Barry Bonds

Originally Posted by hchamp

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By the way, no statistician would dispute my statement that Bonds' batting average over the hypothetical 1200 additional at bats would be close to his lifetime average. The walks they susbstitute for were distributed throughout his career - remember, he had fourteen 100+ walk seasons - and both the total at bats (9000+) and walks (1200) are more than robust enough to provide statistically meaningful results.

I know you're a lawyer and are not in the business of making prognostications, but many people are. And while it is true (and trite) to say that no-one can know exactly what might have happened, that isn't the same thing as saying we don't have any idea at all. In fact, prognosticators handle the problem of uncertain outcomes by assigning probabilities to each. In this case, the probability that Bonds would hit for an average much different than his lifetime average would be so remote it could, for all practical purposes, be considered nil.

Well, it's hardly surprising that statisticians would come down in favor of the reliability of statistical analysis. I disagree that no statistician would disagree with you, but whatever. Zacky Farms would probably claim, if asked, that Wade Boggs' ritual of always eating chicken for his pre-game meal added at least 25 points to his lifetime ba%.

I agree that statistical analysis is not worthless. But neither is it the case that the likelihood of the results being different from what you contend is "nil". You implicitly assume there is no relationship between pitches not swung at and pitches that are hit. There's little question, however, that the farther from the heart of the strike zone the pitch, the less likely it will be hit for a base hit. That's the point of the Williams chart from The Art of Hitting.

As a lawyer, I often do have to help clients make decisions about future contingencies. But central to what I do is cutting through falsely authoritian bas and distinguishing conjecture -- even good conjecture -- from concrete fact. I spend a good deal of time poking holes in the expressed opinions of so-called experts in statistics, economics, etc., who spin out fancy calculations where all the numers seem to add up but in fact are all dependent on unstated, and unsupported, assumptions. It's one of the fun parts of my job.

Originally Posted by Manton

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Three fundamental points:

1) At precisely the moment in life when nearly all athletes begin to see their abilities decline, Bonds saw his rise sharply.

2) His physical appearance changed in ways consistent with heavy steroid use, and difficult to ascribe to training and diet alone.

3) HE SAID HE USED THE STUFF!

1. But Bonds in not your usual athlete. He's the best player of his generation. And when he decided, in his mid-30's, to pursue Mays' and Ruth's homerun marks, changing his diet and strength training to accomplish these goals, is it really so surprising that he, of all people, should have been successful?

And as I said, how sharply did his performance really rise? The stats that stand out are the 73 home runs and the .361 and .370 batting averages. Yet these are not anomalous when compared to people like Maris and Aaron. His other home run and hitting numbers were in-line with things he had already done before.

2. I'm not an expert on diet and training and can't say whether or not the change in his appearance can or can't be attributed to legal methods. What I have read is that he came to spring training in 2001 18 pounds bigger. Keep in mind Barry was already a 200 pound man. 18 pounds in itself isn't that hard to put on if you eat a lot. I'll let the strength training guys weigh in on how hard it is to put on 18 pounds of muscle.

3. If it was as easy as that he'd have been indicted by now. It's been four years since this broke out. What he did say was that he used some kind of ointment and cream. You need to prove that steroids were actually in those substances he took. The grand jury can't do this or else they would've done it already.

And from what I've heard on KNBR, BALCO is still in business. So they evidently do distribute legitimate nutrutional products to athletes. The grand jury needs to prove that Barry didn't take these instead of the illegal stuff he's alleged to have taken.

Originally Posted by tiger02

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Fixed your post, including the link. Aaron was following a fairly normal if above average career progression with his career years centered around his age 27-28 seasons and beginning to taper off in his early 30s. Then all of the sudden he goes on an unexplained tear, even reaching his lifetime mark of HR when he was 37 years old.

***
Lawyerdad, it seems you may be right about HGH. What a stupid rule. HGH is both legal and safe, so if the argument against steroids is for player health, then HGH should be legal. If the argument against steroids is for the sanctity of the game and its records, then where do we draw the line? A healthy diet? Flights instead of overnight buses? Modern day weight training? Creatine? Painkillers and anti inflammatories? They're fairly well known to decrease healing time as well as HGH.

Tom

I know nothing of the science about HGH, so I don't have a view of why it should or should not be banned. I just thought I'd heard that it was a banned substance but not one that MLB tests for. I think it was the apparent pointlessness of banning but not testing that made it stick with me. Wasn't it HGH that Gary Matthews, Jr. was accused of having purchased or tried to purchase?

Originally Posted by jeansandtshirt

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Yeah, Kirk Gibson, what a tool. He only hit the most memorable home run in the history of the World Series.

He also hit another one that has to be in the top 10. All American football player. Yeah, what a tool.

Being a great and/or famous athlete is inconsistent with being a tool? Interesting theory.

Originally Posted by hchamp

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This is an ESPN article about body armour, not the rulebook. And it says that the rule went into place in 2001, not 1992. And players who have a medical reason for wearing extra-long elbow pads can do so. Bonds, it says, falls into this category. So Barry isn't breaking any rules. Nor do I remember Barry as being a guy who uses body armour to "dive into pitches". If there's anyone who doesn't need more walks, it's Bonds.

1992 is when he started wearing the elbow brace, to rehabilitate his injury; somehow he's manged to wear it ever since.

koji

Originally Posted by hchamp

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The grand jury needs to prove that Barry didn't take these instead of the illegal stuff he's alleged to have taken.

Well, no. We've finally wandered into an area I know a little about, so let me clarify. The grand jury doesn't need to prove anything. The prosecutors simply need to convince the grand jury that reasonable grounds exist to believe that Bonds did something illegal. That's the standard for an indicment. In practical terms, that's considered to be a pretty low threshhold -- there's an old saw that most grand juries would indict a ham sandwich if the prosecutor asked them to.

If he's indicted, the ultimate burden is, of course, on the prosecutors to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The fact that he hasn't been indicted yet doesn't really suggest much one way or the other. There's a an art to building a case, and the timing and order can depend on a lot of variables. This is especially true if the investigation is a fairly broad one that encompasses a number of different targets. The filing of the indictment results in a lot of stuff that had been going on behind closed doors becoming public. It's often the case that prosecutors don't want this to happen until they've exhausted the usefulness of the pre-indictment investigative process.

I'm not suggesting that it's likely that Barry will be indicted, just that the fact that the investigation has gone on for some time without his being indicted isn't something that should give him a meaningful degree of comfort.

Originally Posted by lawyerdad

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Well, it's hardly surprising that statisticians would come down in favor of the reliability of statistical analysis. I disagree that no statistician would disagree with you, but whatever. Zacky Farms would probably claim, if asked, that Wade Boggs' ritual of always eating chicken for his pre-game meal added at least 25 points to his lifetime ba%.

I agree that statistical analysis is not worthless. But neither is it the case that the likelihood of the results being different from what you contend is "nil". You implicitly assume there is no relationship between pitches not swung at and pitches that are hit. There's little question, however, that the farther from the heart of the strike zone the pitch, the less likely it will be hit for a base hit. That's the point of the Williams chart from The Art of Hitting.

As a lawyer, I often do have to help clients make decisions about future contingencies. But central to what I do is cutting through falsely authoritian bas and distinguishing conjecture -- even good conjecture -- from concrete fact. I spend a good deal of time poking holes in the expressed opinions of so-called experts in statistics, economics, etc., who spin out fancy calculations where all the numers seem to add up but in fact are all dependent on unstated, and unsupported, assumptions. It's one of the fun parts of my job.

Fair enough.

But I think you misunderstood me. I didn't say Barry would've had the same ba if he'd swung at bad pitches. I did say Barry would've had the same average (give or take a few points) if pitchers had not pitched around him but instead had thrown strikes instead of balls, just as they did for Bonds' 9000+ at bats. I agree that Barry's average would've been lower if he'd swung at 1200 balls.

Originally Posted by lawyerdad

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Well, no. We've finally wandered into an area I know a little about, so let me clarify. The grand jury doesn't need to prove anything. The prosecutors simply need to convince the grand jury that reasonable grounds exist to believe that Bonds did something illegal. That's the standard for an indicment. In practical terms, that's considered to be a pretty low threshhold -- there's an old saw that most grand juries would indict a ham sandwich if the prosecutor asked them to.

If he's indicted, the ultimate burden is, of course, on the prosecutors to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The fact that he hasn't been indicted yet doesn't really suggest much one way or the other. There's a an art to building a case, and the timing and order can depend on a lot of variables. This is especially true if the investigation is a fairly broad one that encompasses a number of different targets. The filing of the indictment results in a lot of stuff that had been going on behind closed doors becoming public. It's often the case that prosecutors don't want this to happen until they've exhausted the usefulness of the pre-indictment investigative process.

I'm not suggesting that it's likely that Barry will be indicted, just that the fact that the investigation has gone on for some time without his being indicted isn't something that should give him a meaningful degree of comfort.

This is the first time I've received legal advice that didn't cost me $$$!

Originally Posted by hchamp

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This is the first time I've received legal advice that didn't cost me $$$!

The bill's in the mail . . .

Originally Posted by hchamp

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This is an ESPN article about body armour, not the rulebook. And it says that the rule went into place in 2001, not 1992. And players who have a medical reason for wearing extra-long elbow pads can do so. Bonds, it says, falls into this category. So Barry isn't breaking any rules. Nor do I remember Barry as being a guy who uses body armour to "dive into pitches". If there's anyone who doesn't need more walks, it's Bonds.

I don't know where to find the rule book. The comment Koji made was that Bonds is held to a different standard than other players in regard to body armor. I think that article confirms that, regardless of the reasoning behind the double standard.

Originally Posted by hchamp

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1. But Bonds in not your usual athlete. He's the best player of his generation. And when he decided, in his mid-30's, to pursue Mays' and Ruth's homerun marks, changing his diet and strength training to accomplish these goals, is it really so surprising that he, of all people, should have been successful?

And as I said, how sharply did his performance really rise? The stats that stand out are the 73 home runs and the .361 and .370 batting averages. Yet these are not anomalous when compared to people like Maris and Aaron. His other home run and hitting numbers were in-line with things he had already done before.

2. I'm not an expert on diet and training and can't say whether or not the change in his appearance can or can't be attributed to legal methods. What I have read is that he came to spring training in 2001 18 pounds bigger. Keep in mind Barry was already a 200 pound man. 18 pounds in itself isn't that hard to put on if you eat a lot. I'll let the strength training guys weigh in on how hard it is to put on 18 pounds of muscle.

3. If it was as easy as that he'd have been indicted by now. It's been four years since this broke out. What he did say was that he used some kind of ointment and cream. You need to prove that steroids were actually in those substances he took. The grand jury can't do this or else they would've done it already.

And from what I've heard on KNBR, BALCO is still in business. So they evidently do distribute legitimate nutrutional products to athletes. The grand jury needs to prove that Barry didn't take these instead of the illegal stuff he's alleged to have taken.

1) I suppose it is theoretically possible for an athlete to get better at that age, but I'll bet the examples are exceedingly rare. Other people have a better command of the statistics than I do, but I think those who see something anomalous about Bonds but not about Aaron or Maris make a better case.

2) Not just bulking up, but what it did to his entire physiology. Look at his head, for instance. He just looks like a different person.

3) I don't need to prove anything. I am simply stating my judgement based on the available evidence. OJ Simpson was acquitted of murder but I still think he did it.

Originally Posted by Manton

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1) I suppose it is theoretically possible for an athlete to get better at that age, but I'll be the examples are exceedingly rare. Other people have a better command of the statistics than I do, but I think those who see something anomalous about Bonds but not about Aaron or Maris make a better case.

2) Not just bulking up, but what it did to his entire physiology. Look at his head, for instance. He just looks like a different person.

3) I don't need to prove anything. I am simply stating my judgement based on the available evidence. OJ Simpson was acquitted of murder but I still think he did it.

Never mind his association with Greg Anderson, who a former teammate claimed told him exactly what steroids he had Bonds on and that he could get them for him too. And add the physiological evidence of the numerous accounts from teammates of his acne-ridden back, a notorious steroid side effect.

How many steroids he took, quantifying the effect on his performance, how great of a player he is or would have been may be up for debate, but the preponderance of evidence that he at least took some of them makes the bias of someone who has all the same evidence as the rest of us and doesn't come to that conclusion incredibly obvious.

Originally Posted by lawyerdad

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Being a great and/or famous athlete is inconsistent with being a tool? Interesting theory.

Tool can be taken many different ways. If you think Gibson is an asshole, call him that. Most top level sports stars are...Bonds just takes it to a new level.

Originally Posted by lawyerdad

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I'm not suggesting that it's likely that Barry will be indicted, just that the fact that the investigation has gone on for some time without his being indicted isn't something that should give him a meaningful degree of comfort.

This is another issue which I don't like. I get the impression that there's been this 3 yr long kneading of whatever source can be beaten like a sack of flour. I find it disturbing that so many resources are being consumed to get an indictment on this man. The constant recombinant attempts to nail this "obvious cheat", makes me wonder if it isnt somewhat personal.