Red Sox Announce ALCS Roster

FGP – OK lets really look at the facts about Papi and match them to the index.

BIG PAPI =
Age 21 – 1997 – JUICE INDEX 1.02 – 15 games 1 HR MIN
Age 22 – 1998 – JUICE INDEX 1.04 – 86 games 9 HRs MIN
Age 23 – 1999 – JUICE INDEX 1.14 – 10 games 0 HRs MIN
Age 24 – 2000 – JUICE INDEX 1.17 – 130 games 10 HRs MIN
Age 25 – 2001 – JUICE INDEX 1.12 – 89 games 18 HRs MIN
Age 26 – 2002 – JUICE INDEX 1.04 – 125 games 20 HRs MIN
Age 27 – 2003 – JUICE INDEX 1.07 – 128 games 31 HRs BOS
Age 28 – 2004 – JUICE INDEX 1.12 – 150 games 41 HRs BOS
Age 29 – 2005 – JUICE INDEX 1.03 – 159 games 47 HRs BOS
Age 30 – 2006 – JUICE INDEX 1.11 – 151 games 54 HRs BOS
Age 31 – 2007 – JUICE INDEX 1.02 – 149 games 35 HRs BOS
Age 32 – 2008 = JUICE INDEX 1.00 – 109 games 23 HRs BOS
Age 33 – 2009 – JUICE INDEX 1.04 – 158 games 28 HRs BOS
Age 34 – 2010 – JUICE INDEX 0.95 – 145 games 32 HRs BOS
Age 35 – 2011 – JUICE INDEX 0.94 – 146 games 29 HRs BOS
Age 36 – 2012 = JUICE INDEX 1.02 – 90 games 23 HRs BOS
Age 37 – 2013 – JUICE INDEX 0.96 – 137 games 30 HRs BOS
Age 38 – 2014 – JUICE INDEX 0.86 – 142 games 35 HRs BOS
Age 39 – 2015 – JUICE INDEX 1.01 – 146 games 37 HRs BOS
Age 40 – 2016 – JUICE INDEX 1.16 – 151 games 38 HRs BOS

As you can see from this year by year documentation of performance Papi’s HRs grew and fell with the index. But before we get into the minutia lets talk at a higher level.

By 1997 steroids had been used for over 20 years and the higher performance numbers started in 1994 when the ball juice index jumped to 1.03 from 0.89 which was more than 15%. The baseball juice level plateau lasted nearly a decade and Papi came in during the middle of the surge. Steroids existed in Minnesota and Boston and every other franchise in 1997 so because his home run rate was low in the Metrodome people thought Papi wasn’t taking steroids. I would argue that he probably was just like most players at that time. What I would also argue is that steroids had no effect on his HRs as you can see from the detailed data.

Two things changed when Papi signed with BOS. He played at a far more HR friendly park and he became a regular. In Minnesota he didn’t play consistently but by performing well from the start Papi won a spot in the starting line-up in 2003. His home runs went up 50% from his previous year in Minnesota thanks to the ball park, an organization that believed in him along with the players (Pedro etc) and the juice in the ball rising by 3%. In 2004, he played in 20% more games and hit 10 more home runs than his first year. and the juice index rose 5% from the previous year. All this makes perfect sense without any substance accounting for the changes. See if Papi never took steroids in MIN and he got them in BOS then one could argue the uplift in HRs was from steroids not the change in park dimensions and conditions, faith of the organization and players and the juice index and it would be hard to prove which was more true. So lets proceed with the analysis.

The report in 2003 that showed he took steroids may or may not have been true but it doesn’t matter because it didn’t impact his HRs. Remember, Papi played in Minnesota from age 21 to 26 and had 58 HRs in 1700 at bats playing part time most of those six years. Giving a part time player an opportunity to play full time can significantly impact their numbers. Austin Riley is a contemporary example. He doubled his home runs for Atlanta this season as their full time 3B after playing part time for several years. Papi had a similar jump so that is not unusual. So whether Papi started taking steroids back in the DR, during his time in MIN or during 2003 with BOS, I am here to prove it doesn’t matter because it impacted NOTHING.

Looking at the above data and correlating it to your comment about his 2006 performance you can see that he had prolific HRs in 2006 thanks to the juice index being 1.11 (5th highest year in baseball history at that time). The following year the index dropped by nearly 10% and his HRs dropped by nearly 20%. Did he stop taking steroids? NO. Did the less juiced ball and an off season compared to his career year provide for a reasonable drop off? YEP.

Lets talk now about the 2006 hospitalizations. Papi played in 151 games in 2006. How a man hospitalized twice played in every game in August of 2006 escapes me just as much as the fact that I could find no documentation from 2006 of those supposed hospitalizations. Do you have the wrong year? 151 games and none missed in August certainly makes your claim about the hospital visits hard to believe.

So for me, your argument doesn’t hold water. Lets go back to facts not conjecture. The juice index was 0.89 in 1993 (lower than 1961!) and then it rose to a peak in 2000 of 1.17 then gradually tapered down to 1..11 in 2006. At that point, the juice index leveled out 10% lower than 2006 Papi’s last big year of HRs according to you. So, did Papi stop taking steroids in 2007 or was he like all the other players in baseball who saw their home runs drop off by 10% after 2006? I think there is no reason to expect that the use of steroids changed after 2006, it’s far more likely whether he was on them or not that he simply hit less home runs with a less juiced baseball.

Here is the clincher. By 2016 MLB changed back to a far more juiced baseball with an juice index of 1.16 or 15% higher than 2015. Likewise, we see Papi’s HRs rising as the juice index rises and his 38 HRs at age 40 become his 4th highest career total. Did he start juicing again to bring the numbers up or does the significant rise in the juice index better explain the rise in Papi’s home runs while playing in his late 30s?

Steroids whether taken or not taken is a moral issue not a home run issue. The juice in the baseball defines the numbers of home runs that will be hit in a season and most players slumped during low juice years and flourished during high juice seasons. Papi was not different than guys like Jeter or others who have too pure a reputation to be accused of steroids. Whether he did or didn’t do it only matters if you want to condemn an entire generation of players going back to the 1970s for using a substance that failed to enhance their home run production. Haters will hate and others with open minds will see when reviewing the numbers that Selig screwed over a full generation of players by wrongly concluding a link between steroids and home runs.

Papi just like all the other players who had good enough numbers to get into the HOF should be allowed in with a huge apology from Selig and the administrators of the HOF. They both embarrassed themselves by not doing their homework and blaming the wrong cause for the proliferation of home runs. The ball tracks closely to HRS/GM/YEAR dating back to 1871..