Steroids and Chavez

[Controlled Chaos]

Steroids era has distorted baseball numbers

 

Steroids era has distorted baseball numbers

It's not fair to hold clean players up to past standards

 

 

Eric Chavez says it's not fair to compare current players to those of the steroids era. “Certain standards have been set that are unrealistic. It’s not worth it to me to take it to the next level.”

 

By Neil Hayes

NBCSports.com contributor

May 12, 2005

Baseball’s steroid problem has been exposed. Testing has become more stringent and an even tougher policy looms on the horizon.

 

But there is still so much about baseball and steroids that we don’t understand or haven’t had time to fully consider yet.

 

Take, for example, a point made by Oakland A’s third baseman Eric Chavez.

 

“Unfortunately, illegal substances have come into the game and tainted the numbers and the levels of expectations have jumped,” Chavez said. “For those of us who participate cleanly, it’s unrealistic. It’s unfair.”

 

Numbers are the language of baseball but those numbers have become bloated during the Steroid Era. Chavez’s question is this: Is it fair, then, to measure current players against those distorted statistics?

 

The A’s third baseman is off to his typical slow start. It’s been his modus operandi for the past five years. He has started slow but has still finished the season averaging 30 home runs and 97 RBI during that span.

 

Those numbers, coupled with his four consecutive Gold Glove Awards, put him in elite company among third baseman in baseball history.

 

Simply put, the man is quietly building Hall of Fame credentials.

 

But there has always been a perception that Chavez hasn’t done enough. His talent is so obvious — his hands so quick and that left-handed swing so sweet — that people keep waiting for that “breakthrough” season — .300 batting average, 40 home runs and 120 RBI.

 

“Certain standards have been set that are unrealistic,” Chavez said. “It’s not worth it to me to take it to the next level.”

 

Chavez could’ve taken steroids. He didn’t. It isn’t that he chose not to so much as steroids came and went without him even being aware of it.

 

He admits he was naïve. He didn’t even realize friend and mentor Jason Giambi was using performance-enhancing drugs when he was playing for the A’s.

 

“I can’t even say I was suspicious of him because I wasn’t,” he said. “It wasn’t even a thought in my mind.”

 

Numbers are so important to baseball because they allow us to compare players from different eras. Sometimes those comparisons are awkward.

 

If power hitters in this post-steroid era fail to put up the kind of numbers common during the past decade, for example, will they be considered inferior? The answer to that question could impact a generation of players who are now, like Chavez, just stepping into their primes.

 

Scouts begin projecting numbers on prospects from the first day they evaluate them. Media members, often parroting baseball insiders, talk about how so-and-so is capable of hitting 40 homers with 120 RBI.

 

But how reasonable is that now that the steroid orgy is over?

 

The game is cleaning itself up. As a result, we may need to lower our expectations. The boom is over. Baseball is no longer a steroid-fueled cartoon.

 

It’s not as if the home runs will disappear. Players have gotten bigger and stronger, bats lighter, ballparks smaller. But maybe now the pendulum will swing back to the days when 30 was a magic number for home runs.

 

Maybe then players such as Chavez won’t feel as if they are being held up to an unfair standard.

[marsh]

I didn't read the article but he always looked like a human being to me and he wasn't hitting 50 homers a year. This is a great buy low situation for the sox. He has good career numbers, he's fairly young, and he started off the season well below career numbers. Get him and don't look back. Not to mention gold glove defense and good clubhouse guy from all I've read.

Edited June 2, 2005 by marsh

[AddisonStSox]

I'm a little worried about the corelation between MLB's new crack-down on steroids and Chavez's dip in numbers.

 

I'm not saying...I'm just saying.

[marsh]

I can't see the A's throwing a ton of money at him if they suspected he was juicing.

[LosMediasBlancas]

I'm a little worried about the corelation between MLB's new crack-down on steroids and Chavez's dip in numbers.

 

I'm not saying...I'm just saying.

What correlation? I didn't see anything implied in the article. In fact, it reads like the opposite.

[AddisonStSox]

What correlation? I didn't see anything implied in the article. In fact, it reads like the opposite.

 

Let me clear that up: that claim had nothing to do with that article, that is something Soxtalk's Dick Allen and a few others have suggested in the past.

[LosMediasBlancas]

Let me clear that up: that claim had nothing to do with that article, that is something Soxtalk's Dick Allen and a few others have suggested in the past.

 

Doesn't he usually get off to a slow start? I guess most of our offense must have been juicing prior to this year too then.

[AddisonStSox]

Doesn't he usually get off to a slow start? I guess most of our offense must have been juicing prior to this year too then.

 

Knock it off.

 

I'm out.

[Middle Buffalo]

The players' silence and unwillingness to step up and get steroids out of the game puts every player under a cloud of suspicion. They brought this on themselves.

 

Chavez is right, but I hardly believe that he didn't suspect/know that Giambi was cheating. Consider your own work-place. Don't you know stuff about people just because workplace gossip has a way of getting around to everyone. You know who cheats on their spouses, who does drugs, etc. Think MLB clubhouses aren't the same?

 

Chavez' head in the sand act is the same that Schilling pulled before Congress.