By George, the Numbers Don’t Add Up

By Joe Pietaro
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Updated: June 5, 2008

Mitchell Report Sampling Can Go Either Way

Perusing the telephone book commonly known as ‘The Mitchell Report,’ it is hard to say if the baseball players that allegedly used performance-enhancing drugs benefited or not. Going by the raw numbers, some did and some didn’t.

Now keep in mind that the report included only the time frame that there was some type of allegation and/or documentation when these players began using. They could have been on the juice long before that, as well. Take Jason Giambi, for instance. He is one of the BALCO boys and has already publicly apologized (still not exactly sure what he was trying to say that day, but at least he appeared as if his conscious was bothering him). His section in the report has 2001 as when he was first reportedly taking the stuff, a year in which he hit .342 for the Oakland A’s, with 38 home runs and 120 RBI. But if you are believing that this was Giambi’s first dabble into steroids, the prior year should have been lighter, huh? Well…not exactly. In 2000, he went .333/43/137.

Then there is a player such as the Mets’ Todd Hundley, who increased his power numbers by 26 dingers and 60 ribbies in 1996. At the time, he broke the record for homers by a catcher with 41. And how do you explain David Justice? He actually did worse when he allegedly was using, hitting .333/18/51 in 2000 after exploding for .377/41/118 a year before.

Roger Clemens, while pitching in Toronto, had nearly identical production (20-6, 4.61 ERA in 2001 vs. 21-7, 4.53 ERA in 2000) in his comparison seasons. At the end of the day, a whole lot told us very little, other than there was an abundance of major league baseball players using PEDs and probably not training or dieting correctly. That is probably the biggest reason why their stats didn’t ‘jump off the page’ across the board.