The aftermath of McGwire's admission

Ever since McGwire admitted his steroid use, I have been reconsidering my whole outlook on performance enhancing substances, records, and the hall of fame. First of all, I am among the vast, vast majority who was not in the least bit surprised that Mac used illegal steroids. What does surprise me is the length of time he took them. I always assumed that he was clean during the early to mid 90s and bulked up with them from 96-00 when he had his home run explosion. I don't buy for a second that his home run totals were not substantially aided by the drugs, nor do I think McGwire should be in the hall of fame. McGwires hall of fame case is built on his massive home run, walk, and slugging totals, all of which were blown up with steroids. He has no chance without them and was barely an all star level player. My take is as it has always been: the old standards do not apply to players from the steroid era. You'd better have crazy off the charts numbers, or 10-15 very good years to get in in my book. So guys like Sheffield, Thome, Delgado, Guerrero, Kent, Sosa, Palmeiro, and a few others who would have been locks in the past just don't quite make it for me.

All that being said, the thing that pisses me off about the whole thing the most is how guys like Ken Griffey Jr. get painted as saints. Look, I don't know if Griffey used steroids. He has never been linked to it, or tested positive, or had a season where he just blew up or anything. But to totally dismiss it as impossible and treat the guy like the golden boy of the era doesn't make sense. I think it's very likely that playing in the era he did, Griffey used some sort of performance enhancing substance. That substance could have been a steroid, HGH, amphetamine, or supplement, but in any case, its not entirely natural. And thats ok. In this day an age athletes do anything they can to get an edge as in can be the difference in hundreds of millions of dollars. Anyone who says that they would not have taken drugs that were not banned at the time in order to stay in the majors or make themselves a star is either lying or very stupid. Look at McGwire: he was a good first baseman and a good hitter when he came into the league (emphasis on good) but he could not stay healthy and his career would probably have come to an end much sooner had it not been saved by drugs. Once he started taking the drugs, he probably felt much better and began to see more and more success. Without the possibility of consequences looming, why would he not continue? Ok, it was probably quite bad for his health, we'll find out later on that, but seriously, ask yourself or anyone you know if they would take 50-100 million dollars today in exchange for 10-20 years of your life later. Just about everyone, at least the younger people would say yes even if they won't admit it.

Now, maybe Griffey was a rare breed who was so talented that he could dominate a league full of juiced players based on talent alone. I like to think that Griffey and Bonds were both like this until about 1999. At this point, the paths diverge. Hands down, Griffey and Bonds were the two best position players of the 1990s and its not particularly close. Most people would put Griffey slightly ahead of Bonds, a position I do not share, but for this purpose, it's not important. Here's how I see the situation and where I make my point: Griffey and Bonds were hands down the two most talented players in the league, and along with Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, and Alex Rodriguez, two of the top 5 most talented players of all time. The difference is Griffey was amazing from day 1 whereas Bonds had to work his way up to stardom. Bonds' workout regime was well documented and it was intense. It was said that he was the only one who could handle what he did. Griffey on the other hand was never know as a workoutaholic. Sure, he'd work on his game: take batting and fielding practice, baserunning drills ect. but as far as I know, he was never much of a weight room or physical conditioning guy the way Bonds was. I think this is a large reason for his injuries in his early 30s. I could be wrong, but I have a lot of experience with athletics and I can tell you that the guys who kept themselves in great shape were much less likely to get injured than those who didn't.

Let's zoom to 2000: Griffey was dealt to Cincinnati and had his last really good full season at the age of 30. 30! Bonds has yet another monster season setting a career high in homers as well as leading the league in OPS+ and walks at the age of 35. Bonds goes on to blow up the next 4 seasons, putting together the greatest 4 year run in the history of baseball. Griffey basically falls off a cliff as he cannot stay healthy, and even when he's on the field, he's not the player he was in his 20s. So my question is which is the greater tragedy? They had essetially equal careers after the year 2000, when Bonds, by any means necessary sought to make himself the most dominant force in the history of the game. And he succeeded. Griffey, after years of getting by on pure talent could not keep himself healthy and in shape to stay successful as he aged. In 2000 if you had asked me which current player has the best chance to break Hank Aarons home run record, my answers would have been Griffey and Sosa. Bonds would not have crossed my mind. Bonds of course was the one who broke the record.

Let's stop making Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, Clemens and the rest out to be monsters. They took illegal drugs. It was bad. We get it. But the drugs alone did not make them great players. Steroids really only help you get strong and stay healthy when supplemented with physical fitness. These guys were all workout gurus. Ken Griffey was not. He was a great talent. He wasted some of it. He was not the player he could have been. Not all of this can be blamed on steroids.

If you want to make a player out to be the golden boy of the era, for god sakes, pick Greg Maddux. He is probably the one player who got the most out of his talent in the history of baseball. He was a stand up guy. He was great for 20 years. He may have been the best pitcher ever to live. And he, not Ken Griffey, should be the first unanamous HOF inductee. He won't be, but how can you possibly construct an argument against him?

Colletti Strikes Again!

I bet Ned Colletti was really into baseball cards as a kid and was only interested in collecting the cards with the largest face value. So when I made that trade of Fred McGriff for Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter rookie cards back in '95, he'd have been the kid to jump at the deal. Well not much has changed since he became GM of the Dodgers, and he did it again today.

Colletti's collection of former Red Sox and aging superstars grew again today as he added future HOF outfielder Manny Ramirez to the mix. Shit, I'm surprised he didn't go out and get Jr. Giffey too, but I guess the White Sox beat him to it.

I guess the first question is why? The Dodgers needed a bat, but not a corner outfielder who only bats righthanded, is on the decline, is a horrible fielder and has been known to create distractions. With their duo of horrible contracts in centerfield and two solid young players at the corners, the Dodgers already had too many outfielders. Now they have one more, and in order for this trade to help at all, they must sit Pierre and Jones and play either Eithier or Kemp in center, neither of which will help their defense.

I wish the talking heads would please stop acting like the Dodgers just pulled a coup on the Sawx. As much as they may want him to be, this is not your older brother's Manny. He has been on the decline for two years now since having a career resurgence in 2006. He is leaving one of the best hitters parks in baseball for the much tougher Chavez Ravine, and he has been known to take plays off. Plus, do you really think he's going to get anything to hit with the game on the line? Not with Loney, Kemp, and Martin being the only 3 above average hitters currently in the lineup.

As for the Sawx, they got rid of 3 things they didn't want and got a very good, underrated player who may match the production of Ramirez for the rest of the year. Bay is a clear upgrade from the 1 dimensional Ramirez in the field, on the base paths, and in the clubhouse. He has had some monster years with Pittsburgh, has yet to turn 30, and is under contract through 2009 for less than the Red Sox paid the Dodgers to take Manny.

The Pirates did not net any uber prospects, but got 3 guys who could turn into solid major leaguers - pretty good for a year and a half of Bay.

Look: if this was the same Manny Ramirez of 4 or 5 years ago, this would be a crazy deal for Theo, but its not. This is dumping an old, over the hill cancer from a well oiled machine who has won 2 of the last 4 world series, and has to still be considered one of the favorites to do it again this year. It's true Ramirez was a big part of those world series teams, but he's also a big reason why it's just two and not 3 or 4. Boston can handle an drop off in production from leftfield thanks to stellar years from Drew and Youkilis, and the return of Papi. The addition by subtraction should invigorate the most talented team in the big leagues and may just be enough to put them over the top - again.

As for the White Sox, they have an even bigger problem. They already have one of the worst defensive outfields I have ever seen and they added the aging Kid for no reason other than they wanted to make a headline to remind people that Chicago has two teams. First of all, Griffey isn't even a good hitter in the NL anymore, nor is he a good outfielder. What's going to happen in the AL?

He can't man a corner position with Dye and Quentin taking care of those, he can't DH with Thome entrenched there, so that leaves center and first. There's no way he's going to play first because Griffey don't play no stinkin first, so that leaves center. He hasn't played center since 2006, and hasn't been good at it for much longer than that. Despite the fact that Kenny Williams seems to think center is easier on your body than left and right, it's not and Griffey is a huge injury risk. This bumps Konerko, and his bloated salary from the lineup, at least against right handed pitching which is a good thing on paper, but might not turn out so well in reality. Who knows how Konerko, the team leader for years, will react to being a bench player, plus I highly doubt KGJ will be much of an upgrade offensively. This poses just one question: why would you do that?