I sincerely doubt your premise that PEDs have been "nearly eradicated."

That's one of the responses I was hoping for.  Do you think players are better at anticipating random tests, or just using in the offseason, or are using newer stuff that isn't yet being tested for?

I agree. Especially given that all of the factors the PED-deniers cite; smaller ballparks, expansion, maple bats,etc., are still present.

That doesn't mean those factors aren't contributing, and that offensive levels would be even lower otherwise.

Do you think players are better at anticipating random tests, or just using in the offseason, or are using newer stuff that isn't yet being tested for?

The common assumption (and the one underlying your statement) is that PED use helps batters more than pitchers.  Prpbably true.  Increased muscle mass would help bat speed more than pitch velocity, control or ball movement, and resilience would help daily position players more than pitchers appearing every several days.  Plus nearly all the "big names" associated with PED use, except for Clemens, Pettitte and Gagne, have been hitters.  But if pitchers had somehow found a way to "equalize" PED use, that would also account for the decline in offense.  I don't think that's true -- just tossing it out there as an alternative hypothesis.

They're all jumpy without their "fix".

They still don't have a test for HGH, which my friend Barry says can make your head grow to the size of a watermelon.

Posted by llamanunts on 5/10/2011 10:16:00 AM (view original):
That's one of the responses I was hoping for.  Do you think players are better at anticipating random tests, or just using in the offseason, or are using newer stuff that isn't yet being tested for?

I don't know if they are "anticipating" tests as I don't know how random tests are conducted and how random the testing is.  I can tell you I have it on good authority that random testing in organizations like the NCAA is anything but random.  I can tell you I know that some drug tests can be easily faked or gamed.  Given the stakes, it is my opinion that players have exploited any loopholes or gaps in testing that they can.  I just don't know which loopholes or gaps may or may not exist other than those you mentioned.  So yes, I think they use in the offseason and they use drugs for which they are no tests yet.

  

Posted by thunder1008 on 5/10/2011 6:39:00 PM (view original):
The common assumption (and the one underlying your statement) is that PED use helps batters more than pitchers.  Prpbably true.  Increased muscle mass would help bat speed more than pitch velocity, control or ball movement, and resilience would help daily position players more than pitchers appearing every several days.  Plus nearly all the "big names" associated with PED use, except for Clemens, Pettitte and Gagne, have been hitters.  But if pitchers had somehow found a way to "equalize" PED use, that would also account for the decline in offense.  I don't think that's true -- just tossing it out there as an alternative hypothesis.

It is unlikely pitchers find a way to equalize as you suggest.

1) Pitchers are ultimately limited in velocity not by the strength of their muscles, but rather by mechanics and the limits of tendon strength.
2) Faster pitches may result in more strikeouts but they are result in more home runs.

When you talk about pitchers ultimately being limited in velocity by mechanics and tendon strength, not the strength of their muscles, you're right.  Not meaning to hijack this thread, but I wonder why the performance limits of professional baseball pitchers, in terms of velocity, seem less susceptible to advancement than the performance capabilities of other athletes.

If you look at track and field athletes in particular, the high end of human performance seems to have increased markedly over the past century, which you would expect from increased size, improved diet and better training.  In the past 100 years, the world record for the high jump has increased about 20%, from 6 feet 7 inches to 8 feet 1/2 inch.  The world record for the long jump has increased about 15%, from 24-11 to 29-4.  The world record for the mile has improved by about 13%, from 4:15 to 3:43.

Yet if anecdotal history is to be believed, pitchers like Walter Johnson and Smokey Joe Wood could throw close to 100 MPH, pitchers like Bob Feller and Steve Dalkowski threw at about the same speed 50 years later and maybe the likes of Aroldis Chapman, Steve Strasberg and Joel Zumaya have nudged the high end to the neighborhood of 105 MPH today (about 5% higher).  Just wondering why pitching velocity hasn't improved commensurate with running and jumping (and lifting and strength records), which also require a subtle combination of muscle strength, tendon strength, agility and training.

Is it that the 100 MPH claims for the early pitchers are grossly inflated, and Aroldis Chapman is really 15 MPH faster than Walter Johnson and Smokey Joe Wood?  Is it that baseball had a larger player pool and was more competitive 100 years ago than other human endeavors so baseball athletes approached the upper limits of human performance more quickly?  Is it that athletes train for years to break running and jumping records but there is no similar competition for pitching velocity records that ultimately pushes athletes to the high end of human performance?  Is it some subtlety of pitching mechanics that doesn't exist in other sports?

Sorry for the diversion.  Just wondering...

Could be MLB tinkering with baseball manufacture.

The root of the issue is probably physics, but the fact is despite what anyone says there is no way to know just how fast Johnson, Wood, Chapman, etc. really threw.

Joe Posnanski weighs in:

joeposnanski.blogspot.com/2011/05/why-i-think-steroids-are-out-of.html