On the heels of the news earlier this week that the Stros had offered Carlos Beltran a seven year deal worth $81 million, Baseball Prospectus’ Joe Sheehan was asked about Beltran in a recent chat session:

Question: How much is Carlos Beltran really worth for what he’s going to give you and his likelihood of staying healthy?
Joe Sheehan: Beltran has a lot of value that doesn’t show up in his Triple Crown stats, with a good walk rate, top-tier defense, and one of the best SB success rates in history. Put it all together with a good health record and his age, and I’d be comfortable exceeding Vlad Guerrero’s 5 yrs/$70MM deal, conceding that Guerrero’s numbers were held down by the speculation over his back.
I expect Beltran to get much more than that, something like 7 yrs/$126MM, or even 8 yrs/$144MM if the Yankees win the bidding.

As for the question in the subject of this post, here are Drew’s statistics.

On the heels of last week’s public disclosure of Barry Bonds’ use of steroids, humorist Argus Hamilton defends the Major League Baseball Players’ Union’s policy on performance enhancement drugs:

“Major League Baseball players’ union counsel Gene Orza maintained Sunday that the current steroid crackdown is working. It’s not that strict. The first year you get counseling, the second year you get fined, and the third year you get the MVP.”

This San Francisco Chronicle article reports that Barry Bonds, one of the best baseball players of all-time, admitted to a grand jury that he had taken steroids and human growth hormone.
The typical media reaction to this development will be self-righteous outrage, but I find my reaction to be one of sadness. I mean, how sad is it that one of baseball’s all-time greats resorted to illegal and dangerous drugs to enhance his career? Well, probably about as sad as the fact that supposedly secret grand jury testimony ends up on the front page of the local paper. Even sadder (and not even mentioned by the mainstream media) is that there is no study that has been done to date that indicates there is any competitive advantage to be gained by use of anabolic steroids in baseball. In other words, it is clearly cheating, but it may not actually enhance performance even though Bonds’ career statistics may be anecdotal evidence of enhancement.
Also lost in the media firestorm over the revelations about Bonds is the even sadder stories of Jason Giambi, the former MVP who now has serious health issues that are likely a result of his steroid use and of his brother Jeremy, who has also admitted to using steroids but whose baseball performance has eroded dramatically while he has been taking them. Consequently, apart from the mainstream media’s drumbeat to implicate the stars with steoroids, the real substantive story here may be that using steroids is unrelated to top-tier performance in baseball. At very least, the net effect of baseball players using steroids remains decidedly unclear.
The bottom line on all of this is that professional sports in general, and Major League Baseball in particular, has not done a good job of drawing the line with regard to what should constitute illegal use of drugs and other alleged performance enhancing substances. As a result, the league rules (as well as our nation’s laws) governing which substances are legal and illegal are often arbitrary and hypocritical. Indeed, the libertarian part of me tends toward the position that true freedom means that professional athletes are ultimately responsible for their physical condition and that they should assess the risks and costs of such activities themselves.
Moreover, professional sports teams (as well as their fans) often encourage their players to risk their health. Players who “play with pain” are the subject of adulation in all levels of sport, as are players who risk injury by running into walls, taking cortisone shots to be able to perform with reduced pain (see Roy Oswalt this season), and undergoing risky surgeries to lessen pain in order to play in a big game (see Curt Schilling in the World Series).
Consequently, the difference between a ballplayer taking pain-reducing drugs to get through a season and a slugger using performance enhancing drugs in an attempt to be more productive is not as wide as it may appear on first glance.
If cooler heads prevail, professional sports should address this public relations fiasco by commissioning a study that would determine in a clinical fashion the impact, if any, that steroid use has on athletic performance. Then, in a manner that is sensitive to the rights of all parties involved, Major League Baseball should use the findings of the clinical research to establish a clear regulatory system governing the use of all types of performance enhancing drugs. Perhaps then the mainstream media would even begin to address the issues in a balanced manner rather than the inflammatory style that it currently uses on the subject to sell newspapers.
As to the possibility of this mess being handled in such a manner? Next to zilch. So it goes.

This NY Times article profiles Scott Boras, the agent who the Stros must deal with if they are going to sign free agent Carlos Beltran. Although the Yankees can easily outbid the Stros for Beltran, the article at least suggests that some things not associated with playing baseball in New York may be more important to Beltran than the premium that the Yankees would pay for him:

Does Beltran really want Boras to put him in pinstripes or does he need Boras to create that illusion? This winter, the Yankees may come to find out that they are not the ultimate destination for players anymore, not when a World Series is no longer a guarantee, not when free agents like Jason Giambi fizzle in New York, not when Steinbrenner is the resident curmudgeon. This year, the Yankees may be artfully used as decoys by Boras – particularly in Beltran’s case.
In June, Beltran was craving anonymity, not the New York market.
“I pray to God I can be a great player, but I want to keep my life,” Beltran told Sports Illustrated. “I don’t want to be hiding from people. It would be difficult to be recognized everywhere, so that I couldn’t do things ordinary people can do. I love to go to the grocery store or the movies or go to the mall and be just an ordinary person. In Kansas City they don’t know who I am. Same thing when I’m home in Puerto Rico. I like that.”
By the playoffs, Boras seemed to be a ventriloquist for a bolder Beltran.
“When I see an owner who cares about winning, I like it,” Beltran said in an obvious reference to George Steinbrenner.
Is Beltran bluffing? Is Boras? Everyone will know in April how sentiment and comfort are rated by Boras’s clients when the Yankees and the Red Sox line up for opening day at Fenway. Will Varitek be there? Will Beltran?

My sense is that Beltran will end up in New York or Anaheim, but we Stros fans can dream, can’t we?

Roger Clemens has won his record seventh Cy Young Award. At age 41, he is the oldest player ever to win the award.

Lance Berkman — the Stros’ best hitter over the past four seasons — has torn the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee and will undergo surgery at Methodist Hospital in Houston within the next ten days. Although the Stros’ initial announcement this afternoon did not disclose how Berkman suffered the injury, it was disclosed later that Berkman suffered the injury playing flag football.
Normal recovery time from this type of injury is at least six months, so it is unlikely that Berkman will be ready for the start of the 2005 regular season. May or June is probably more realistic.
Just to give you an idea of how just how good a player Berkman is, Over the past 4 years, Berkman ranks 6th in the majors in runs created against average (“RCAA”, explained here):

1 Barry Bonds 597

2 Todd Helton 284

3 Albert Pujols 281

4 Jim Thome 250

5 Manny Ramirez 240

6 Lance Berkman 236

7 Jason Giambi 225

8 Alex Rodriguez 218

9 Jim Edmonds 216

10 Gary Sheffield 210

That’s pretty heady company.

Longtime Houston sportswriter Mickey Herskowitz, who I have mentioned frequently in these earlier posts, is my favorite sportswriter. Mickey’s blend of insight, humor and historical perspective is sadly lacking in much of the sportswriting that we must endure these days.
Earlier this week, fellow Chronicle sportswriter Richard Justice blasted Stros’ owner Drayton McLane for Gerry Hunsicker’s recent resignation as the Stros’ general manager. Although most everyone agrees that Hunsicker was the Stros’ best GM in history, I believe that McLane had reasonable reasons for not providing him a long term deal (noted in this earlier post). So, I thought that Justice’s piece disparaging McLane as the “boss from hell” was way out of line, particularly given the fact that McLane is also the best owner that the Stros have ever had.
In this column, Herskowitz — without mentioning Justice’s blast at McLane — places the decision to let Hunsicker go in historical perspective and reminds us that McLane’s support of Hunsicker was the best that any Stros owner has ever provided for any Stros GM. In so doing, Herskowitz gives us this entertaining and brief “GM tree” of Stros general managers over the past 43 years:

The Astros have an interesting history with general managers. Does anyone remember Gabe Paul? He was their first, coming and going the year before the team took the field. Gabe had held the same position in Cincinnati, but left Houston when he did not want Judge Roy Hofheinz breathing on his neck.
But Gabe left a legacy — two bright, young staffers named Tal Smith and Bill Giles. The latter would one day become the owner of the Phillies.
Paul Richards drafted and molded the team that finished ahead of the Cubs and Mets in its first season, 1962. Richards signed the first wave of prospects, including Rusty Staub, Larry Dierker and Joe Morgan.
The torch was passed to Spec Richardson, who had paid his dues with the Houston Buffs but did not have a big imagination. Smith returned from New York, after getting a graduate degree at the Steinbrenner Institute for Pain.
Tal hired Bill Virdon as his manager and raised the Astros out of the primeval muck, 43 games out of first place (in 1975) to within three outs of the World Series in 1980. The Sporting News would name Smith as the executive of the year for ’80, but John McMullen, the new owner, fired him anyway.
McMullen lived in New Jersey, but he knew how to use a phone. He wanted a general manager who would not make moves or express an opinion without consulting him.
Into the breach came Al Rosen, who had set home run records as a third baseman in Cleveland. Rosen was good-natured and considerate. He lasted until 1985 and received the news of his dismissal not with anger but puzzlement.
“I don’t understand why I was fired,” he said to a friend.
The friend did not offer him sympathy.
“If you don’t know,” he said, “imagine how Tal Smith must have felt.”
Replied Rosen: “I don’t know why he fired Tal, either.”
At that point, there seemed to be something in the air that created turmoil among Houston’s sports teams, possibly spillage from the chemical plants in Pasadena.
But turmoil appeared to be our destiny. In this context, the new GM was Dick Wagner, the man who dismantled the Big Red Machine and fired Sparky Anderson in Cincinnati.
The Astros did not leave the plantation for Bill Wood, an intense, studious type whose life was baseball. Wood gave way to Bob Watson, a slugging first baseman and fan favorite in the 1970s.
Feeling he had not suffered enough here, Watson went to New York, guided the Yankees to a world championship and resigned. He is now with the commissioner’s office.
Hunsicker filled the opening in Houston, . . .

And with the depth of having seen many Stros GM’s and owners come and go, Herskowitz notes the bottom line of Hunsicker’s resignation:

After nine years, Gerry Hunsicker leaves on a high note, and by his choice — which is the best way.