Yes, this is a post about how I don't like the one game Wild Card playoff and Terence Moore does. Yes, I still hate it even after the exciting one game Wild Card playoff game this year. "Hate the sin, love the sinner." That's my motto about the one game Wild Card playoff. It's exciting as a one game series, but I prefer it as a three game series, mostly because I think a 162 game season shouldn't be decided by a one game playoff.
Terence Moore has written his annual "I love this new one game Wild Card playoff" column. I'm not kidding, it's an annual thing. The one game Wild Card playoff was instituted in 2012 and he's written about it every year since. Here is Terence's 2012 column about it. Here is Terence's 2013 column about it. Now we have the 2014 version of this column. What makes it better this time is Terence goes overboard and starts over-praising Bud Selig for his wonderful vision to set up a one game Wild Card playoff. I greatly dislike the one game Wild Card playoff. I think it's dumb to take a 162 game season and condense it down to one game. Sure, it gives division winners a reward for winning the division, but not really. Prior to the one game playoff, division winners got to host the Wild Card team in the Divisional Series. They still get to host the Wild Card team in the Divisional Series. Nothing gained, nothing lost. One division winner gets the same reward they received prior to the one game playoffs, it's just they don't have to play in a one game Wild Card playoff they never had to play in previous to 2012 anyway. The seedings don't change with the new second Wild Card.
Of course Terence loves the idea because MLB.com is affiliated with MLB and he has to pretend to like the change to an expanded playoff format. It's the same reason Terence writes a column about how the All-Star Game is just so great.
So on to Terence's 2014 "The One Game Wild Card Playoff is Great" columns with some extra Bud Selig love. I've always appreciated Bud Selig's reign as MLB Commissioner more than others have, but I do draw a line at taking the time to expound at just how wonderful he has been. He's had great successes and great failures. There will be worse commissioners and there will be better commissioners. So onto how great the terrible one game Wild Card playoff game is.
It's nearly mid-September after a lengthy spring and summer of baseball,
but from now through the end of the month, there will be a slew of
significant games.
Thank you, Mr. Selig.
Yes, because there were never any significant games played down the stretch prior to 2012. The final day of the 2011 season never happened. Now that there is a one game Wild Card playoff, teams that wouldn't be in the hunt for the second Wild Card (teams that don't have as good of a record as the team getting the first Wild Card) will now be able to ignore their 162 game record entirely and get a chance with one game to steal the Wild Card spot the first Wild Card team earned over the entire season.
So far in the two years of the extra Wild Card two of the four teams have playing in the Wild Card game have had the same record. The two Wild Card games that involved teams with different records had a record differential of 4 and 6 wins. So with that small sample size, I can come to the conclusion only half the time the first Wild Card team will have earned the Wild Card spot over the season and shouldn't have to play an extra game.
If there is not a large gap in the record of the first and second Wild Card team, the second Wild Card would not add any more significant games to the month of September since these two teams would be fighting for the one Wild Card spot under the system prior to 2012. See how it works? If there is more drama post-2012, it's because teams are fighting for the second Wild Card spot that the first Wild Card team (potentially) rightfully earned over 162 games. If there was less drama prior to 2012 then there was still be a dogfight for a Wild Card spot during the month of September. The difference being one team (the second Wild Card team) now gets a chance to play one more game to prove they should be in the playoffs. Otherwise, nothing is different. At the expense of more drama, which I am not against, an entire season is broken down into one game. I am against that. Make the Wild Card playoff a three game series and I will be much happier. Rant not done.
The Tigers have spent the last few days in Detroit fighting for their
American League Central lives against the Royals, and Comerica Park has
been rocking when it hasn't been rolling. You can expect much of the
same this weekend in San Francisco.
This would have happened regardless of whether there was a second Wild Card team or not. These teams would have been fighting for the division regardless. And no, winning the division doesn't mean "more" now. It means no more or no less. It means the same thing. The team with the best record plays the Wild Card team and the teams with the 2nd and 3rd best record play each other. Same as before, no matter what Terence Moore says or tries to make it seem like.
There, inside the orange-and-black noise factory that will be AT&T
Park, the Giants and the Dodgers will continue their rivalry. This time,
they're trying to sprint past the other toward the finish line of the
National League West.
Again, this wouldn't have changed if there was no second Wild Card team because these are teams fighting to win their division. In fact, the team that didn't win the division has more of a fallback to not winning the division in that they know there is now another Wild Card spot they could earn.
So when reporters asked Houston interim manager Tom Lawless earlier
this week if he planned to use a lot of his September callups the rest
of the way, which is what most non-contending teams do this time of
year, Lawless emphatically said no.
He added, "While we're playing these games in the playoff hunt, it's
not fair to everybody else [to play callups]. We're going to try to win
the game, bottom line."
Though it is fair to mention the Astros trying to win a game is different from other MLB teams trying to win a game. Lawless also didn't mention that he would have played callups if the Astros were playing teams who weren't in the playoff hunt. Maybe that is supposed to be understood.
Even out-of-the-running teams remain motivated these days.
That's sort of reaching a little bit. More teams in the hunt for a playoff spot doesn't seem so bad overall. A one game playoff to decide which teams gets to advance does seem so bad to me. It takes an entire season of performance and distills it into one game where ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN!
We're back to Mr. Selig, otherwise known as Bud, or the Baseball
Commissioner, if you prefer. Interleague Play. Expanded replay. Old-new
ballparks. Three divisions in each league. The toughest drug policy
among the major sports leagues in North America. Everywhere you look,
you see the visionary mind of the retiring Selig,
I mean, I guess. These all seem like ideas that Terence Moore would normally despise, so I can't help but wonder if his love for these changes to the game are in some way inspired by his employment with MLB.com. Sure, they don't write his columns for him, but they also can't have one of their own columnists bashing most of the commissioner's signature ideas. That doesn't look good.
who keeps dragging the game's traditionalists (my hand is raised) into
the 21st century. That's why it isn't surprising that his decision two
years ago to add a second Wild Card for each league to the postseason is
the gift that keeps on giving and giving … and giving some more.
I recognize it's a matter of opinion, but what exactly has the second Wild Card given? It does put more teams in contention for the chance to play one more game and "make the playoffs," which is bullshit since "the playoffs" in the case of the Wild Card game is one game, but other than that it hasn't enhanced or changed the playoff format in any way. The second Wild Card allows more teams a chance to compete for a one game playoff. That's the gift and it is given during the span of one game and then the postseason goes back to exactly how it was when there was only one Wild Card team.
For starters, more than half of the 30 Major League teams either are
pretty much assured a playoff berth through winning their division or
own a decent chance right now of playing in October courtesy of one of
those Wild Card spots.
Great, more teams have been given the illusion of success through the process of the MLB playoffs being expanded. Unfortunately, for one of these teams the elation will last one more game and then it will be over. A 90 win team may get beaten by an 85 win team in a one game playoff and the new Wild Card system will be a success. This is because more teams were involved in the competition for that Wild Card spot and success over the entire season was essentially ignored in favor of a one game playoff.
And in baseball, one game playoffs are not the best way to determine which is the better team. Baseball is not like the other major sports where one game can show the strength of a team. In baseball, the strength of a team could lie in the rotational starting pitching depth they have and this is what makes them a good team. Using a one game playoff to determine which is the "better" team is misleading because one team could have a good starting rotation with no aces, while another team has Clayton Kershaw and four other below average starters. If Team A without the aces wins 90 games during the season, they have shown themselves to be the better team over 162 games. Yet Team B, who hypothetically won 85 games during the season, trots out Clayton Kershaw for the one game playoff and they are able to win the Wild Card game as a result. Did the Wild Card playoff just erase 162 games of achievement through one game? Yes, it did. A one game playoff doesn't measure the strength of a team and that's mostly why I really dislike the one game Wild Card playoff that Terence Moore inexplicably likes so much. A one game playoff in baseball isn't just a crapshoot, it's the middle finger to how baseball is played over the other 162 games.
Then there are teams like the Astros, with one eye on next year, but
with the other on trying to gain momentum for 2015 by spoiling the
dreams of contenders.
Which they may be trying to do anyway if there was no second Wild Card.
Let that sink in. That already is more than enough to salute Selig for what he's done during his 23-year reign.
Congrats, Bud Selig! The liquor and the whores are being paid for by Terence Moore tonight! Also, can Terence have another raise?
There was nothing like this regarding impactful games. In fact, back
when there were Big Red Machines and Yankees dynasties led by Ruth,
DiMaggio or Mantle -- or even those years of a Miracle Mets-type team
here and there -- pennant races often consisted of, well, nobody, or
maybe a couple of teams fighting for one spot … or perhaps three or
four, but that was about it.
And then the Wild Card and divisional reorganization changed that. The idea the Wild Card game is a brilliant idea just eludes me. It's a contrived way of drumming up excitement and getting more teams involved in the Wild Card race. I'm not against another team from each league making the playoffs, but at least make it a 3 game series. Don't make it a one game series WHERE ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN that goes against what makes baseball great, which is the starting pitching depth one team may have, where they don't need an ace to win games because they are a good team. For me, a one game playoff goes against what baseball should be looking to reward when a team makes the postseason. If two teams are tied for a division lead, then a one game playoff makes sense. In the case of a one game Wild Card playoff where the two teams could have different records, a one game playoff makes less sense to me.
Then Selig added three divisions and a Wild Card for each league into
the mix in 1994. Under this system, the division winners were joined in
the playoffs by that Wild Card team, and it remained that way until
2011.
The Wild Card was an improvement in my opinion. Adding another Wild Card team can be an improvement, but it can't be done in a one game playoff that drums up drama and ignores the 162 game season that was just played.
Selig knew baseball's playoff system could become even greater than
that. So he added that second Wild Card team to each league before the
2012 season to create a "win-and-you're-in" game at the end of the
regular season for both the American League and the National League
involving their Wild Card teams.
Just make it a three game series, please. Even if the second Wild Card was taken away, there would still be drama for the race to the final Wild Card spot, but at least pretend the Wild Card game gives lip service to rewarding teams for their performance over 162 games by making it a three game series. Allow more than one starter for each team to decide if a team "wins-and-is-in."
It made a Wild Card spot something that a playoff-hopeful team would want only as a last resort.
No, it added another Wild Card spot to the playoffs for one game and one game only. Prior to 2012, were there a rash of teams not trying to win the division and intentionally only trying to win the Wild Card spot? Was I not aware of this happening? Were there MLB teams saying, "Fuck it, we don't want to win the division. We just want to make the playoffs, not have homefield advantage in the playoffs and play the best team in our league." I don't recall this happening. In fact, the second Wild Card (as we will see contained in a quote by Fredi Gonzalez) can give a team less incentive to win the division and aim for one of the Wild Card spots since there is an extra Wild Card spot open now.
Now division winners are relevant again.
They were relevant before. Just as relevant before as they are now. Teams that win their division, which is what all MLB teams were trying to do prior to 2012, still play in the Divisional Series just like they used to play in the Divisional Series. The seeding hasn't changed and homefield advantage hasn't changed. Division winners are as relevant as they were prior to 2012. It's just the value of the Wild Card has been diminished because a team that gets the Wild Card still has to play in the one game Wild Card round. Division winners don't have to play in this game, just like they didn't have to play in this Wild Card game when it didn't exist. Teams will still try to win the division, just like they tried to win the division prior to 2012.
Unlike Wild Card winners, division winners still are guaranteed the
chance to play more than just a single-elimination game during the
postseason.
Which they were guaranteed prior to 2012 as well. Now there is no guarantee a team that wins one of the Wild Card spots will be able to play in the Divisional Series. That is the only change with the second Wild Card in place.
Elsewhere, the Pirates lead the Braves and the Brewers by 1 1/2 games
for the NL's second Wild Card spot, but you just know anybody with a "P"
on his cap in the Pirates' clubhouse would prefer to erase the
Cardinals' 4 1/2-game lead in the NL Central.
WHICH THEY WOULD HAVE WANTED TO DO EVEN IF THERE WAS NO SECOND WILD CARD! In fact, there is more incentive to erase the Cardinals divisional lead with one Wild Card spot because if the Pirates don't erase this lead then they don't have as good of a chance to make the playoffs. So in this case, an argument could be made winning the division is less important to the Pirates in 2014 than it was in 2011, because they know if they don't win the division in 2014 they still get one shot to make the Divisional Series that wasn't available to them in 2011.
"Our goal always is to win the [NL East], but the way things are right
now in baseball, just getting into the playoffs somehow at the end of
the season and finding a way to keep playing in October isn't bad," said
Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez, whose team is nine games behind the
division-leading Nationals.
Feel the fury in Fredi Gonzalez's voice while the Braves desperately try to catch up with the Nationals! Wait, no that's not fury, that's resignation the Braves can't catch the Nationals and he's fine with just taking the second Wild Card spot. As usual, Terence Moore has provided information in his column that helps to submarine his main point. He says:
It made a Wild Card spot something that a playoff-hopeful team would want only as a last resort.
Thus the current obsession of the Tigers, Royals, Giants and Dodgers
with trying to capture their respective divisions as opposed to settling
for a Wild Card berth. Elsewhere, the Pirates lead the Braves and the
Brewers by 1 1/2 games for the NL's second Wild Card spot,
Meanwhile Fredi Gonzalez, the manager of one of those teams that would only want the Wild Card spot as a last resort and would be obsessed with trying to capture their respective divisions, says, "Eh, I want to win the division, but the way MLB has the Wild Card system set up then it doesn't matter if we win the division as long as we are still playing when it comes time for the playoffs."
See the brilliance of Bud Selig and the one game Wild Card playoff? Teams are now desperate to win their division, unless that seems too hard, in which case the new Wild Card spot will suffice perfectly. Feel the tension and feeling of "the division is our last resort" Fredi Gonzalez has.
"If we get in as a [Wild Card] team, and if we all of a sudden run the
table and win the World Series, you're good with that, right?
FEEL THE DESPERATION TO WIN THE DIVISION! IT'S PALPABLE!
Right, but the odds of that happening aren't the best anymore.
Actually, the odds of receiving a berth in the playoffs through the Wild Card have increased with the addition of the second Wild Card. It's not like a team that gets in the playoffs with the second Wild Card has a much more difficult gauntlet to run than a team that wins their division. The Wild Card teams have to win one more game than division winners have to win.
Which is good.
This was a paragraph by the way. Three words equals one sentence which equals an entire paragraph. Terence Moore must be proud of himself. Ready for another really short paragraph?
For nearly everybody.
Another three word sentence that equals a paragraph.
It probably seems petty, but I won't ever learn to love the one game Wild Card playoff. Make it a three game series and then I can get on-board with the idea.
Terence Moore is a columnist for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
Of course it wasn't. Terence Moore could just speak negative opinions on Bud Selig's job performance and no one at MLB.com would care.
Showing posts with label apathy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label apathy. Show all posts
Thursday, October 2, 2014
Thursday, August 7, 2014
0 comments Gregg Doyel Has a List of Baseball Players Who He Knows Use PED's, Which He Will Totally Reveal Once It's Confirmed They Used PED's
You know guys, I know who is going to win the World Series this year. I can't obviously tell you now who will win the World Series this year, because that wouldn't be fair, but I will tell you after the baseball season is over who will win the World Series. Also, I know who the next President of the United States will be. Again, I can't tell you yet, but it's going to surprise you. Don't worry, I will tell you after the next President is elected if I was right or not. Much along the same lines, Gregg Doyel has a list of baseball players he knows use PED's. He can't name their names right now, but when the new Biogenesis names come out he will confirm those were the players he suspected of PED use. The reason he knows these players used PED's is because it's so obvious when an MLB player is using steroids. Just take a look at this list. Who didn't take a look at J.C. Romero or Neifi Perez and say, "Now THAT is a player who is using PED's." I remember looking at Freddy Galvis' career statistics and knowing he couldn't have hit nine career home runs without a little additional help from illegal performance enhancing drugs. Pablo Ozuna's fastball doesn't dip and dive like that without a little help from the old Cream and Clear.
The best part about this column is it gives readers a chance to speculate in the comments about which MLB players are using PED's. So Gregg Doyel's guessing game---I'm sorry, that's wrong---scientifically accurate judgment based on visual inspection on which current MLB players are using PED's is a game that YOU TOO can play at home. This is an interactive column.
I have a list. So do you, right?
Oh yeah, I do. I have a grocery list, a list of improvements needing to be made around the house, a list of people who I will call and cuss out once I'm old enough to pretend to be senile, and a shit-list which had new names added every week.
If you're a baseball fan and you're hearing that more names are about to be connected to Biogenesis, the cheatingest PED factory since BALCO, this is where you dig through your mental rolodex for the names of guys you're sure are cheating.
Nope. Don't have a list. I don't care. Players cheat and players I never dreamed would cheat (Hi, Clay Hensley!) are caught cheating. I enjoy the sport of baseball, and as much fun as it would be to speculate, I have long gotten over the PED name-and-then-blame game. MLB does testing, players will get caught, sportswriters will write columns about what a terrible person he is for cheating, and then I will cover a few columns on this site if the outrage is silly enough. Guess what? NBA and NFL players are using PED's too. I would give out my mental rolodex for the guys I'm sure are cheating, but I don't care enough to do that. If the NBA and the NFL doesn't care, why should I? MLB does care, which is why they have a PED policy. That's good enough for me at this point. I'm taking back my love of baseball by not worrying if there are certain players using PED's.
It wouldn't be fair to say that list out loud, certainly not with a megaphone as large as the one given to me here at CBSSports.com,
Well yes, that certainly would not be fair. It's much more fair to have a mental rolodex of these player's names and then write an entire column stating you know the players that have cheated because it's so obvious. Contribute to steroid hysteria by claiming you can name names, it's much more fair that way.
But I have a list.
Which Gregg will reveal immediately after the new Biogenesis names are announced. Once that happens, we will all see just how right Gregg was.
Baseball deserves the scrutiny, even the suspicion, that its players have stirred among us since the 1990s -- when the ordinary became stars, and stars became superstars, and superstars began doing things we had never seen before. Mark McGwire hitting 70 home runs? Barry Bonds hitting 73? Roger Clemens posting a career-best 1.87 ERA at age 43?
Yes, baseball does deserve the scrutiny. Though I am very focused on the current players who aren't putting up crazy numbers like this. All of those numbers happened over a decade ago. What crazy, insane, hard-to-believe numbers are MLB players putting up currently that sends Gregg Doyel's PED radar off so much?
Come on. To this day Bonds hasn't admitted he was cheating. Neither has Clemens. So they're on another list, a list that seems fair to say out loud, even on a megaphone as large as the one given to me here at CBSSports.com. Given their superhuman results and their constant links to PEDs, Bonds and Clemens -- and Sammy Sosa -- are on that list of players we suspect used PEDs.
(Gregg Doyel drags 10 year old PED story horse out and starts beating it)
At some point, these sportswriters have to move past the Clemens, Bonds, and Sosa names. It won't happen for a while because these are the go-to names whenever PED's in baseball are brought up. PED use by these players is the gift that keeps on giving when some enterprising sports columnists needs to crap out a column about baseball's sordid PED history.
The players we suspect are using them to this day? That's another list, and soon baseball will provide us with its own list, and we can compare notes.
And I bet Gregg's list will have a few names that are revealed by baseball. Not that Gregg would ever have a list and then pretend some of the names that are revealed were on his list too. That's not something he would do. He wouldn't have to, because his PED list is so obvious, just like Humberto Cota's PED use was obvious to anyone willing to pay attention.
It would be foolish, not bordering on naive but bordering on outright denial, to think baseball doesn't have a PED problem anymore.
I recognize this is a strawman argument, but where is the outrage and denial about PED use in other sports? Whey doesn't Julius Peppers' PED suspension not lead to angry columns from sportswriters about how the NFL has a PED problem? MLB has faced their PED problem and have very stringent drug testing. And yes, it would be naive to think baseball doesn't have a PED problem anymore. Just like it is foolish to think there will never be another murder in the United States. It's ridiculous to suggest baseball, or any sport for that matter, will be completely free of PED's. That doesn't mean there is a massive problem throughout baseball and it doesn't mean contributing to steroid hysteria is a logical reaction to this reality.
Here's a tip for you, so mark this down in ink: Baseball will always have a PED problem.
Here's a tip for you, so mark this down in ink: No shit, Sherlock. I don't think anyone has ever suggested baseball wouldn't have players trying to use PED's. I guess that makes it a problem if a person wants to be hysterical about it, but as long as humans are humans (and not dancer), then athletes are going to find a way to cheat. The fact there is a stringent drug policy in question that MLB is committed to which will lead to baseball players testing positive for PED's doesn't make it seem like a "problem" to me. It seems like the positive effect of drug testing.
The cheaters are always ahead of the testers, and while the PED police eventually catch lots of cheaters -- as they caught Victor Conte of BALCO and Anthony Bosch of Biogenesis -- there are more cheaters out there. Baseball can't catch them, because baseball doesn't know they exist. Not yet anyway.
So baseball can't catch cheaters they don't know about yet? No way.
Some things are so obvious that they don't need to be spoken. The fact baseball will have more players who try to cheat is an example of one of these statements. This doesn't mean baseball has a "problem," it means baseball players are human. As long as Sabermetricians are kept away from the sport, baseball will be played by humans and not computers. This means humans will try to cheat. So yes, the cheaters will always be slightly ahead of the PED police.
There's nothing new in this column. It's the same stuff as other PED hysteria columns.
The next Conte and Bosch think they're untouchable, because for now they are. The cheaters are always ahead of the testers, and they're like degenerate gamblers or thieves on a hot streak: They stupidly think they'll stay ahead forever.
So what baseball needs are pre-cogs. People who can predict a crime before it happens so that the PED police can round up these future cheaters and punish them for the crime they are going to commit.
The fact these cheaters "think" they will stay ahead forever is why I would argue baseball doesn't have a PED problem. MLB may not be able to stay ahead of the cheaters, but they will catch up, and the players who have cheated by using PED's will be found out most likely. It's not a problem, because lateness aside, MLB has a system that enables PED users to be caught.
Ryan Braun used to think he would never be caught, I promise you. So did Melky Cabrera. And Alex Rodriguez. And going back, Mark McGwire.
So the system works and MLB doesn't have a problem? Does it mean I have ant problem if I lay out ant bait systems in my house that attracts and kill ants or does it just mean that ants are going to find their way into my house and I have a way of killing them before they end up crawling on my food?
And I'm 100% sure before Melky Cabrera was caught using PED's he was on Gregg's list of players who DEFINITELY used PED's. I don't doubt that at all.
Nothing lasts forever, not even something as murky and vaporous as a drug the police don't yet know exists. The cream that Barry Bonds took? Drug testers didn't catch that because they didn't know what it was. Just as life finds a way to survive, evolving to adapt in the conditions it has confronted, cheaters are the same.
And yet, writers like Gregg Doyel trot out the same tired names like Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, and other "name" players to show the huge problem MLB has, as well as show how it's so obvious which players are using PED's. This is all done in a way to prove it's easy to figure out which players are using PED's, but conveniently ignores the hundred other players suspended for PED use whose name wasn't on any person's mental list.
And people like us, we sit back and wait for the next wave of players to be caught, then outed publicly, so we can scorn them like we scorned A-Rod and Braun.
Perhaps it says something about me, but I don't wait for the next wave of players to be caught so I can scorn them. Is there some sort of self-satisfaction in scorning athletes publicly for using PED's that I just haven't chosen to experience to it's fullest morally superior extent? Athletes who use PED's deserve to get caught and suspended, but I'm very much over taking up my energy to scorn these players.
When the next list comes out, I'll scan it for three names I'm sure are cheating.
These are three names Gregg KNOWS are cheating. No matter who they are, I'm betting those three names will be on the new Biogenesis list. It's obvious these players are cheating and Gregg would out them, but that's not the classy thing to do. It's more classy to vaguely refer to players you know are cheating, since it's so obvious who is using PED's and who isn't, and then gloat once these names appear on the Biogenesis list. But don't worry, Gregg will reveal just how right he was once that new Biogenesis list is revealed, just like I'll tell you all who is going to be the next President of the United States (because it's so obvious) just after the next Presidential election occurs.
What do I look for? I'll tell you some day, when the list comes out and if any of my names are on there. I figure one of them will be at least. This stuff is easy, really. It's simple to look at certain guys and just think, just know, "He's not doing that legally."
Someone like Jesus Montero. Someone that is playing baseball and you look at and KNOW he can't be that slow and unable to hit the baseball well naturally. He must be secretly less talented and is using PED's to just bring himself up to the level of being a massive disappointment. What about Kevin Frandsen? He makes hitting .256 look a little too easy if you ask me. How did we not see his PED suspension coming?
Especially given what we know about the nature of baseball, just like the nature of sprinting and cycling. Certain things have never been possible before, and while breakthroughs and advances do happen, there are some ceilings that get cracked that just don't seem plausible. Not legally plausible, anyway.
I'd love to know what ceilings have been cracked that don't seem plausible. It's been well-documented that hitters are striking out more and this is supposedly the age of pitchers (it's the pitchers who are using PED's!). No players are destroying home run records and no players are putting up the numbers seen during the Steroid Era. I'm just wondering what the advances and breakthroughs that are happening now are. Of course if Gregg Doyel told me now, it would ruin the surprise once the list comes out.
So my list is ready. Is yours? Baseball's about to release its list, and while I have no idea who's nice anymore, I have a strong feeling about which guys have been naughty.
Of course you do. Just be sure to tell us how right your list was once the Biogenesis list is released. I'm dying to know how right you were and what factors you looked for that tipped you off to whether a player was using PED's or not. My guess is Gregg is going to reverse-engineer this whole thing and everything will look way more obvious once he gets the answers to the test questions. Of course we should have expected Player X! I mean, that one time he did that one thing! We should have known, just like it was obvious Antonio Bastardo was a PED user.
The best part about this column is it gives readers a chance to speculate in the comments about which MLB players are using PED's. So Gregg Doyel's guessing game---I'm sorry, that's wrong---scientifically accurate judgment based on visual inspection on which current MLB players are using PED's is a game that YOU TOO can play at home. This is an interactive column.
I have a list. So do you, right?
Oh yeah, I do. I have a grocery list, a list of improvements needing to be made around the house, a list of people who I will call and cuss out once I'm old enough to pretend to be senile, and a shit-list which had new names added every week.
If you're a baseball fan and you're hearing that more names are about to be connected to Biogenesis, the cheatingest PED factory since BALCO, this is where you dig through your mental rolodex for the names of guys you're sure are cheating.
Nope. Don't have a list. I don't care. Players cheat and players I never dreamed would cheat (Hi, Clay Hensley!) are caught cheating. I enjoy the sport of baseball, and as much fun as it would be to speculate, I have long gotten over the PED name-and-then-blame game. MLB does testing, players will get caught, sportswriters will write columns about what a terrible person he is for cheating, and then I will cover a few columns on this site if the outrage is silly enough. Guess what? NBA and NFL players are using PED's too. I would give out my mental rolodex for the guys I'm sure are cheating, but I don't care enough to do that. If the NBA and the NFL doesn't care, why should I? MLB does care, which is why they have a PED policy. That's good enough for me at this point. I'm taking back my love of baseball by not worrying if there are certain players using PED's.
It wouldn't be fair to say that list out loud, certainly not with a megaphone as large as the one given to me here at CBSSports.com,
Well yes, that certainly would not be fair. It's much more fair to have a mental rolodex of these player's names and then write an entire column stating you know the players that have cheated because it's so obvious. Contribute to steroid hysteria by claiming you can name names, it's much more fair that way.
But I have a list.
Which Gregg will reveal immediately after the new Biogenesis names are announced. Once that happens, we will all see just how right Gregg was.
Baseball deserves the scrutiny, even the suspicion, that its players have stirred among us since the 1990s -- when the ordinary became stars, and stars became superstars, and superstars began doing things we had never seen before. Mark McGwire hitting 70 home runs? Barry Bonds hitting 73? Roger Clemens posting a career-best 1.87 ERA at age 43?
Yes, baseball does deserve the scrutiny. Though I am very focused on the current players who aren't putting up crazy numbers like this. All of those numbers happened over a decade ago. What crazy, insane, hard-to-believe numbers are MLB players putting up currently that sends Gregg Doyel's PED radar off so much?
Come on. To this day Bonds hasn't admitted he was cheating. Neither has Clemens. So they're on another list, a list that seems fair to say out loud, even on a megaphone as large as the one given to me here at CBSSports.com. Given their superhuman results and their constant links to PEDs, Bonds and Clemens -- and Sammy Sosa -- are on that list of players we suspect used PEDs.
(Gregg Doyel drags 10 year old PED story horse out and starts beating it)
At some point, these sportswriters have to move past the Clemens, Bonds, and Sosa names. It won't happen for a while because these are the go-to names whenever PED's in baseball are brought up. PED use by these players is the gift that keeps on giving when some enterprising sports columnists needs to crap out a column about baseball's sordid PED history.
The players we suspect are using them to this day? That's another list, and soon baseball will provide us with its own list, and we can compare notes.
And I bet Gregg's list will have a few names that are revealed by baseball. Not that Gregg would ever have a list and then pretend some of the names that are revealed were on his list too. That's not something he would do. He wouldn't have to, because his PED list is so obvious, just like Humberto Cota's PED use was obvious to anyone willing to pay attention.
It would be foolish, not bordering on naive but bordering on outright denial, to think baseball doesn't have a PED problem anymore.
I recognize this is a strawman argument, but where is the outrage and denial about PED use in other sports? Whey doesn't Julius Peppers' PED suspension not lead to angry columns from sportswriters about how the NFL has a PED problem? MLB has faced their PED problem and have very stringent drug testing. And yes, it would be naive to think baseball doesn't have a PED problem anymore. Just like it is foolish to think there will never be another murder in the United States. It's ridiculous to suggest baseball, or any sport for that matter, will be completely free of PED's. That doesn't mean there is a massive problem throughout baseball and it doesn't mean contributing to steroid hysteria is a logical reaction to this reality.
Here's a tip for you, so mark this down in ink: Baseball will always have a PED problem.
Here's a tip for you, so mark this down in ink: No shit, Sherlock. I don't think anyone has ever suggested baseball wouldn't have players trying to use PED's. I guess that makes it a problem if a person wants to be hysterical about it, but as long as humans are humans (and not dancer), then athletes are going to find a way to cheat. The fact there is a stringent drug policy in question that MLB is committed to which will lead to baseball players testing positive for PED's doesn't make it seem like a "problem" to me. It seems like the positive effect of drug testing.
The cheaters are always ahead of the testers, and while the PED police eventually catch lots of cheaters -- as they caught Victor Conte of BALCO and Anthony Bosch of Biogenesis -- there are more cheaters out there. Baseball can't catch them, because baseball doesn't know they exist. Not yet anyway.
So baseball can't catch cheaters they don't know about yet? No way.
Some things are so obvious that they don't need to be spoken. The fact baseball will have more players who try to cheat is an example of one of these statements. This doesn't mean baseball has a "problem," it means baseball players are human. As long as Sabermetricians are kept away from the sport, baseball will be played by humans and not computers. This means humans will try to cheat. So yes, the cheaters will always be slightly ahead of the PED police.
There's nothing new in this column. It's the same stuff as other PED hysteria columns.
The next Conte and Bosch think they're untouchable, because for now they are. The cheaters are always ahead of the testers, and they're like degenerate gamblers or thieves on a hot streak: They stupidly think they'll stay ahead forever.
So what baseball needs are pre-cogs. People who can predict a crime before it happens so that the PED police can round up these future cheaters and punish them for the crime they are going to commit.
The fact these cheaters "think" they will stay ahead forever is why I would argue baseball doesn't have a PED problem. MLB may not be able to stay ahead of the cheaters, but they will catch up, and the players who have cheated by using PED's will be found out most likely. It's not a problem, because lateness aside, MLB has a system that enables PED users to be caught.
Ryan Braun used to think he would never be caught, I promise you. So did Melky Cabrera. And Alex Rodriguez. And going back, Mark McGwire.
So the system works and MLB doesn't have a problem? Does it mean I have ant problem if I lay out ant bait systems in my house that attracts and kill ants or does it just mean that ants are going to find their way into my house and I have a way of killing them before they end up crawling on my food?
And I'm 100% sure before Melky Cabrera was caught using PED's he was on Gregg's list of players who DEFINITELY used PED's. I don't doubt that at all.
Nothing lasts forever, not even something as murky and vaporous as a drug the police don't yet know exists. The cream that Barry Bonds took? Drug testers didn't catch that because they didn't know what it was. Just as life finds a way to survive, evolving to adapt in the conditions it has confronted, cheaters are the same.
And yet, writers like Gregg Doyel trot out the same tired names like Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, and other "name" players to show the huge problem MLB has, as well as show how it's so obvious which players are using PED's. This is all done in a way to prove it's easy to figure out which players are using PED's, but conveniently ignores the hundred other players suspended for PED use whose name wasn't on any person's mental list.
And people like us, we sit back and wait for the next wave of players to be caught, then outed publicly, so we can scorn them like we scorned A-Rod and Braun.
Perhaps it says something about me, but I don't wait for the next wave of players to be caught so I can scorn them. Is there some sort of self-satisfaction in scorning athletes publicly for using PED's that I just haven't chosen to experience to it's fullest morally superior extent? Athletes who use PED's deserve to get caught and suspended, but I'm very much over taking up my energy to scorn these players.
When the next list comes out, I'll scan it for three names I'm sure are cheating.
These are three names Gregg KNOWS are cheating. No matter who they are, I'm betting those three names will be on the new Biogenesis list. It's obvious these players are cheating and Gregg would out them, but that's not the classy thing to do. It's more classy to vaguely refer to players you know are cheating, since it's so obvious who is using PED's and who isn't, and then gloat once these names appear on the Biogenesis list. But don't worry, Gregg will reveal just how right he was once that new Biogenesis list is revealed, just like I'll tell you all who is going to be the next President of the United States (because it's so obvious) just after the next Presidential election occurs.
What do I look for? I'll tell you some day, when the list comes out and if any of my names are on there. I figure one of them will be at least. This stuff is easy, really. It's simple to look at certain guys and just think, just know, "He's not doing that legally."
Someone like Jesus Montero. Someone that is playing baseball and you look at and KNOW he can't be that slow and unable to hit the baseball well naturally. He must be secretly less talented and is using PED's to just bring himself up to the level of being a massive disappointment. What about Kevin Frandsen? He makes hitting .256 look a little too easy if you ask me. How did we not see his PED suspension coming?
Especially given what we know about the nature of baseball, just like the nature of sprinting and cycling. Certain things have never been possible before, and while breakthroughs and advances do happen, there are some ceilings that get cracked that just don't seem plausible. Not legally plausible, anyway.
I'd love to know what ceilings have been cracked that don't seem plausible. It's been well-documented that hitters are striking out more and this is supposedly the age of pitchers (it's the pitchers who are using PED's!). No players are destroying home run records and no players are putting up the numbers seen during the Steroid Era. I'm just wondering what the advances and breakthroughs that are happening now are. Of course if Gregg Doyel told me now, it would ruin the surprise once the list comes out.
So my list is ready. Is yours? Baseball's about to release its list, and while I have no idea who's nice anymore, I have a strong feeling about which guys have been naughty.
Of course you do. Just be sure to tell us how right your list was once the Biogenesis list is released. I'm dying to know how right you were and what factors you looked for that tipped you off to whether a player was using PED's or not. My guess is Gregg is going to reverse-engineer this whole thing and everything will look way more obvious once he gets the answers to the test questions. Of course we should have expected Player X! I mean, that one time he did that one thing! We should have known, just like it was obvious Antonio Bastardo was a PED user.
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