SHOCKER! Steroids Increase HR Totals

[He Hate Me]

Groundbreaking news!!!

 

http://www.nypost.com/seven/09212007/sports/study__roids_increase_hrs.htm

 

STUDY: 'ROIDS INCREASE HRS

By MAGGIE FOX

 

September 21, 2007 -- WASHINGTON - Steroids can help batters hit 50 percent more home runs by boosting their muscle mass by just 10 percent, a U.S. physicist said yesterday.

 

Calculations show that, by putting on 10 percent more muscle mass, a batter can swing about 5 percent faster, increasing the ball's speed by 4 percent as it leaves the bat.

 

Depending on the ball's trajectory, this added speed could take it into home run territory 50 percent more often, said Roger Tobin of Tufts University in Boston.

 

"A 4 percent increase in ball speed, which can reasonably be expected from steroid use, can increase home run production by anywhere from 50 percent to 100 percent," said Tobin, whose study will be published in an upcoming issue of the American Journal of Physics.

 

Tobin read reports about steroids that said they could add about 10 percent to an athlete's total muscle mass. An extra 10 pounds of muscle, he said, could add just enough extra to a batter's swing to send the ball out of the park.

 

Could this be enough to help the Giants' Barry Bonds, dogged by allegations of past steroid use, hit his record-breaking 756th career home run last month?

 

"I haven't tried to look at Barry Bonds specifically so I haven't looked at his weight numbers," Tobin said

[ORS]

I'd be interested to know some of the other assumptions of the study, because 50% more seems like a stretch. By this I mean, how much of the other noise, not squaring the ball up, not taking a full swing because of a deceptive delivery, etc, stuff that steroids won't impact, is being considered: I personally think the biggest impact of PEDs is keeping guys on the field.

[He Hate Me]

I'd be interested to know some of the other assumptions of the study' date=' because 50% more seems like a stretch. By this I mean, how much of the other noise, not squaring the ball up, not taking a full swing because of a deceptive delivery, etc, stuff that steroids won't impact, is being considered: I personally think the biggest impact of PEDs is keeping guys on the field.[/quote']

 

I think that in terms of the squaring up stuff and whatnot, you have to have some sort of natural talent in the hand eye coordination department. steroids are performance enhancers, if there's nothing to enhance, it probably won't help you. Barry's always had amazing hand eye coordination and probably woulda finished with 500 HR anyway without the enhancers.

[ORS]

500? I think he probably gets to 700 easily. He was a 35-40 guy prior to '99, when he reportedly started taking them. He's only had one huge outlier year, when he hit 73, no other year is over 50.

[He Hate Me]

500? I think he probably gets to 700 easily. He was a 35-40 guy prior to '99' date=' when he reportedly started taking them. He's only had one huge outlier year, when he hit 73, no other year is over 50.[/quote']

 

hmmm I looked over his stats. Scratch that, I think he would have hit 700 without the enhancers, just not as easily. He had 445 by the end of 1999. I think it goes back to your point about keeping guys on the field. Undoubtedly the steroids helped him play at a peak level after 1999 instead of declining.

 

Which begs the question, if you're going to wind up with a decent shot at 700 HR, and have probably one of the most brilliant offensive careers ever, why the hell would you think about cheating??

[Gom]

Steroids help in every aspect. They keep the players on the field. They allow players to regenerate their strength faster. They are less worn down. They also increase strength, allowing for those warning track shots to be homeruns.

 

ORS, steroids doesn't decrease the other skills needed to hit a homerun, so that stuff is irrelevant. If he could get around on it, great, if he couldn't, he couldn't. If anything, the increase in strength may help him get around better since he may be able to hold back that 1/10th of a second more before ripping through the zone.

 

Just an observation.

[Gom]

hmmm I looked over his stats. Scratch that, I think he would have hit 700 without the enhancers, just not as easily. He had 445 by the end of 1999. I think it goes back to your point about keeping guys on the field. Undoubtedly the steroids helped him play at a peak level after 1999 instead of declining.

 

Which begs the question, if you're going to wind up with a decent shot at 700 HR, and have probably one of the most brilliant offensive careers ever, why the hell would you think about cheating??

 

I disagree with that statement. First of all, his body would have broken down. His homerun totals would more than likely have declined with time. We will never know, but the dropoff would have started a while ago.

[ORS]

Steroids help in every aspect. They keep the players on the field. They allow players to regenerate their strength faster. They are less worn down. They also increase strength, allowing for those warning track shots to be homeruns.

 

ORS, steroids doesn't decrease the other skills needed to hit a homerun, so that stuff is irrelevant. If he could get around on it, great, if he couldn't, he couldn't. If anything, the increase in strength may help him get around better since he may be able to hold back that 1/10th of a second more before ripping through the zone.

 

Just an observation.

Until I see more information, I'm not convinced the warning track shots become HRs by virtue of steroids. For a great majority of major leaguers, warning track shots are warning track shots for a specific reason, and it's because they didn't square it up. This is why I'd like to know more about the study, although I'm not interested enough to dig into it. The physics of the bat to ball energy transfer change as you move away from the sweet spot. The sweet spot corresponds to the center of mass, as the impact point shifts away from it, you introduce torque into the equation, and the dynamics change. You can't just make the same conversions that you did for the sweet spot hit ball.

[He Hate Me]

Until I see more information' date=' I'm not convinced the warning track shots become HRs by virtue of steroids. For a great majority of major leaguers, warning track shots are warning track shots for a specific reason, and it's because they didn't square it up. This is why I'd like to know more about the study, although I'm not interested enough to dig into it. The physics of the bat to ball energy transfer change as you move away from the sweet spot. The sweet spot corresponds to the center of mass, as the impact point shifts away from it, you introduce torque into the equation, and the dynamics change. You can't just make the same conversions that you did for the sweet spot hit ball.[/quote']

 

How high a percentage do you attribute strength to HR hitting and how much do you attribute to being squared up, etc. Assuming all parks are equal and we only focus on the skillset of the batter (hand eye coordination, ability to recognize pitches etc.)