Good work, guys!

Evan3457 – thanks for the additional research!

*Sorta* ties into something that I did recently.

http://waswatching.com/2009/02/08/stats-on-a-rod-tell-when-he-started-getting-a-boost/

For comparison, some other big-time sluggers’ HR/FB percentages over the last 5 years:

Manny: 22.3, 26.6, 23.5, 12.3, and 22.2

Papi: 19.5, 21.1, 26.1, 17.2, 14.8

Adam Dunn: 25.7, 22.5, 22.2, 23.8, 24.2

Thome: 25.5, 14.0, 27.8, 29.7, 22.7

Miguel Cabrera: 20.1, 17.9, 15.6, 18.5, 18.9

Albert Pujols: 20.3, 20.3, 22.5, 15.8, 22.7

Ryan Howard’s data is relevant for the last 4 years: 34.9, 39.5, 31.5, 31.8

Lance Berkman: 17.2, 19.0, 24.6, 20.5, 16.6

Looking at the data for all these sluggers, it doesn’t seem to me that A-Rod’s HR/FB numbers are more suspicious. More likely, it’s just another example of apophenia, said the sesquipedalian.

The “luck” stats don’t really correlate with his performance spikes:

2004-5-6-7-8:

BABIP: .313-.349-.329-.315-.332

Line drive %: 15.5-15.6-18.1-16.9-18.1

Fly ball %: 39.3-39.7-39.6-41.9-39.9

Ground ball %: 45.2-44.8-42.3-41.1-42.0

Not big differences. The highes BABIP did result in his his BAVG, but the 2nd highest was last year, when he was down, and the 2nd lowest was 2007, the best year of the five. The two best line drive % numbers are in two down years, 2006 and 2008.

Ahhhh…but here we have a very interesting set of numbers, the HR/FB percentages, which is the percentage of fly balls hit that resulted in HR:

In 2002 and 2003 (Arlington + “Bolie”), they were 26.4% and 25.1%

2004: 19.3%
2005: 25.8%
2006: 20.2%
2007: 27.3%
2008: 22.0%

Now it could be just random statistical variation, or it could be an incriminating “fingerprint” along Steve’s line of thinking…

As Henry Silva might have put it in “Amazon Women on the Moon”…A-Rod juicing in 2005 and 2007:

Bullspit (sic) or Not?

Steve, correct me if I’m wrong on this one. But in response to what you said in response to me, the stats you used are league and fielding independent (or some of them are), right?

What I was looking for was “luck independant” stats. Because perhaps A-Rod had a particularly high BABIP in his “peak” seasons. This could certainly explain a large part of the spike, if it were the case. Or perhaps he had particularly low BABIP?

Or his LD/FB ratio wasn’t as good in his spike years and was particularly good in his spike years.

I was looking for “luck” independant stats, so that we can be sure it was A-Rod’s talent (or steroids) that got him those good numbers, not being particularly lucky with balls in play.

~~Steve’s theory is based, in part, on the year-to-year variation in ARod’s hitting. But, did his results vary more than the average player’s?~~

FWIW, I would imagine, on the whole, that the average, experienced, full-time batter (who is not extremely old, even though he is experienced) does not have a huge variance from season to season.

That’s why projection systems like Marcel and those in the Bill James Baseball Handbook have some decent success, I suspect…

Steve’s theory is based, in part, on the year-to-year variation in ARod’s hitting. But, did his results vary more than the average player’s? It would be interesting to do that calculation.

So, I would just chalk this up to wild speculation on Steve’s part that’s dangerously close to libel.
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I don’t think you’re wrong about it being wild speculation. But have you been reading the papers lately? If you have, then you should know that this post is nothing compared to the crap they’ve been printing.

I pretty sure, if he admitted to using anything in 2004 or beyond, since it was then against the rules of baseball, that Bud could go after him.
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But Bud would have to be clueless asshat to do that.

What’s that you say?

Oh. Well then, never mind.