speculation? Just looking at his stats and it seems odd given the spike when he joined the Sox and the downward spiral once the MLB started a more stringent drug testing program (2007 or so). Little fact I did not know is that he was signed by the Seatle Mariner's as a 17-year old out of the DR and we all know the guy behind the curtain of the DR's success.. His slide is very Giambi-esque. Oh for those who point to age, he is 34 (born in 1975) per his bio (here is a link to his stats). I'm just saying...There was a year he played for Minnesota where he played damn near a whole season and belted out a whopping 18 homers, which doesn't project to me to be a 50 home run guy. Also, his batting average the last two years, for lack of a better word, sucked. So it is not just power numbers we are talking about, his slide is of almost epic proportion in terms of a top of the line hitter turning to shit right before our eyes. Perhaps, he might want to dig up his jersey out of the New Yankee Stadium and reverse the curse that might have been put on his career or lack thereof during the past two plus seasons (and yeah, the Yankees have sucked so far, but I blame that on Bernie Madoff. What? He was a Met fan)?
Link: "Big" Papi
Because if you can't connect with the ball, it hardly matters that you can crush it when you do connect. Yet the 'roid users seem to also benefit from making more contact...and not just crushing it. Okay, there are some bozos like Mark McGwire who pretty much hit homers or KO'ed. But my impression is that many more of them made MORE contact...and I doubt it was because they were seeing fatter pitches.
would make a big difference regarding contact. If you're less likely to be overwhelmed by a pitcher's fastball, adjusting to their offspeed stuff becomes easier.
But, seriously, do steroids improve hand speed?
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though I can't speak from personal experience.
Hand strength plays a big part in bat speed. If steroids can give you an unnaturally strong jaw just from normal eating, I'm sure they can do the same for your forearms. It wouldn't necessarily help your hand eye coordination per se, but a faster bat gives you more room for error, when you're talking about fractions of a second to decide whether or not you're going to swing at a 90+ mph fastball.
It makes it easier if you just assume that every player who hit at least 30 HRs in a season between 1990-2005 was juicing.
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On a related topic, Youkilis seems to be getting kinda thick thru the midsection, huh? Lots of extra muscle that boy has......lots of it.
It's an emerging matzah ball soup gut.
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