Kuzul

We now know that cheating was a part of baseball for the last two decades. There are legitimate reasons to believe between 50 percent and 80 percent of players were using some form of performance enhancing drugs. For many, the improvements flew under the radar, preventing suspicion.

But in a few belligerent examples of perceived immunity, players exploded for other-worldly numbers. These are a few of the most glaring examples of such seasons.  

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Baseball has always been a sport based mainly upon tradition. People fear change, and Major League Baseball is no different.

Nearly everything you see on this list comes from the past 35 years or so. Prior to that time, there was little room for individuality in the game. It was about tradition and the team. Players weren’t supposed to bring any added attention to themselves except from their play on the field.

These accessories come in several different categories including equipment, style and habits. Players have been allowed to express their personalities and their individuality during this recent 35 year time frame.

I may have missed something, so if that’s the case please share.

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This past November when new Diamondbacks general manager Kevin Towers admitted that he would be willing to move star outfielder and former No. 1 draft choice Justin Upton, many people were slightly confused.  Not only was Justin Upton only 23 years old, but he was also clearly Arizona’s top player and had just inked a long-term deal (with the Diamondbacks former GM) to stay in Arizona with a relatively team-friendly price tag of only $50 million over the next five seasons. 

However, Upton was coming off what some people were calling a down year.  In 2009, Upton hit 26 home runs and .OPS’d a MVP-esque .898.  However in 2010, Upton only clubbed 17 home runs and saw his .OPS drop to a more modest .798.  In the following days after Towers admitted he had floated Upton to other teams, a flurry of rumors flew around about teams calling for the Diamondbacks star youngster. 

Fast forward to spring training, and the rumors have died down; it has become quite clear that Kevin Towers will not find a new home for his (now) 24-year-old right fielder.  One executive said the asking price for Upton was, “ridiculous.”  The price was, then believed to be at least four or five talented MLB ready players.  The kind of guys who only get moved for the best of the best or not even traded at all.

Sound ridiculous?  Consider this: Justin Upton may very well be the next Barry Bonds.  Not the Bonds who while using steroids in 2001 hit 73 home runs…and only 49 (!!) singles.  But more along the lines of the Bonds who was a perennial MVP candidate from about 1989-1998. 

In Upton’s first 1,700 plate appearances, he has shown just that, in fact, his numbers are surprisingly similar to Bonds’ first 1,700 PAs.  Upton’s .OPS was .828, Bonds’ was a slightly lower .814.  Upton belted 60 home runs (one every 25 at bats), and Bonds drilled 65 (one every 23 at bats).  Bonds only collected 165 RBI while Upton plated 208 runners. 

Their slash lines were remarkably similar: Upton hit .272/.352/.471, while Bonds hit .258/.343/.471 over the same stretch of their careers.  The only significant difference between the two comes to us from WAR (wins above replacement), and this can be attributed to Upton’s average defense versus Bonds allegedly elite D.  Upton was worth 7.7 WAR while Bonds was worth almost twice that at 14.4 WAR. 

However, we can certainly question the reliability of all ways for accounting for defense into WAR for players who did not play in our current sabermetrics era.  Today, WAR uses the defensive metric UZR which has only been around since 2002; UZR comes from batted ball data.  For all calculations of past players’ WAR, defense is measured with a much-less reliable formula which takes fielding percentage, assists and putouts into play. 

So, how can we determine what to expect from the younger Upton brother over the next few seasons?  I believe that we can simply look to Bonds as a good indicator of how Justin will fare next season.  (His projections may be of particular interest to anyone out there who plays fantasy baseball.) 

Over Bonds’ next 1,900 plate appearances, he hit .279/.388/.496, and in addition, he averaged 26 home runs and 96 RBI.  His .OPS was a solid .886 and his WAR was an astronomical eight-plus a year.   The home run and RBI totals match Upton’s career high, so we know he is capable of producing at those levels in 2011, probably with just a little bit of a drop off in the HR department. 

The .388 on base percentage is probably a bit out of Upton’s reach due to Bonds over his next 1,900 PAs had a BB% well over 12 percent which is ridiculously high.  He even peaked at 15 percent in 1990.  That BB% is so high that only six players in 2010 had a BB% of over 14; they were: Daric Barton, Prince Fielder, Carlos Pena, Albert Pujols, Jose Bautista and Jason Heyward.  So while Upton’s career base on ball percentage is better than 10.5 percent, he will probably not reach the same status as Bonds.  But how much of a difference will the BB% difference of probably about 2 percent make on .OBP?

I looked to the stats to find out.  In 2010, three players made 675 plate appearances: Matt Holliday, Austin Jackson and Michael Cuddyer.  Holliday’s BB% was 10.2 percent, Jackson’s was 7 percent and Cuddyer’s was 8.6 percent.  When I subtracted the players’ .OBP from their batting averages (.AVG), I came down to a stat that I imagine is similar to .ISO (isolated slugging percentage) which for brevities sake, I will call “.ISOBB”. 

Holliday’s BB% was 1.6 percent greater than Cuddyer’s, and when I subtracted their .ISOBB from one another’s, I came to find that the 1.6 percent BB% rate was good for .013 points in .OBP.  To check this, I compared Austin Jackson and Michael Cuddyer, whom also have 1.6 percent difference in their BB% and came to find that the difference in .ISOBB was also .013.

The next step to determining Upton’s .OBP for 2011 is to determine his .ISOBB; Bonds’ was .109 which is pretty astronomical, and we have already established the fact that Upton’s will be around .013 to .020 different based on his lower BB%.  Upton’s .ISOBB should end up around .093.

The .279 average that Bond’s posted was lowered significantly by a .248 average one year.  In fact, over the course of both players’ earlier careers, Upton has shown that he possesses a far better batting average.  He hit over .300 in his second full season, a feat Bond’s didn’t accomplish until his fourth season.  So Upton, we can assume (safely), will probably hit higher than .279 in 2011; let’s say .284.  Which when adding in his .ISOBB, puts his .OPB at .377. 

The last thing to consider is slugging percentage, and Bonds probably edges out Justin Upton in this category like in BB%.  How much? Well, during their first 1,700 PAs, Bonds’ .ISO was .014 better at .213, compared to Upton’s .199.  Over the next three seasons, Bond’s didn’t improve much, rising to about .219.  If Upton follows the same improvement, he should float in around .205 which would put him at a .489 slugging percentage.

All in all, Upton’s 2011 season should look something like this: .284/.377/.489 with about 25 home runs and 95 RBI.  I’ll be curious to see exactly what he does end up doing.  As for the predictions by the mathematicians/computers that are paid/designed to do predictions, when the average of fangraph.com’s “Marcel” and “Bill James” predictions are taken, it results in a .285/.367/.489 line…pretty similar to what I came up with actually. 

So is Justin Upton the next Barry Bonds? We’ll have to see, but I would say yes.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

St. Louis muscleman Albert Pujols has done a pretty good job of imprinting himself on Major League Baseball’s collective consciousness these past several months as followers of the grand old game have been compelled to consider a radical change of venue for the stand-out Cardinal first baseman.  

The numbers being bandied about are pretty heady, as Pujols, at least for now, seems intent on becoming the games highest paid player — something in the area of $25-30 million per year with the only possible harbinger being there are but a handful of clubs who could possibly consider crunching that number.   

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Ever feel like you’re being lied to? In my first couple weeks of mock drafts, I’ve noticed some trends developing and some widely accepted beliefs that don’t entirely hold true. Some positions aren’t as weak as they appear, some are weaker. And some guys just seem to end up on my team regardless of which draft position I start out with. These are the things that might be useful notes to make as you prepare your draft-day cheat sheet.

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The Seattle Mariners recently signed Moises Hernandez to a minor league contract. Not a huge deal, right? Well, he’s the brother of reigning AL Cy Young Felix Hernandez.

I’ll get into more specifics on that later in the next slide.

I started to think, though. How many other brother combinations have there been, and often did the shared genes translated to shared talent? The best duo was Lloyd and Paul Waner, who are both hall of famers.

After that, there were some combos who both played in the major leagues, but it became apparent that sharing the same parents is about all most of these guys had in common.

This list will be solely for brothers who had large disparities in baseball talent. For a related piece, check out Asher Chancey‘s top 50 list that looks at all sports and relatives.

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This winter is going to be long and hard for Pennsylvania sports fans, as the Pittsburgh Steelers ended a promising season with a Super Bowl loss to the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Pirates begin what will likely be a record setting 19th straight losing season.
 
Pirate fans are nothing if not loyal. Perhaps hopelessly loyal of a team that has struggled to win since the days of Andy Van Slyke and a steroid-free Barry Bonds. The ghosts of Doug Drabek and Bobby Bonilla can’t help the 2011 Bucs, and the beautiful PNC Park will likely go another season without a winning team.
 
Although the team does have a few promising players like Andrew McCutchen, Evan Meek, Pedro Alvarez and Neil Walker, they lack the pitching required to compete in the highly competitive NL Central. Newly hired Clint Hurdle will likely bring a new fire and determination to Steel Town, yet from a fantasy perspective, there is very little to get excited about.

Key Additions

Garrett Atkins
Kevin Correia
Matt Diaz
Lyle Overbay

Key Losses

Delwyn Young
Andy LaRoche
Zach Duke

Who to Target

McCutchen is the only marquee player to target on the Pirates. He is similar to Carlos Gonzalez in that he is a five-tool outfielder. However, he lacks the lineup protection that Gonzalez enjoys in Colorado.
 
McCutchen had a nice sophomore season for the Bucs, posting a .286 average with 94 runs scored and 33 stolen bases. I look for Andrew to top 20 home runs for the first time in his career while continuing his base stealing prowess under new manager Hurdle.

Sleeper

Although the Pirates lack established fantasy talent to target in the early rounds, the team does have a few sleeper candidates with breakout potential. One such sleeper is left fielder Jose Tabada, a second-year player from Venezuela.
 
Tabada was originally signed by the New York Yankees as an amateur free agent in 2004. He made his major league debut in 2010 for the Pirates after being acquired by the club in the 2008 Xavier Nady trade.
 
In 441 plate appearances Tabada was able to score 61 runs and steal 19 bases while batting a respectable .299. If he continues his solid play in 2011, he could end up being a nice sleeper candidate in both mixed and NL formats.  His biggest knock is his power; however his base stealing skills and high average make up for lack of pop in his bat.

This article was originally published on www.kramericasports.com, the home of free fantasy news, rankings and advice.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) have tarnished the last twenty years of Major League Baseball, and that is sad.  After witnessing perhaps the greatest era of individual performance in the game’s history during the last twenty years or so, we are forced to live with the reality that a lot of those accomplishments are tainted.  The problem now faced by those who love and respect the game is their lack of full knowledge of which of those accomplishments, of the records attained, are tainted and which are clean.  And how do we rank the players involved?  Where will history judge them many years down the line?  Will history remember the steroid scandal and its participants in the same light as the Black Sox Scandal of 1919, or compare it more favorably to the rampant use of amphetamines by players of the 1970’s and 1980’s?

We all know who the primary suspects are.  Most fans can recite names of players implicated—or strongly suspected—of using PEDs.  Anyone with a computer and internet connected can pull up the Mitchell Report and read its findings.  The issue then becomes how does baseball, its fans and the media treat those players.  Do we choose to ignore their accomplishments, ban their entry into the Hall of Fame and scrape the record books of them, or do we look the other way and instead choose to ignore how they achieved their accomplishments?

More than likely players whose on-field accomplishments normally would have given them easy entrance to Cooperstown will be left on the outside looking in because of their link to PEDs.  In any other era players with 583 home runs or 3020 hits and tenth in career total bases would be no-brainer first-ballot Hall of Famers.  However, Mark McGwire’s name appeared on barely a quarter of the ballots his first year and has been losing ground since, and Rafael Palmeiro’s initial time on the ballot resulted in a showing that was nothing short of embarrassing for a player with his statistical resume.  At this point he will be lucky to reach the ballot a third time.

McGwire and Palmeiro are not likely to ever gain entrance into the Hall of Fame without purchasing a ticket.  Neither are Sammy Sosa, Gary Sheffield, Andy Pettite and countless others who at least made a case for induction with their on-field play.  While Sosa ranks seventh all-time in home runs and is the only player in history with three seasons of 60 or more home runs, his case for the Hall of Fame is tainted.  Prior to the magical 1998 season, Sosa was a very good major league player.  He had four seasons of at least 30 home runs and was a force in the Cubs lineup.  But that wasn’t enough to get him to Cooperstown.  Even if he doubled his career accomplishments pre-1998 and added a couple of MVP trophies it still wouldn’t have been enough—just ask Dale Murphy.  Were the PEDs Sosa is suspected of using able to take him out of Dale Murphy’s stratosphere and push him squarely into Willie Mays’?  The baseball world will never know for sure, but the Hall of Fame is not ever going to raise a plaque honoring Sammy Sosa either.

But what about Barry Bonds?  Or Roger Clemens?  Do either—or both—deserve entry into baseball immortality?  The Baseball Writers Association of America has clearly shown it will draw a line for players they feel only achieved Hall of Fame worthy careers through natural methods.  McGwire was a one-dimensional player whose career could have ended without his admitted use of steroids; Palmeiro was a very good player who was never truly great; even with the use of PEDs, Pettite is at best a borderline case to make the Hall of Fame.  But what about players who had Hall of Fame careers before entering the world of PEDs?

Barry Bonds was a five-tool player from the start of his career.  Before turning 30 years old he was already a home run champion, an All-Star, a three-time MVP and multiple gold glove winner.  He was the game’s best and highest paid player, and that continued throughout the 1990’s.  He consistently batted near .300, slugged 35 or more home runs and drove in better than 100 runs yearly.  He was a five-time member of the 30/30 (home runs and stolen bases) club and once reached the 40/40 plateau.

Bonds’ suspected PED usage began around 1999, when McGwire and Sosa were getting all the accolades for passing Roger Maris’ single season home run record.  Bonds’ numbers post-1999 are nothing short of ridiculous, and rivaled only in baseball history by Babe Ruth.  Including those numbers in his overall career statistics and Bonds is second greatest offensive player to ever wear the uniform.  However are his 14 years prior—1986-1999—enough to justify induction into the Hall of Fame?

Yes, they are.

Bonds may not have reached the 500 home run club, stolen 500 bases and wasn’t knocking on the doors of 3000 hits or 2000 RBIs but he was a Hall of Fame player.  He was a .288 career hitter, the only member of the 400/400 club, had an on-base-plus slugging percentage (OPS) higher than Mel Ott, Ralph Kiner, Willie Mays, Frank Robinson and Ken Griffey Jr., and was the all-time leader in intentional walks.

Bonds was a feared hitter, a great defender and the game’s best all-around player.  Even without the help of PEDs he surely would have reached 500 home runs and been a no doubt Hall of Fame player.  But he did not need to get there, just as Sandy Koufax did not need 300 victories for his entrance.  Bonds was a Hall of Fame player had his career ended in 1999 and he avoided all the PED talk and speculation that his career was tainted.

Roger Clemens’ case for the Hall of Fame is more questionable, however.  After leaving Boston for Toronto following the 1996 season he experienced a career rebirth.  In the next 11 seasons with Toronto, New York and Houston Clemens nearly doubled his win total, added four more Cy Young’s to his mantel and reached the top 10 in wins, strikeouts and WAR.

Was the offseason of 1996, after being spurned by the Red Sox and criticized by their general manager, Dan Duquette, the point in Clemens’ career when he began his involvement with PEDs?  If so, were his 13 years in Boston enough to justify his entrance into the Hall of Fame?

It is close, but not likely.

He won 192 games, struck out better than 2500 hundred batters and was a three-time Cy Young winner with an MVP to boot.  He was a feared and dominant pitcher, suffering only two losing seasons and constantly was among the league leaders in wins, ERA and opponents batting.  But it still wasn’t enough.  He was not as dominant as Sandy Koufax or Pedro Martinez, and did not reach the career totals of Bert Blyleven or Robin Roberts.  Without his second wind the career of Roger Clemens is only slightly better than that of David Cone or Orel Hershiser, neither of whom is a Hall of Fame player.

Both Roger Clemens’ and Barry Bonds’ careers would have gone on without their involvement with PED’s.  They would have played more years and games and added to their resumes.  But Clemens clearly needed that brilliance of the second half of his career to get to the Hall of Fame, and if those years were tainted by PED usage, then Clemens does not deserve his plaque.  Remember at one point Dwight Gooden was considered the better pitcher of the two early in their careers.

Very few players involved with performance enhancing drugs will be enshrined in the Cooperstown Museum, and most do not deserve it.  If they were good enough players to get into the Hall of Fame than they would not have needed extra, illegal help to get there; the statistics that would get them there are tainted and they do not belong.  However, as with every rule in existence there is always an exception, and the only one I can find in baseball is Barry Bonds.  He was a jerk, a suspected cheater and a lot of other things that shouldn’t be mentioned, but he was also a Hall of Fame player before performance enhancing drugs, and thereby should still be honored in Cooperstown.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

It is almost a foregone conclusion that, barring catastrophic failures, Alex Rodriguez will replace Barry Bonds as baseball’s all-time home run leader.  After he does, however, is there any other current player with a realistic chance of reaching 784 (Rodriguez’s projected total) and beyond?

Could that player be Albert Pujols?

Possibly, but it’s not likely.

Pujols is the greatest player of his generation and one of the best players of all time.  He does everything—hits for average and power, fields his position and is a leader on and off the field.  He has already won a World Series championship, has not been scarred by baseball’s steroid scandal or any other issues. 

In a world that is filled with controversy Pujols has risen above it all and become baseball’s Mr. Perfect.  He just won’t be its career home run champion no matter how quickly he is climbing the ladder now.  Likely he will not reach second, third or even fourth on the all-time list.  Fifth place, slightly ahead of Willie Mays, is where Pujols will finish up, struggling near the end of his career and failing to reach 700 home runs.

Sure Pujols has the ability, the power and the greatness to get there.  He has all the tools and should have the opportunity to chase Bonds and Rodriguez.  However he cannot fight the one obstacle surely to get him as it has gotten countless others: Father Time.  There is simply not enough time left in Pujols’ great career to reach that hallowed mark. 

He is 31 years old and has slugged 408 home runs; he is 354 shy of Bonds and 376 away from Alex Rodriguez’ projected total.  With eight to 10 years left—only four of them prime—does Pujols have enough time left to nearly double his already monstrous home run total?  No, and history proves that.

In the careers of baseball players, age 35 has proven to be a pivotal year.  A player’s career can often be broken down into three categories: the younger years (from their debut up to age 26), the prime years (ages 27 through 34) and the decline (35 and beyond).  Baseball’s top 20 career home run leaders have combined for 11,941 home runs.  They have also hit 78 percent, or 9,347 of those home runs, before the season in which they turned 35. 

Only three players in history have even topped 200 after that pivotal year (Bonds, 284; Hank Aaron, 245; Rafael Palmeiro, 208).  In the non-steroid eras no player has ever increased their average home run production after turning 35.  (Babe Ruth did, as his yearly average up to age 35 is skewed by spending his first five seasons primarily as a pitcher, and only coming to the plate a combined 678 times.)

Alex Rodriguez is 35 years old this year and has 613 career home runs.  His production, whatever caused it, has been declining since his 31st birthday.  Breaking his career into five-year trends shows exactly what history teaches us.  He is very good at first, averaging 38.6 home runs per season, and then he’s great, running his average season total up to 48 and then very good again, duplicating his 38.6 number for the next five seasons.  Breaking it down further, into three-year trends, Rodriguez’s production begins at 33.6 home runs per season, reaches a high of 46.6 and then begins falling again, reaching as low as 31.6 home runs per season as the steady, inevitable decline begins. 

Following the same trends Rodriguez has set for himself, he will see his three-year arcs fall from 31.6 to 30.9 to 21.4 before finally finishing off his career with the lowest total of his career, 14, in his final season, 2017.  He will have passed Bonds a year or two before, but will not reach 800.  Sadahaur Oh’s world record of 868 from the Japanese league is not in jeopardy.

Albert Pujols begins his 11th season of major baseball at age 31 and he has 408 career home runs.  That is 56 fewer than Rodriguez had when he began play in the season he turned 31. 

Pujols’ three-year trends are also similar, beginning at 41.3 home runs per season his first three years and peaking at 45.3.  He hasn’t reached Rodriguez’s season high (57), but he hasn’t bottomed out as low (23) either.  Pujols has been more consistent and should remain so, but even he cannot fight time.  Eventually the decline, as seen by every other player to play the game, will begin and that day is approaching faster than any of us realize.

Rodriguez’s decline may have been sped up by mitigating factors—steroids, the degenerative hip problem he had surgery to repair a few seasons ago—Pujols may or may not face in his career.  Following Rodriguez’s career decline rate and projecting Pujols’ may not be perfectly accurate, but it’s worth comparing Pujols against his contemporaries rather than against the likes of Willie Mays (who hit only 134 of his 660 career home runs after turning 35) or Frank Robinson (who hit 111 of his 586 home runs after age 34) or any other player from decades before.  And Rodriguez’s production has not fallen completely, the way Ken Griffey Jr.’s did because of all the injuries he suffered.

If Pujols suffers the same type of decline rate that Rodriguez has experienced his three-year trends will fall from 39.3 home runs per season to 27.1 to 26.3 to 18.1 to his final season in which he hits 13 (I’m giving Pujols another 10 years of play, as that is apparently the length of contract he is looking for).  That will leave Pujols with a career home run total of 633, only good for sixth all time. 

However since Pujols may not face some of the issues Alex Rodriguez has, his decline rate may be slower.  Giving Pujols the benefit of the doubt and assuming he keeps up his production longer, we can cut his decline rate in half, giving him the three-year home run trends that follow: 39.3 to 33.4 to 32.6 to 27.7 to 22 in his final year, at age 30.  That gives Pujols a healthy total of 742 home runs, within striking distance of Bonds and just 43 shy of breaking the all-time mark.  He may hang around, even with dwindling skills and a body breaking down, to attempt to reach the biggest number in sports.

More likely however Pujols will see his decline fall somewhere in between the two arcs listed, so let’s split the difference and say he finishes with 688 home runs—good enough for elite status, a place in Cooperstown, but not within striking distance of baseball immortality.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Beginning with Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro we have seen that the Hall of Fame voters are not looking fondly on nominees that have their pasts tied to performance enhancing drugs.

Looking back to the stars that emerged in the late 1980’s and through into the early 2000’s, an alarming number of our favorite players were implicated in the steroids scandal.

Baseball saw some of the most hallowed and revered records in our national past time broken by the games modern athletes. Home run records fell, pitchers seemed ageless, and mediocre players became great.

Of course the scandal spread well beyond the game’s elite. Minor League players were implicated in taking steroids, their motivation to make it to The Show. Fringe players took steroids in hopes of holding onto their roster positions or improving their numbers in hopes of a bigger payday down the road.

Now that we are seeing these players reach Hall of Fame eligibility for the first times, the baseball voters will decide how these once immortals of the game will be remembered for all time.

Active players who have ties to the steroid era will have the chance to prove they are able to produce Hall worthy statistics under the assumption that they are now performing clean of any chemical-aid. Will it be enough though? Or will they too find their list of accomplishments not quite good enough when compared to the true immortals of the game.

After all, in most fans’ minds, 73 is not important as 61, nor is 762 as important as 755. 300 Wins does not have the same magical aura to it, nor do the 3000 hit or 500 home run plateaus. 

At one point these players were all considered locks for induction in Cooperstown, now only history will tell if their accomplishments reside with the best that have ever worn a uniform, the accomplishments we can safely assume were accomplished without any artificial aid.

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