Keeping Score – From Popgun Hitter to Powerhouse – NYTimes.com
Posted by Neil Paine on October 1, 2010
In our final Keeping Score column of the regular season, I highlight Jose Bautista's impressive 2010 season, including where his unexpected leap in performance ranks all-time and how, in a post-Mitchell Report world, some Canadian media members are whispering about PEDs.
October 1st, 2010 at 10:26 am
How far in advance are these NYT columns written? To say he's "almost certain to hit 50 homers" sounds like it was a while ago.
October 1st, 2010 at 10:41 am
We generally write these 2 days ahead of time, but what I actually said was "he's almost certainly going to be the only player to hit 50 home runs this season." He already had 50, but somebody else (Pujols, etc) could theoretically come along and get to 50 as well. Everyone knows that won't happen with 7 games left in the season, but I still had to throw the "almost certainly" in there just because it's not a 100% sure thing yet.
October 1st, 2010 at 11:21 am
Is it just me or is the common theme anymore when a player improves to lazily claim "must be roids!" rather than doing any real research?
Not calling out you specifically since all writers do it now. Check out Bautista's swing from just two years ago and today. It's remarkably different.
October 1st, 2010 at 11:25 am
Hopefully I wasn't coming across as actually suggesting Bautista's improvement was due to PEDs... I really just wanted to document what you're saying, that others in the media automatically turn to 'roids as an explanation. And who could blame them? Most of the names next to Bautista on the HR improvement list were known or suspected PED users.
October 1st, 2010 at 11:55 am
Has anyone done a swing analysis? If a pitcher improves drastically, several bloggers do frame-by-frame comparisons of the pitchers mechanics.
October 1st, 2010 at 12:22 pm
So you did. My bad.
October 1st, 2010 at 12:24 pm
@5
DavidRF -- There was a previous blog on Batista, which touched on changes in his approach.
I don't remember if anyone posted links to video, but you can check here:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/blog/archives/8368
October 1st, 2010 at 12:41 pm
Good piece, Neil.
Logistical question: How did you determine that Bautista had the biggest single-season HR surge? I can't see a way to do it directly via the P-I. Did you manually check every 40-HR season? I'm not doubting the veracity, just wondering how you know for sure.
Also, FYI -- I read your story in the physical paper, and it included a table of the biggest HR surges (as I recall). But on the NYT Bats blog, that table is absent.
October 1st, 2010 at 12:41 pm
Neil - Shouldn't Ralph Kiner be 3rd on the list? Ralph hit 23 homers in 1946 and followed that in 1947 with 51. And that was during a 154 game season. Best, Bill
October 1st, 2010 at 1:04 pm
This list didn't make it into the paper, but Kiner's 1947 does rank 13th on the list of year-to-year improvements (among guys who had at least 400 PA the year before):
However, Kiner didn't qualify for the list that did make it in print -- guys who obliterated their previous career highs in HR -- because he didn't have 2000 career PA entering his 51-HR season. The reason I put the 2000-PA requirement in there was because I wanted to capture players like Bautista, for whom it seemed like there was a decent amount of prior evidence that he wasn't capable of 50 (or even 20!) HR.
Re: #8 - Unfortunately, I couldn't do any of this using the PI, so I went to our http://www.baseball-databank.org/ site, downloaded the 1871-2009 batting data, added the 2010 data from http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2010-standard-batting.shtml#players_standard_batting, and set up the queries in Excel. Perhaps someday we can add a feature in the PI that can look for surrounding seasons, though.
October 1st, 2010 at 2:23 pm
I know that Joe P. had a great article on this the other day. I highly recommend you check it out.
October 1st, 2010 at 3:42 pm
Bautsita is a flash in the pan...nuff said....
Let me just add this because I dont think it has appeared on the blogs for baseball-reference.com
Alex Rodriguez did what no man in the history of MLB has done..... his fourteen 30 HR, 100 plus RBI season. 14!!!!!! A nd his thirteenth in a row, tying him with Foxx and Gehrig...
No ne, but no one exept A Rod has done it 14 times, not Ruth, not Aaron, not Bonds, no one....
A Rod turned 35 on July 29,. can he do it again next year, stay tuned for 2011!!!
Pujols is at 10 and counting.....
Love him or dislike him, Alex Rodriguez is an extraordinary player!
October 1st, 2010 at 4:35 pm
Here a good one: Who has the biggest homer difference between his biggest Homer season and his second-biggest homer season? Answer may surprise!
October 1st, 2010 at 4:58 pm
Jose Bautista is from the Dominican Republic, where steriods are not only legal, they're peddaled on the street like hot dogs on Coney Island.
Jose Bautista plays in Canada, where steriods are also not illegal, although there is some regulation.
Do the math.
His mechanical changes are all well and fine, but if they really had an impact, he wouldn't be hitting .267.
October 1st, 2010 at 5:30 pm
This note is a repeat of the one I posted at the NYT site, yet it probably makes more sense over here where there's a better chance for dialouge. I should also note that my criticism of using players such as Ralph Kiner as a comparison is not a knock on Neil's chart above. It's more of a general reaction to other comments I've seen on baseball boards when fans point to players who establish new career marks. The most direct comparison for Bautista's season to me is Brady Anderson's and Davey Johnson's, with Bautista and Anderson sitting at the top. Johnson had shifted league and parks, and even he didn't reach up into the lofty 50-club.
It's certainly possible that Bautista's season is entirely on the up-and-up. He did make changes in his swing, he had a great September last year, and he has shown power before, although nothing on this level. He's been able to hit in the teens as a MLB player while not playing consistently, and he hit in the mid-20s one season in the minors, which is a decent amount for the minors, so it's not as if he was a slap hitter. Perhaps he's just a newer and more enhanced version of Davey Johnson, who went from a previous career high of 18 HRs in '71 to hitting 43 in '73.
Yet there is nothing wrong acknowledging that he’s already 29 and is in his seventh year in the Bigs, and while he’s had his most ABs this year, it's not as if he didn't get a decent amount of playing time in his previous six seasons, with four years registering more than 400 plate appearances, including one with more than 600 plate appearances. He had a very established track record and he is now in virtually unprecedented territory, arriving at a far-away land visited pretty much only once before by Brady Anderson during his 50-HR season. The similarities are a bit eerie. Attempted comparisons to players like Ralph Kiner, who went from 23 HRs to 51 HRs over the ’46 and ’47 seasons is off base. Fact is, Kiner was a rookie in ’46 and led the league in HRs, his first of seven straight seasons of leading the league in long-fly balls. Same thing with Jimmy Foxx, who had three straight 30-HR seasons before his 58-HR campaign at age 24. Others have tried to point to Cecil Fielder or George Foster, yet those are also poor comparisons. Fielder was playing in his first full season in the majors after playing in Japan and was known for his prodigious power, while Foster had hit 29 HRs the year prior, while also leading the league in RBIs.
My point is not to assume a negative, yet I am going to recognize that PEDs is now part the equation when evaluating ballplayers. It seems as if some fans get very upset when someone even suggests steroids as a possible reason for a player’s break-out season, demanding this should only occur when there is clear proof. Sorry. I don’t agree. MLB, the media, and fans collectively turned their heads on steroids in the 90s, and that actually allowed the problem to grow. There is no such thing as the steroid era, since that implies a beginning and an ending. There is no ending. New drugs will be coming along. Players will mask them, as they are doing right now. It takes a Manny Ramirez-type careless situation to get caught taking PEDs. Let’s continue to ask the question and assume no one is clean. That doesn't mean their guilty either, but the conversation should continue. That’s the best way to keep the game as clean as possible.
October 1st, 2010 at 6:55 pm
15: MikeD Says:
"It seems as if some fans get very upset when someone even suggests steroids as a possible reason for a player’s break-out season, demanding this should only occur when there is clear proof. Sorry. I don’t agree."
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You do have a point, but its just very sad that in this day and age that whenever someone is having a good year, we assume that they must cheating. I would like to be able to trust that the league is vigilantly enforcing the rules and enjoy great seasons for what they are. How do we get to that point?
October 1st, 2010 at 6:59 pm
Unless i m missong somehting its Bautista who never hit more then 16 before ere and now has 54 with three games left, a differential of 38!!!!
Other rnotables....
brady Anderson differentiaal of 27 rhe difference between 24 and 51
Luis Gonzales differential of 26 the difference between 31 and 57
Barry Bonds differential of 24 the difference between 49 and 73
Davey Johnson differential of 25 the difference between 18 and 43
Am i misisng something in the quewstion?
October 1st, 2010 at 7:04 pm
When Damien Cox, writing in the Toronto Star, earlier in the season, originally whispered the "S" word in print, without talking to Bautista, he (Cox) was hugely reviled in all the local media and all-sports phone-in shows. There was no evidence. Jays' fans had a huge backlash against Cox.
@14 @15
Chuck and MikeD, this kind of discussion took place in another in an earlier forum on tis site back when Jose hit his 50th, a while ago.
If he is taking something, it is having very little effect on his physique. He is best described as wiry, not bulked up. He does not look like a Brady Anderson, Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, or Barry Bonds.
As an observer in Bautsta's local market and a reasonably intelligent(?) baseball student, I believe his swing and the fact that he has become a fly-ball hitter this year are largely responsible for Jose's freakish year.
My head may be in the sand or up my ***, but I believe he is clean.
Also, look at his performance in the context of the team. We are looking at team power numbers of historic proportions. The Jays have an outside shot, with 3 games remaining, of setting an all-time HR record.
October 1st, 2010 at 7:20 pm
Does Jose Batista deserve the MVP of the American League?
October 1st, 2010 at 7:30 pm
For crying out loud, John McDonald has hit 50% more home runs this year than his previous career high. Is the whole Jays team on the juice?
@17
Dennis, I think what Neil P is documenting is year-over-year HR increases, not increase over previous career highs. So 52-13 = 39.
October 1st, 2010 at 8:27 pm
A few thoughts from a Jays fan:
1. Whether steroids are legal or illegal in Canada or Puerto Rico is moot. Steroids are available anywhere. MLB is testing players regularly. Bautista has allegedly been tested 4 times this year.
2. It is possible that there are steroid type drugs out there designed to slip by current testing procedures.
3. There appears to be a few legitimate (non-steroid users) examples of players substantially increasing their home run totals - Johnson, Mize, Yaz and Kiner. So precedence has been set.
4. In 2007, Bautista hit 16 homers in 117 games/400 ab`s. Over a full season that may be 25 home runs. 2007 should be considered Bautista`s break out year. 2010 may be the year of reaching his potential.
5. Whether Bautista hits 50 homers again does not matter. He is an asset to any club with his arm, speed and versatility. He is clearly the best athlete on the Jays.
6. We are living in a different age of baseball. Steroids or no steroids, home runs are much more valued as a way to score runs than they were 30 years ago. 30 years ago you might have 2-3 guys on the team who could go deep. Every hitter on the Jays can go deep and many of them are told to look for their pitch. 30 years ago, you wouldn`t tell Ozzie Smith to look for his pitch and take one out. You may tell him to find a way to get on base. If anyone read the SI article on Cobb and Lajoie, Lajoie dropped down 8 bunt base hits in a row during a doubleheader. The art of bunting for a base hit is a thing of the past. The home run has replaced it.
7. On a personal note, I echo the other Jays fans who have checked in. I believe Bautista is clean because MLB says so. I haven`t had many reasons to trust MLB over the years, but I do or want to on this one. I am still nervous though. And I`m always suspicious...of everything. Its part of the age we live in.
October 1st, 2010 at 8:37 pm
I liked the NYT article. It is interesting to see how PED claims now follow Bautista. I think they will continue to follow any top performance or performer.
In terms of performance: any performance with is not presaged by numbers that hint at it will cause PED concerns. Also, any performer who exceeds the expectations his minor league records show likely, will probably have the PED specter follow them through their first few years in the majors.
This is the sad outcome of the "Steroid Era" and the unfortunate legacy that some players cheating left us with. Or maybe I should say "cheating" since it wasn't against the rules or not punishable under the rules for years.
In any event, "Joey Bats" routine after he does his damage is quite obnoxious. After he's through with his act, you'd swear the his homers are freeing people from persecution or fixing global warming. They would HAVE to be that important.
PED's or not, what a clown.
October 1st, 2010 at 10:01 pm
@20 John Mcdonald used to try to hit the ball the other way up until he met Cito Gaston. Cito told him his natural power and swing is to pull the ball. This is the cause of his increase in home runs/power. Cito was an excellent hitting coach. He will be missed.
October 1st, 2010 at 11:53 pm
The thing about Bautista is this:
There are a LOT of players who have used steroids over the past couple decades.
There are a LOT of players who hit as well as Bautista did earlier in his career, some who never even make the majors.
Unless you believe that Bautista somehow discovered a PED that's many, many times more potent than what all the other players have used while at the same time causing no visible change in his physique, or unless you believe that journeymen on the cusp of a regular MLB role are for some reason significantly less likely to use steroids, it's actually quite ridiculous to assume that steroids are a primary cause of his power spike.
The differences in his swing, on the other hand ARE obvious:
2008: http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=2628995
2010: http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=10438965
He's using his legs more, he's hitting a ton of flyballs, and he's pulling the ball a lot more. Regarding his batting average: from watching him this year, when he's missed his pitch, he's been hitting a lot of high flyballs that are pretty much automatic outs for any outfielder.
Sure it's possible that PED's play some role here, but even if he's using them, it's at most a secondary cause to the adjustments he's made and likely a simple career year. It really doesn't even make any sense to assume that his rare power gain is the result of something as easy as PED use. It's too much of a power gain, from too common a starting point, and without the obvious physical changes to accompany it. If steroids COULD do that, the article would never have been written, because we'd see at least half a dozen journeymen every year making similar leaps.
October 2nd, 2010 at 12:26 am
I learned about the Cobb-Lajoie race from a limited edition baseball card I got from an ice cream truck in about 1974. I enjoyed the further details, particularly the adjustment that led to the reaccounting of Cobb's career hit total down by two. Interesting that they came from the same story.
Nice article by SI.
October 3rd, 2010 at 4:44 am
It's fair to at least wonder if he's on PEDs. Not very nice, but fair, given that just about everybody else who's had any kind of improvement gets the same treatment. But I wanna know how Bautista even sees the pitch with that crazy batting stance where it looks like his left arm is in front of his face when he's in the batter's box.
October 3rd, 2010 at 12:30 pm
@24, WilsonC, -- Unless you believe that Bautista somehow discovered a PED that's many, many times more potent than what all the other players have used while at the same time causing no visible change in his physique, or unless you believe that journeymen on the cusp of a regular MLB role are for some reason significantly less likely to use steroids, it's actually quite ridiculous to assume that steroids are a primary cause of his power spike.
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In this day and age, it is not "quite ridiculous" to assume steroids, and it will never be ridiculous moving forward. It's part of the game. MLB (players and owners) brought this upon itself by ignoring the obvious and thus encouraging steroid use for so long. This part of the pennance they'll have to pay. Everyone is now suspect.
I'm not saying he took them, but it is certainly fair to wonder. The one issue I do have is with your belief that he couldn't be taking steroids since he's shown no physical change. As we now know from players outed in the Mitchell Report and through other means, almost all of the players didn't show any signifcant physical changes. The Barry Bonds cartoon change is rare. The fact that Bautista didn't show physical changes is evidence of nothing.
The change in his swing is not evidence for or against steroid use. On the for side, Mark McGwire changed his swing to maximize fly balls and produce more back spin off the bat because he could now handle specific pitches. If Bautista is now able generate more bat speed to turn on inside pitches, it would make sense for him to maximize his swing to generate more fly balls.
I have no problem believing Bautista is clean. I also have no believing he's taking PEDs.
October 3rd, 2010 at 9:39 pm
It's not ridiculous to consider the possibility that he may be using, any more than it is for Brett Gardner or Ryan Raburn or any other player in the league. You're right that most of the players confirmed as PED users didn't show a physical change, but it's also true that most didn't show a notable statistical change. There are a small number of players who gained substantial muscle mass and gained noticeable power, but there's a lot more players who, whether you look at them physically or whether you look at their numbers, you would be no more likely to identify them as users by careful study than you would by picking their names out of a hat.
It wouldn't surprise me if Bautista used something, any more than it would surprise me if Dernard Span did, and no less, either. I'm not suggesting that he couldn't have used something, only that regardless of whether or not he did, PED's don't come close to explaining his power spike. He's as likely as any player to have used something, but whether or not he did, his improvement is primarily the result of other factors. If PED use was a primary cause, we'd see an absolute ton of 15-20 HR guys suddenly becoming 40+ guys.
Steroids have become the easy, cynical answer to any player's improvement, and it's a problem. While I'm sure PED's can help, we've seen no evidence to believe that we can tell a user from his statistical record alone. There have always been guys who have taken big leaps forward before PED's, and many if not most PED users have shown little to no change in their stat lines. Those that have taken the most extreme leaps forward who have been connected to PED's are also guys who changed physically. It's good to accept the truth that PED's are part of the game, and that you can never be sure about any player, but the trend of automatically equating success with PED use is unfortunate. As we move forward, one of the most critical things we need to stop doing is making that automatic connection between massive improvement and steroids. Why? Because not only is it unfair to the innocent players, but it perpetuates the cycle. Bautista hits a bunch more HR, and people make steroid insinuations, and people reach the conclusion that he must have used steroids, and that becomes a data point in the assumed effectiveness of PED's. Young players don't use steroids to ape Barry Bonds, they use them because they believe they will work. When we make these faulty connections between career years and PED's, we send an exaggerated message as to how effective PED's are.
Brady Anderson's an example. He's drifted into the "accepted steroid user" club for many, based solely on a career year, and has even been used as a comparison in favor of the argument that Bautista's probably on PED's. Now, I think there's a very good chance that Anderson did use steroids for at least part of his career, given the era he played in. I wouldn't be surprised if he started using, say, around the early 90's, when his power went from marginal to double digits, and he did put on quite a bit of muscle throughout his career. The notion that PED's were the direct cause of his 50 HR year, however, doesn't make a whole lot of sense. In order for that to be true, one of the following would also have to be true:
1. He used steroids in 1996, which had a massive impact on his numbers, and then they just suddenly stopped working entirely the next year, or
2. He decided to give steroids a try in 1996 and turned into Ken Griffey Jr. Then, the following year, in his contract year, with no foreseeable consequences and huge incentive to keep using for another year, he decided to stop using.
Additionally, you'd also have to address the question of why PED's worked so much better for Anderson than for the hundreds of other 15 HR type guys throughout the majors and the minors.
It just doesn't make sense. He was an established regular and well paid in 1996, so there was no particular incentive to use them that year, and he was playing for a contract in 1997, so there was a definite incentive to use them then. He may well have used PED's, and he may well have been on something in 1996, but the idea that his 50 HR year was mainly an artifact of PED use is silly.
October 4th, 2010 at 12:08 am
Very nice post Wilson. Some questions: where is the evidence that most who used PEDs did not show a noticeable statistical change? Of those who we know used, we may not know when they started. Even if they showed no unusual peaks, they could have used early & brought up their baseline performance, then maintained it, & usage, for years.
I think it is reasonable to say that players may have used, though assume innocence unless there is at least strong circumstantial evidence otherwise. Sosa met that criteria with his massive change in size & power, even before he went mute before Congress & was seen to have cheated with a corked bat. Anderson is about the weakest circumstantial evidence case you can fairly argue. Career year, added much more muscle: still could have worked out well & naturally, was never huge, just muscular & defined. But if he used, while his best year may have been more due to a fluke/being locked in, it would be very fair to say that his 50 may have been 40, thus absent PEDs he would never have reached this level.
Clean or not, he gets credit for things beyond pure PEDs that made him so good for 1 year. Though know too that some folks just react very well in terms of the efficacy of certain drugs. That extra % makes a big difference.