WHY NO LONGER GREAT TEAMS IN BASEBALL? WHY NO 100-GAME WINNERS?

2001 Seattle Mariners led by Ichiro was the last team to win 100 games with  a MLB record 116-46

No team since has managed to win 100 games    Greatest Teams, steroids in baseball, drug use in baseball, #Giants PEDs, #PEDs, Banned substances in baseball, baseball drug testing, baseball players on drugs, cheating in baseball,The History of Baseball, Best Baseball Teams

WHY NO LONGER GREAT TEAMS IN BASEBALL?   NO 100-GAME WINNERS SINCE 2001.

Top 100-Game Winning Teams:

1928 New York Yankees 101-53          (154 game seasons)
1929 Philadelphia Athletics 104-46
1927 New York Yankees 110-44
1932 New York Yankees 107-47
1939 New York Yankees 106-45
1941 New York Yankees 101-53
1954 Cleveland Indians 111-43
1942 St. Louis Cardinals 106-48

-teams only played 154 games prior to 1960-

1961 New York Yankees 109-53           (162 game seasons)
1968 Detroit Tigers 103-59
1969 New York Mets 100-62
1967 St. Louis Cardinals 101-60
1970 Baltimore Orioles 108-54
1975 Cincinnati Reds 108-74
1976 Cincinnati Reds 102-60
1984 Detroit Tigers 104-58
1995 Cleveland  indians 100-44
2001 Seattle Mariners 116-46

(above courtesy of Bleacher Report's 50 Greatest Teams)

Bleacher Report has ranked the top 50 teams including ones winning less than
100 games. Not surprising they don't include either of the 2010 or 2012 Giants
teams but they do include some, like the 1989 Oakland Athletics, for, which we would NOT include or give a PED-aided askerisk  

1927 New York Yankees, backed by the Sultan of Swat won 110 games - in only  154 games. (Teams prior to 1961 only played 154 games.)

Interesting to note the dearth of great teams today. Sure, it's great to have competitive  races but this is ridiculous. Only one team, the Los Angeles Angels currently has a record
over .600 on a pace  to win 100 games - and that could change in a flash, just as have teams' records this year. If it does, it would be the first team since 2009 to win 100 games.  What's even more shocking is that teams play more games now (162 per year) vs. 154 prior to the mid- 1960s.  This makes all the pre-1960s 100-game teams that much more amazing. In the prior 4 decades before 2009 (1969-2009) 45 teams have won 100 games but in the last five years NONE have won 100 games




Since 2009, no teams have won 100 games, yet prior to that 45 teams had 100 wins in the four decades prior - that's over 10 teams per decade.    There have been no dominant teams since then, only sporadically effective ones during seasonal streaks. Even those that have won over 100 were usually by one or two games. Why such a drop-off in quality teams, despite 
the advantages of free agency and no salary cap?  



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 If anything , one would think there would be more disparity among teams since free agency. When wealthier teams today CAN PAY - as we have seen most recently in the Los Angeles Dodgers and its $220 million payroll faring less well than, say, the Oakland Athletics with a payroll in the low $100 millions.




In recent years we've never seen such mediocrity,or , shall we say, ups and downs, in baseball,
where teams will have great streaks only to suddenly drop off to bad losing streaks, ending up
with so-so records - no longer any 100 game winners. This is especially surprising that even
since free agency in 1975 the richer teams and lack of salary cap are not necessarily performing better. Richer teams are not necessarily faring better than than lower salaried teams. 
One might expect just the opposite, that there would be a much greater discrepancy than pre-free agency baseball. 



So, again, why no great baseball teams in over a decade?

The only theory we can come up with    focuses on   the steroid or PED  era.
Since the 1990s - or even the late '80s - estimates of up to 50% of major leagues players have
been using performance enhancing drugs. (We saw 20 players CAUGHT through the Biogenesis leak last year, without 
benefit of effective MLB drug testing - no major leaguers have been caught in years to our knowledge, not due to a lack of tainted players.)  Players must go off and on the drugs around
testing times, resulting in spikes of lower performance  . With slightly more frequent testing and stronger penalties today, players must be more careful and when they temporarily go off the drugs, the performance drops. The drug tests are - for whatever reasons - usUally announced ahead, and this is likely why we may see mass drop-offs by teams weeks before and after testing. It may take some time for a player to get back to his 'enhancement' , thus, the prolonged drop-offs of sometimes 2-4 weeks or even months - as we saw with the Giants.




With new baseball rules, testing is required a minimum of two times during a baseball
season (to our knowledge) - it used to be only required in spring training. So, once
tests are given , say, for example early and mid-season,  players can go back on
the juice knowing they probably won't be tested again and, if they are they'll usually
be given advanced notice, anyway.  This is how we see the Giants go on their late season
surges with even the weakest players hitting 30-80 points above their non-enhanced
(prior) averages.

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The trend has  never been more apparent this year than with the San Francisco Giants. People actually thought the Giants had the NL West wrapped up after the first two months of 2014
with a better than .650 record and eight games ahead of the second place Los Angeles Dodgers.
But as quick as they could do no wrong, the team could do no write, finishing with
the worst losing streak in baseball over most of June and July. Once again,
the Giants turned this around with one of the best records during late August and
early September as they closed the gap to two games behind the Dogers as of September 7.
The Giants have done similarly  in recent years they won the World Series, 2010 and 2012
finishing with majors' best win loss records in September both years. 
Other streaky teams have included the Boston Red Sox, Detroit Tigers, BalTimore Orioles,and Washington  -depending upon what you call a streak.The San Francisco Giants have had the longest overall streaks  of any team as described above.




What happened to consistency by teams? A good team should stay generally 'good'
through the season without drastic ups and downs. Even a blockbuster trade or
acquisition shouldn't make that much difference in baseball where you have teams
of 25 players including strong backups. Nor should injuries make that much difference - all
teams have injuries - and with good backup players it shouldn't be a problem. And, we see similar trends happen year after year as described elsewhere.



Now with numbers of KNOWN PED users allowed back in the game after their 50 (now 80) game suspensions, we've seen  most of  teams with 'PED' players making the playoffs, perhaps thanks to at one or two of those players.    It's not to say they're all still 'using,' but one doesn't have to be blind or 'dumb or dumber' (to quote Balco's Victor Conte) 
to see some of these players continue to hit well above their career averages - and getting
away with it, propelling their teams often to playoffs and World Series victories.  So, PEDs not only make for an uneven playing field , they pose a threat to player health and now, also seem to be bringing mediocrity to the game.(Perhaps the powers that be and others like the more even distribution we're now seeing but baseball without great teams - or real weak ones, for that matter - is NOT baseball.  It's ARTIFICIAL baseball - in more ways than one, in our opinion. 




GOLDEN YEARS OF BASEBALL - Which were the truly greatest teams

Giants' Juan Marichal with Willie McCovey, 1962 World Series runner-ups, Runners-up best team



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WHY NO LONGER GREAT TEAMS IN BASEBALL?   NO 100-GAME WINNERS SINCE 2001.

#San Fran Giants - Interesting look back at Bruce Bochy Era - Bochy Over-rated?

 

San Francisco Giants - Interesting look back at  Bruce Bochy Era - Bochy Over-rated?

 

 

Ken Camanitti, Padres

How  Did Bruce Bochy Become Giants Manager? Bochy Overated?

Tony Gwynn's recent passing brought to light some interesting connections
between the Giants and Gwynn's long-time San Diego Padre team.Bruce Bochy SanFrancisco Giants, Pablo Sandoval, med peds, san fran giants


Giant manager Bruce Bochy was San Diego Padre's and Gwynn's manager from 1995 to 2001, when Gwynn retired. It was also during those years that  Gwynn, then   in his late thirties, had   three of his five best years, hitting over .350 at an age  most players are retired. Ken Camaniti, an admitted steroid user who lost his life at 35 due in part to performance enhancing drugs, had among his best years, certainly his best power numbers  with as many as 40 as a Padre when he had never hit as many as 20 before; he received MVP and propelled the Padres to the World Series in 1998.  Caminitti took advantage of the emerging drug culture in the San Diego clubhouse, then largely a steroid   called creatine that would become popular with Oakland A's player and San Diego native Mark McGwire.  The trend would escalate especially to the San Francisco giants, though the drug s of choice would change.   Barry Bonds and at least seven other (later indicted) Giants would favor a testosterone-based steroid known as the 'clear' and the 'creme' 
the Mitchell reports).


Bochy ,  as manager, would witness  cartoon-like numbers in Camaniti and Gwynn and later Bonds when Bochy came to the Giants in 2007.   Bochy  likely knew he was coming to a team featuring another cartoon-like character, both in changed appearance and statistics in Bonds, who was having his best seasons and breaking homerun and other records and doing things never done before , again, at an age when most players were either retired or nearing it.
(Note: We don't believe Gwynn used PEDs most of his  career but became caught up in the team culture with Caminiti and perhpas others in his later years when he could most benefit , much like his friend, Barry Bonds on the Giants

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It's possible at the time  Bochy wasn't aware of a drug culture while Caminitti was still with San Diego, but he would  find out  a few years later while still managing San Diego when Camaniti came out with his own book in 2002 about his admitted steroid use in San Diego that would , in part, end up killing him  . 





When the Giants tabbed Bochy to replace Dusty Baker as manager in 2007 he certainly knew , post facto , if not before , what had happened around him during his San Diego days, yet  Bochy would accept the managerial position with the Giants knowing of the controversary surrounding Bonds'  astonishing late -career numbers .  If anyone should have drawn connections between his own now-deceased  ex-player, Camaniti, and Bonds ,  it was Bochy.  No doubt the Giants knew something when they hired him, i.e. as a sympathetic figure who would put up  with Bonds - and even let the Giant's star player control the clubhouse, including what trainers could come in to work with him. The Giants own team trainer, Stan Conte - no relation to Victor-would later leave the team for the hated Dodgers, just to get out of   a toxic situation. 






In a much forgotten or overlooked interview in 2002 , Bonds promised to share his 'secrets' with teamates.  That he did , we would later find out,  with seven  Giants indicted for illegal drug use (Mitchell Report). Other players that may NOT have joined Bonds, such as Jeff Kent, would  have nothing to do with Bonds.




When Bonds propelled the Giants   into the World Series in 2002 with his 'bag of secrets'  , Giants management no doubt would overlook  negative  Bondsian antics so much they rather lose a popular manager in Dusty Baker than a .370 power hitter (2002) who seemed to keep getting better  with age!

No doubt  Baker  had had enough of a dysfunctional clubhouse, and the Giants of him - and Baker was sent packing. Thant's when, in 2007,  Bruce Boche came on the scene.  Recently fired as manager of a  dysfunctional San Diego Padres team,  no doubt with similar problems as the Giants,  in  Bochy no doubt the Giants figured there was a match. On one hand one would think Boche would run the other way fromthe Giants, but, heck, it was   a job - and managerial positions in major league baseball don't come up often.

In  Bochy,   the Giants management found a tolerant manager who didn't mind playing second fiddle to Bonds;  one who would look the other way when the Bonds' entourage appeared. trainer and drug guru Greg Anderson in tow.  A  couple of brave and astute San Francisco baseball writers writers would eventually expose what was lurking in those shadows of AT&T Park and finally put an end to a decade of Giants   and Bonds living a lie, Bonds    walking away with a bunch of MVPs  and the Giants nearly pulling off a World Series in 2002.  Pressure mounted and the Giants begrudgingly  said goodbye to the man for whom AT&T was built - or who built AT&T-  Bonds, then 41 and still capable of hitting more homers than anyone half his age.  But the fun down by McCovey Cove  was far from over...




The loss of Bonds proved a mere blip on the radar as the Sabean and the Giants would take what knowledge  they had gleaned from Bonds and -without much of  a farm system and nary a World Series victory in 50 years - parlay that into a couple of unlikely World Series victories  in 2010 and 2012.  This time they didn't rely on one man alone, but a cast of characters... Melky 'Milk Man' Cabrera, Jose Guillen, Guillermo Moto and many more... and , with ownership , fans  and  a Commissioner  willing to look the other way, the Giants haven't stopped since . Despite the problems and expense he may have cost, Bonds may bave been the Giants best deal ever,for those  concerned most about the profit movtive.

 


Bochy  .500 manager

 

Bruce Bochy seems   a very likeable guy and certainly a 'player's manager'  but is he truly one of the premier managers of baseball?
He has been given credit especially for his handling of the pitchers and bullpen. But, when one looks at  his record he is a .500, (.501 to be exact as of 7/5)  manager with as many losses as wins over his 20 year managerial career.

 

Even with the Giants,who have been helped out with both natural and unnatural talent, he is only .514 , with a winning record only  the two world series  years of 2010 and 2012 plus 2011 of  his seven years in San Francisco prior to this one.
And, again, those winning years were certainly aided by  at three known PED users    (People may have already forgotten or don't care that  the Giants have had, since  Bonds,  a notorious reputation for having PED players, morseo than any other team.) In 2010, indicted PED users Jose Guillen and Guillermo Moto gave the Giants probably 5-10 wins between them, enough to propel them into the series that year.In 2012 it was Melky Cabrera leading the way, giving the Giants more
winning hits than any other player during his half season before getting suspended - again, enough to propel the Giants to thte World Series.

Where there's smoke there's fire:

Teams not hesitant to take aboard PED players are likely to perpetuate the trend - now having gone on so long it's hardly a trend anymore.
 It's likely, in our opinion, that there were others, too, like Marco Scutaro,
who came to the Giants from Colorado  about the time Cabrera was suspended; he raised  his average nearly 100 points,. from .267 to about .350 where it remained the rest of the season.  As in 2010, the Giants had unlikely late season surges with players like new acquistioni Cody Ross
and Pablo Sandoval each  hitting 8 homeruns in their respective years of 2010 and 2012 - more than they'd hit the entire year. Sandoval  hit three home runs in one playoff game against Detroit after only hitting three homeruns the entire year.

 

“It helps late in the season,” says Rangers designated hitter Mickey Tettleton, in Pete Williams’s 1997 USA TODAY story titled “Lifting the game: Creatine is baseball’s new gunpowder" (thanks to FanGraphs recent reprint  http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/ken-caminitis-goody-bag/)  he does not bother with nutrition supplements.
 “When you feel sluggish, it makes you feel like you have a little left in your gas tank.”

  So, we're saying, we believe that manager Bochy got some significant help to his managerial career .514  record with the Giants and even with San Diego where he was . 494 when he had Camininiti and Gwynn and others.(As reported before, we don't believe Gwynn used PEDs his entire career but became caught up in the culture when he could most benefit in his later years, much like his friend, Barry Bonds on the Giants.)

Interesting to note that the Giants-despite team President Larry Baer's comment that the team doesn't like to go after PED players for the very reputation the team already has- continue to sign known PED users such as Michael Morse this year. This strategy may be catching
up with them as we note in a coming article.

 

Way back in 1997, Sabean in his second  year as GM with the Giants already was virtually sanctioning the use of PEDs, believing that players were going to use anything that would give them that edge.  Ever since then we've seen Sabean and the Giants resort to the 'if you can't beat them join them' philosophy and has accepted that so-called inevitability of steroid use by signing many a known and suspected player.

From Pete Williams’s 1997 USA TODAY story titled “Lifting the game: Creatine is baseball’s new gunpowder" we have this key quote, reprised in Fan Graphs (http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/ken-caminitis-goody-bag/)

In my mind, the most important quote comes near the end from Brian Sabean, then in his second year as Giants general manager (notable in itself):

Steroid use “wouldn’t surprise me,” says Giants general manager Brian Sabean. “If it gives somebody an edge, guys are going to use it. Look how it’s affected other sports. We’d really have our head in the sand if we thought it wasn’t here in baseball.”

Again, that was back in 1997. Nowhere has Sabean said the team would not bring in players with a PED history and he's been doing it ever since.

 The list of Giants who have used PEDs since then is longer than that of any other team. Rather than working against such an acceptance, Sabean and the Giants have lead in the open-door policy for drugs which has, in our opinion, severely tarnished , if not ruined baseball. Now, PEDs are commonplacein baseball. If not 50% of players are using, per the late user, Ken Caminitti, himself, or Balco's Victor Conte in more recent times, a good percentage are
due to MLB''s continued weak or ineffective drug testing program, which has not caught a single player in the past two seasons, to our knowledge -
and not because the sport is clean. All or at least four of last years division winners had indicted PED users on their teams. We could name names but we won't get into that;
hopefully that will come to light sooner than later by authorities higher than ourselves.  And, the PED beat goes on...

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performance enhancing drugs in baseball, doping in sports, peds,#peds, Giants peds, #SFGiants, #peds in baseball, playoffs, #playoffs

 San Fran Giants - Interesting look back at Bruce Bochy Era - Bochy Over-rated?
Bruce Bochy, SanFrancisco Giants, Pablo Sandoval, med peds, san fran giants, doping in sports

MICHAEL MORSE SF GIANTS LATEST TAINTED ACQUISITON TO RISE ABOVE PAST RECORD

MICHAEL MORSE SF GIANTS LATEST TAINTED  ACQUISITON   TO  RISE ABOVE PAST RECORD




Giants owner,  Larry Baer and his  'trustworthy' GM  Sabean of the SF Giants are full  of it  when they say they 'try' to stay away from PED tainted players per recent SFGate (3-19-14)  ..  Baer just admitted he took on another player with steroid background in Michael Morse, who other teams weren't so interested in because of that. Suddenly, the normally .250 Morse is hitting .300 with mammoth, league leading  homers - playing in AT&Ts difficult hitters  ballpark, no less -  (similar to Marcos Scutaro,  sans homers,when the Giants brought in the .262  37 year old from Colorado who raised his average almost 100 points after joining the Giants. So Morse   hasn't been caught since 2005 with PEDs.  Few have been caught with the league's still weak drug testing  that still can't detect the new designer testosterone.  ( SEE  HERE)   Even one conviction of a player is enough for a team  to stay away from . But the Giants just keep on loading up with normally average, suspicious players they get cheap because other teams aren't so interested in their background... e.g.  the string of Venezuelans  such as Machi, Petit, Sandoval (who has hit amazing when he's on drugs and lousy when off them, like now...  Scutaro, whose transgressions may have caught up with him and the  'late' Melky, back on the stuff with Toronto and getting away with it again, despite his PED conviction with Giants.. Telltale PEDs (performance enhancing drugs)  include Anabolic steroid, Banned substances in baseball, Blood doping, Bodybuilding, Ergogenic aid, Ergogenic use of anabolic steroids, Steroid use.

But don't let the Giants kid you .  I believe the Giants just like I do their 250 straight 'sellouts' (with hundreds to thousands of empty seats at most games).  If Baer was serious he would say 'We don't want tainted players , period.'... not this, 'leave the door open' stuff... Now , suddenly , the Giants aging starters are pitching amazing after starting the season terribly.  And, of course, the no name bullpen  continues to thrive- players who did very little before coming to the Jints only  to become world beaters! The Giants are by no means the only team continuing the 'dirty little secret' but they are , by far,  leading the way with even Baer admitting as much but only with lip service and not actions.  When another player goes  bad he and old Sabean will be right back there looking for the guys other teams don't want, only to see them become sudden late-career stars.  Who was Petit before he came to the Giants - and so many others? ...  If ever caught, they get fined and suspended - big deal?-   and the Giants continue the San Francisco Treat   - and we're not talking about Rice a Roni; the Giants but the most liberal team in most liberal town in baseball.   Problem is Sabean couldn't make a legit trade for a legit player if he wanted to. He got Hudson as a free agent only because he overpaid him - more than any other team offered.   That's why he continues to go after tainted players, including re-signing his own; they only succeed , at times,  because of this sad state of affairs in baseball - with the Giants , again, leading the way.  Take away convicted  Melky and Jose Guillen -mnot to mention the non-convicted  from the 2010 and 2012 Giants wouldn't  have come close to the World Series.


 MICHAEL MORSE SF GIANTS LATEST TAINTED  ACQUISITON   TO  RISE ABOVE PAST RECORD