By Joe Schackman
Is the steroid hangover causing us to miss the resurgence of two of baseball’s biggest stars?
During that period, balls left the park at an astonishing rate, pitchers became punching bags and long-held records fell with regularity. And over time, our wonder at all these gaudy numbers and rare accomplishments faded. What was once amazing became mundane, a victim of an environment in which everyone is great, so no one’s great.
One casualty of this new reality was our appreciation of aging, and the damage it can do to a player’s abilities under normal circumstances. Thanks to performance-enhancing drugs, athletes during the steroid era could expand their prime, staying remarkably healthy and productive into their mid to late-30s. Some, like Barry Bonds and Rafael Palmeiro, even managed to push that artificially created limit.
The recent adoption of PED testing, though, has helped age regain its teeth. Players can’t ward off time anymore by turning to pharmaceutical fountains of youth. Once the cracks begin to show, a complete collapse now seems inevitable. It’s why observers are so concerned with 32-year-old Albert Pujols. At one point, 32 years old was the sweet spot for a hitter. Now, as we correct for years of skewed data, we worry that 32 could be an athletic death sentence.
It’s also that worry that has prevented us from appreciating the late-career surges of Derek Jeter and David Ortiz. Last year, the two aging stars struggled mightily out of the gate. Jeter, a three-year, $51 million contract in hand, looked lost. He’d seemingly lost every ounce of strength, and through his first 120 plate appearances posted an ISO of .0019. That ranked dead last in all of baseball. Jeter was never a home run hitter, but he consistently hit the ball hard. Until early 2011, that was, when 67 percent. of his batted balls through May ended up on the ground. Previously, the Yankee shortstop’s ground ball percentage had hovered around 57 percent.
Ortiz experienced a similar power outage. In April, he recorded six extra-base hits, including just two home runs. His home-run-to-fly-ball ratio, a measure of how well a player’s fly balls are hit, was just 7.7%, less than half of his career mark. Writers across the nation began writing Ortiz’ and Jeter’s eulogies.
Their slides didn’t last too long. Jeter had a strong second half that included his 3,000th hit, and Ortiz found his stroke in May, blasting 10 home runs. But the whispers persisted. They had shown their age, and if 2011 had some rough patches, the next year was bound to be worse. The farewell tour started now.
Apparently, though, Jeter and Ortiz missed that memo. Both started crushing the ball from day one of the 2012 season, with Jeter hitting five home runs and chasing a .350 average and Ortiz doubling 15 times and slugging in the .600s. Even factoring in a stumble at some point during the year, they are on pace for impressive seasons.
And yet, their resurgence has gotten little play outside of the home markets, a result of the pessimism created by the steroid era. Back then, a couple of stars in their late 30s finding their stroke again wasn’t out of the ordinary. No one ooh’d and ahh’d over David Justice’s 5.3 WAR at age 34 or Mike Piazza’s 22 home runs at age 37. After decades in which the graceful aging of those like Willie Mays or Hank Aaron stood out, such longevity was suddenly common.
So now, when the baseball equivalent of two senior citizens begin tearing around like players 10 years their junior, the reaction is muted. It’s peculiar, sure, but no cause for celebration. Either its a blip in the inevitable natural downhill slide or an indicator of something more suspicious, the post-steroid era thinking goes.
It’s a shame, because these guys might yet still have a few good years left. And if we let the specter of one dark period ruin them, we will fail to appreciate the true greatness of these superstars.
Joe Schackman is an editor and co-founder of Began in '96
1 comments:
Jeter's power resurgence is being covered by the media but it's also getting buried by the Yanks terrible record... also being covered (more closely) by the media. As for Ortiz, well, we all know that Boston is tanking and while he is having a good season, questions about his leadership have really jumped ahead of his power numbers in terms of importance... with that said 10hr and 30rbi from a 36 year old in MAY is pretty darn good.
I think your missing the point about both Jeter and Ortiz not getting the media coverage they deserve when it comes to their power numbers (that or I am missing the point of the article- awesome as it may be). People don't link steroids to those guys. Who would want to? Baseball wants to get as far away from the steroid era as possible. It wrecked the records that made the game beautiful. With that said, people aren't raising the "red flag of PED" every time Jeter hits a dinger or Ortiz comes into second with a bellywhopper... they are looking past the individual accomplishments and looking at the teams. Both the Yanks and Red Sox are struggling to play .500 baseball while the Dodgers are the first to 30 wins with a roster full of no-names and #27 on the DL.
One more thing, what do good hitters (like Jeter and Ortiz) do? What do they do? They make adjustments.
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