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Are Any of the League's Top Power Hitters Clean?

Looking over the last 20-odd years, nearly all of baseball's top power hitters are accused or confirmed PED users. Here are the top-10 career home run leaders from this era:

  1. Barry Bonds, 762 HR, (1), strongly suspected
  2. Ken Griffey, 619 HR, (5), not suspected
  3. Sammy Sosa, 609 HR, (6,) confirmed
  4. Mark McGwire, 583 HR, (8), strongly suspected
  5. Rafael Palmeiro, 569 HR, (10), confirmed
  6. Alex Rodriguez, 562 HR, (12), confirmed
  7. Jim Thome, 553 HR, (13) not suspected
  8. Manny Ramirez, 533 HR (17), confirmed
  9. Frank Thomas, 521 HR, (18) not suspected
  10. Gary Sheffield, 507 HR (24), suspected

Seven of the top 10 home run hitters of this era were at least suspected, and six were strongly so.

Half of the top 12 all-time home run leaders are on this list, and of those, only Griffey is not strongly suspected.

Based on baseball's 2003 survey which found that 104 players tested positive for steroids, it's clear the number of unidentified PED users is greater than the number of identified ones. (And that's not even including those who used but were clean at the time of the 2003 test).

If six of the top 10 power hitters over the last 20 years almost certainly used, a seventh was suspected and we know there are more unknown ones that known ones, what are the odds that Thome, Thomas and Griffey were all clean? I'd say the odds are excellent that one is dirty, decent that two are and quite plausible that it's all three.

And if we presume everyone's guilty, the best way to solve the Hall of Fame problem is not to scapegoat ARod, Manny and Bonds, but simply to "roids adjust" the criteria for entry. So those three get in, but simply getting 500 homers or 300 wins should no longer be enough because it should be presumed you did that on roids. The only other solution is for baseball volunarily to disclose the entire list, but they'd need the consent of all the positive testing players to do that, and even then, some former users who didn't get flagged on that one test would get off scot-free.

Comments

By: rceisner
On: 6/24/2009 10:01:00 PM		 http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/turns_out_craig_counsell
 
By: andtinez
On: 6/24/2009 10:32:00 PM		 Why is Sheffield suspected and not confirmed? He admitted to taking the Cream and the Clear.
 
By: Chris Liss
On: 6/24/2009 10:44:00 PM		 Well, it was confirmed that he did it that one isolated time where he denied knowing what it was, but it's not clear he did it on an ongoing basis in a way that boosted his performance. I suppose you could say that about Sosa or Manny, too though. In Sosa's case the insane power boost he got, his appearance and also his use of a corked bat (very probative of willingness to cheat) are also strong circumstantial evidence.
 
By: andtinez
On: 6/24/2009 11:00:00 PM		 What are your thoughts on Jeff Bagwell? He retired not too long ago, but was in the league during the time of all these players. As an Astros fan I always had my doubts... You look at his minor league stats and what scouts said and it's shocking the power he hit for.
 
By: Chris Liss
On: 6/25/2009 3:08:00 PM		 I would be very surprised if Bagwell were clean. In part because I watched this documentary on early MMA heavyweights who used a lot of steroids, and one of them, roided to he gills, looked a lot like Bagwell.
 
By: Kris4868
On: 6/26/2009 6:32:00 AM		 Griffey Jr. is the man.. pretty much all I have to say haha. Baseball would die if he got snagged for PEDs, at least in my eyes.
 

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