Steroids in Baseball

The multimillion dollar question remaining for the hot topic of "performance enhancing drugs" (PEDs, formerly known as steroids) is what players used but have not been identified yet. Alex Rodriguez's admission and Manny Ramirez's suspension reopened doubts that there is little hope for full disclosure. It is impossible to gauge the impact of the unknown players, but it may be possible to demonstrate impact of the known abusers.

Over the past 8 years of my fantasy baseball league only 4 players were drafted in the first round more than twice; Barry Bonds, Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez, & Alfonso Soriano. By that measure half of the elite players are guilty (Bonds & Rodriguez) and we are left to openly question the legitimacy of the other half (Pujols & Soriano). That sample is very small and rather subjective (Soriano is my favorite player).

Dating back to 1988 only 5 players won the MVP more than once; Barry Bonds, Juan Gonzalez, Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez, & Frank Thomas. By that measure most of the elite players (Bonds, Gonzalez, & Rodriguez) are guilty and we are left to openly question the legitimacy of the others (Pujols & Thomas). In this same time period, nearly half of the MVP Awards (20 of 42) went to players either admitted use (Ken Caminiti, Jose Canseco, & Alex Rodriguez), revealed in investigations as users (Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, Miguel Tejada, & Mo Vaughn), named by other players (Ivan Rodriguez), or widely suspected (Jeff Bagwell & Sammy Sosa). Again, we are left to question the other players (Dennis Eckersley, Kirk Gibson, Ken Griffey Jr., Vladimir Guerrero, Rickey Henderson, Ryan Howard, Chipper Jones, Jeff Kent, Barry Larkin, Kevin Mitchell, Justin Morneau, Dustin Pedroia, Terry Pendleton, Albert Pujols, Cal Ripken Jr., Jimmy Rollins, Ichiro Suzuki, Frank Thomas, Larry Walker, & Robin Yount).