league not because he was done but because no one wanted the trouble of signing him, us included. Perhaps Cruz got himself in shape from a few years of steroids back in 2010-2013 and his body is just holding up well from it?

[Dominikk85]

Well cano took a substance that Ben johnson got busted for 20 years before armstrong so modern testing was not really needed to catch him:).

It is harder now to not get caught but cano certainly took zero effort in trying to avoid getting caught by taking the oldest and easiest to detect substance.

Edited November 25, 2020 by Dominikk85

[hogan873]

If Cruz is using, he'll only be caught if the Sox sign him in the off season.

"Slugger Nelson Cruz, who just signed a one year deal with the White Sox, was suspended today after testing positive for PEDs.  The Sox have reportedly reached out to former teammate Mark Teahan to fill the DH hole left after Cruz's suspension."

[South Side Hit Men]

13 minutes ago, hogan873 said:

If Cruz is using, he'll only be caught if the Sox sign him in the off season.

"Slugger Nelson Cruz, who just signed a one year deal with the White Sox, was suspended today after testing positive for PEDs.  The Sox have reportedly reached out to former teammate Mark Teahan to fill the DH hole left after Cruz's suspension."

That's silly, that would never happen. Oh wait, it already happened.

https://www.mlb.com/news/welington-castillo-suspended-for-positive-test-c278113032

Wasn't on this board for this signing and suspension, didn't understand at the time why he was signed when they were "tanking", especially with a contract higher than McCann will likely see this off-season during the COVID plus Collusion 6.0 free agent period.

[pcq]

I know some election attorneys who could prove it. 

[Eminor3rd]

20 hours ago, Vulture said:

What's the new evidence?not sure what you're referring to. Are you claiming all other users tested positive since there have been positive tests? 

I would say Cruz is more than just an old elite player. I'd say he is an old elite player who reached peak production at age 40. If you take the above argument that simply concludes cruz may or may not be a user, then look at players with peak production at age forty (eliminate knuckle ballers here as irrelevant) what's left? Bonds and Clemens? Maybe I'm missing somebody. So we have either 2 of 3, or 3 of 3 players reaching peak production at age forty who used steroids, depending on Cruz. Considering the tens of thousands of mlb players in history, and that either 67% or 100% of peak production at 40 were users, and that Cruz may or may not be user, it must be at the least somewhat likely that Cruz is in fact a user. We're talking about something like 0.015%(3 of 20,000) of players reaching peak production at 40. If testing caught users in 99/100 cases over the course of testing, it would still be 67 times more likely for a user to test negative than a player reach peak at 40, but if I had to guess it would be closer to 9/10, if that, which would put it closer to 670 times more likely. To be the only player to reach peak without steroid would put that at 201 and 2010 times. I don't think it is unreasonable to conclude, given there are substances difficult to detect as well as methods to mask use, that it is far more likely that cruz is one of the undetected users(1 to 10% approx.) than the first player in major history to peak at forty plus at an elite level (0.015%) without the benefit of either steroids (0.005%) or a knuckleball(looking at you Hoyt Wilhelm).

1. The new evidence would be the lack of positive tests.

2. Nelson Cruz's best seasons were in 2010 and 2015. The fact that he was pacing better production over 53 games in 2020 is not the same thing.

3. You're acting like the only explanation for his production is steroids, which is not true. A simpler explanation would be that Cruz has been a one-dimensional player his entire career who was underrated when he was younger because the baseball metagame was different, and it has just so happened to shift to favor his skills EXACTLY. You might also notice that his wRC+ tracks remarkably well with his BABIP each year -- the past two seasons have been the highest full season marks of his career, roughly 50 points higher than his career average. The two other seasons where he managed a BABIP essentially that high were... 2010 and 2015. If a couple dozen balls landed differently, the story would be way different. If his BABIP was hard-hit fueled and thus NOT luck driven, his career numbers would show it. Further, sabermetric research has shown that the typical career arc for a successful player involves an increase in walk rate over time in exchange for an increase in strikeouts as the bat slows and the approach must become more disciplined to make up for it -- and lo, his walk and strikeout rates have gradually increased over the course of his career.

Where is the evidence that he IS a steroid user? What do you know about how steroids affect baseball players? Even the experts will tell you that we know very little. We know steroids can help athletes build muscle mass quicker -- but strength and power are the one thing Cruz has NEVER lacked, and there's been no sudden change in power production at any point. We also know steroids can help players recover from injury faster, helping them spend more time on the field than they normally would as they age. Nelson Cruz has been remarkably healthy throughout the bulk of his career -- until last year, when he had multiple stints on the IL due to wrist issues.

When you look at his career arc, it tells a story of an all-or-nothing slugger who has the same season over and over with one exception -- his batted ball luck determines whether he has an okay year, a good year, or a great year. It's all tied to his batting average. It's POSSIBLE that he's a steroid user who has simply been able to trick MLB's testing over the course of a fifteen year career -- despite the fact the so many other players with the same resources have failed to do so, and if it were possible, those with the knowledge and technology would be heavily incentivized to sell their services to as many players as possible -- but Occam's Razor strongly suggests otherwise. 

Edited November 26, 2020 by Eminor3rd