Brady Anderson played in the major leagues for the Red Sox, Orioles and (ever-so-briefly) the Indians. During his 16-year career he was pretty much known as a fleet-of-foot center-fielder who covered a lot of ground in the outfield, produced better than average doubles and triples and hit with decent power.
His career offensive line reads as follows for the vitals: 6499 at-bats, 1661 hits, 210 home runs, 1062 runs scored, 761 RBIs, .256 batting average, .362 on base percentage, and .425 slugging percentage. He had a nice, productive career and for a few years was considered a premier player.
But when you look at Anderson’s career one season sticks out like a sore thumb. For 1996 this was his line; 579 at-bats, 172 hits, 50 home runs, 117 runs scored, 110 RBIs, .297 batting average, .396 on-base and .637 slugging percentage.
In 1996 Anderson posted career highs in hits, home runs, runs scored, RBIs, batting average and slugging percentage.
Anderson hit 24% of his career home runs and drove in 15% of his career RBIs during this season, and was over 200 points better that his career slugging percentage. In his 16-year career Anderson hit over 20 home runs only twice. Twice! He hit 16 home runs the year before, and 18 home runs the year after his explosion.
Then Brady came back down to earth as he hit only 18 home runs in 1997 and 1998, 24 in 1999 and 19 in 2000 before doing the big fade out.
People have long suspected that Anderson had some “extra help” in 1996. “Extra help” is a euphemism for steroids. But back in 1996 people weren’t as openly suspicious of this kind of power explosion, because remember, chicks dug the long ball. And Brady's package. And it wasn't only chicks. But that's a different story.
Back in ’96 people were satisfied with the explanation that Anderson was an animal in the weight room and was using all kinds of modern supplements like creatine. Maybe that was the case.
Maybe Brady's power numbers disappeared after that one season because the creatine stopped working just as quickly as it had started.
Maybe.
In case you’ve forgotten, 1996 was the year of Mark McGwire’s resurrection, as he led all of baseball with 52 home runs after suffering through three years of career halting injuries. Some steroid historians – myself included – look at 1996 as one of the years when drugs really had a huge effect on power numbers.
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Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Matthew T. Sussman
Oh, my weak spot! My guy! A shot right in the heart.
But I'll live.
I know why his numbers declined. Call on me! Call on me!
He grew up. He's 39 now. He moved to the West (the ball does carry farther in the desert)
And he's fertile. He had triplets, admittedly planting the seed sometime in '97.
He peaked late, and he was durable. He's Jeff Kent without a Harley. Or a mustache.
2 - sal m
nice try, but WRONG!
3 - Matthew T. Sussman
No, um, you're the one who's ... wrong.
4 - sal m
well besides professing your love for the guy you can offer some valid reasons as to why his numbers aren't suspicious. the desert? he grew up?
5 - Nicholas Stix
People have whispered (loudly) about Gonzo for years, but one must guard against libel lawsuits, mustn't one? The funny thing about him is that to my knowledge, he didn't suddenly put on a lot of weight and huge muscles. Today he looks the same as he did in 2001.
Here's your next guy: Greg Vaughn. From 1990-1995, he averaged 17.2 homers and 76.3 RBI; from 1996-1999, he averaged 38.2 homers and and 102.8 RBI, including one year -- notorious 1998 -- in which he hit 50 dingers. And three of those years, he hit 136 homers (he only hit 355 for his career), only to drop off the radar, and be unable to hit at all by the age of 36.
Or you could go the obvious route with the late Ken Caminiti -- but then, he confessed and he's dead, so there are no libel issues there.
6 - gonzo marx
hey now...i'm the only gonzo around here...
and they can whisper all they want, i hate needles
no juicing fer me...nossir, no way
ummmm...i'm in the wrong place again, ain't i?
oooooppps
Excelsior?
7 - sal m
ah nicholas...you stole my next column...but at least i know there's at least one other person out there thinking this way! and i did make it clear that i'm not saying anyone used any drugs...i'm just saying that during an era where drugs were used, some guys had some very suspicious seasons.
i think that there were clusters of guys on a few teams back in the mid to late 90s that you can look at with a jaundiced view.
8 - Zach Baker
Interesting thing about Brady Anderson:
It was 1996, and I was 16. I was at the dentist, preparing for a filling, and mentioned to him I couln't believe the numbers Anderson was putting up.
He told me baseball had a steroid problem and had no idea how to deal with it.
Not that my dentist was an insider, but it was the first time I'd even considered steroid use in baseball. What I remember is the seed was planted with me, a kid with no connections, in 1996. That's why I am so upset with Selig and Co., because they plead ignorance, and it doesn't make sense.
9 - DJRadiohead
Greg Vaughn was going to be my suggestion, too.
What I really hope is that Fred McGriff's HoF candidacy catches fire. I believe him to have been a clean player whose numbers are only pale when compared to those who seem to have been obvious cheaters.
I also hope Ken Griffey Jr., another player I believe to have been clean, gets additional praise heaped on him for what he did during his best years.
10 - Hairynipples
How about Men at Work's year in 1984? Tell me that wasn't suspicious? Where are they now?
11 - sal m
Well Mr Smarty-pants, Hairynipples man, I'll have you know that Colin Hay is alive and well and touring in your back yard as we type these inanities to each other.
colinhay.com
Now I must go and finish my Vegemite sandwich...
[Cough, cough, active URLs please, Mr M. Thanks. Comments Editor]
12 - Dawn
Dude, man you knowe your sports!
Glad to see Suss picks on people besides me.
13 - Matthew T. Sussman
Sal, like ya said, you just showed everyone the stats, and people can draw their own conclusions.
He went from everyday player to All Star between 98 and 99. It was late in his career. Now the "cloud" is receding and his numbers are down.
But the guy weighed right around 195-200 the entire time.
He was durable. In 2000-01 he didn't miss a single game.
He did suffer an injury, though, after "the surge." He underwent arm surgery so he could field/throw with less pain in 2004 because the team was so piss poor bad, he had no reason to stick around.
He's 38, not 39 like I said earlier, but he's mortal with an obvious decline. He probably has the worst production of Arizona outfielders this year.
The eyebrow-raising stat was the 57 homers in 2001. I wonder if that suspicion would still be there if it was instead 37.
14 - sal m
body weight in itself - increase, decrease, status quo - isn't an indication of anything.
what was the nature of his arm injury?
15 - RJ Elliott
Was Alan Trammell a steroid abuser in 1986 and 1987?
He never hit more than 15 HRs in any year except those two...
His slugging percentage was almost +.150 over his career average in 1987, the only season he was over .500 in slugging percentage...
1987 was also the only year he had more than 100 RBIs and a batting average above .320, or an OBP above .400...
See, I agree with you that widespread steroid use among a _few_ star players during the 1990s played a role in creating their "record" numbers...but stats can often paint an inaccurate picture of a specific athelete...
16 - sal m
trammell and gonzalez are two differnet situations and from different eras.
the steroid era was just picking up steam as trammell's career was winding down, where gonzalez entire career has been during the steroid era.
trammell's increase in home runs, and the inevitable increase in the related stats are no where near as drastic and out of proportion to gonzalez. especially since trammell's best power year was when he was 29, versus gonzelez at 33.
and guys physically mature into their late 20's so trammell's numbers aren't that crazy.
plus tons of guys have gone from hitting hr's in the mid teens to hitting in the mid 20's, throughout the history of the game.
how many guys in the history of the game have hit over 50? none of them had the "path" of gonzalez.
then look at the career power numbers of these guys and they were power hitters. gonzalez hitting 57 is as suspicious as anything else that's happened during this era of steroids.
17 - Nicholas Stix
My understanding was that pre-1994, the ball was periodically juiced, say every six or seven years. 1987 was such a year. A bunch of guys suddenly hit dingers, like Wade Boggs, and then came back to earth. I think Boggsie went from 2 to 15. In 1994, the ball was juiced again, but because of the harm the strike did, the Lords of Baseball kept the juiced ball for years thereafter (thru 2004?), to try and get the fans back. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
18 - sal m
there's no question that there is also a juiced ball era to contend with in this discussion.
however, if you go to the AL home run leaders from 1986 and compare them with 1987 there's not much difference. aside from mcguire and bell both hitting almost 50 in '87 compared to barfield leading the AL with 40 in '86, there's no real difference in the pack below these leaders.
looking at the NL leaders for these same two years, there is a bigger difference between '86 and '87, with noticibly more dingers hit by the guys in the top 10 or 15 in '87.
19 - Draciron
I think Sosa more than Anderson typifies the steroid user. Lots of players down through the years have had one fluke year where they could do no wrong. Roger Maris in 61 for example. Even Joe Torre as a player had a monster year. The 51 HRs from Brady Anderson, yeah that's a bit more than a monster year. The thing about Anderson unlike known steroid users was that he either stopped using steroids which is highly unusual or never used them to begin with.
I've also suspected Luis Gonzales. Hitting in the Astrodome was a really bad place to hit. Bagwell would have 600 HRs if he'd played for the Cubs or Redsox all those years. The jump in offense is out of proportion to the change in park though. Camminiti and Gonzales were team mates and good friends if I remember correctly. Both went from below average hitters to MVP kinds of hitters almost in a single season. Sosa went from a failed prospect one season from being out of baseball to a superstar. Bonds who did have power before more than doubled his best power numbers at an age when he was considering retirement and showing declining numbers.
Fred McGriff another known steroid user also revived what was a fine career adding more years. Sheffield the same case.
So really steroid users seem to fit into two catagories. The borderline player who has sudden success and vets who are reviving failing careers. Gary Mathews Jr and Derek Lee really fit the first catagory. Lee's numbers just scream steroid usage. Mathews as well.
There are exceptions. Canseco and McGwire probably hurt their careers using steroids. They were too strong for their frames and wound up losing lots of time to injury that probably would not have happened if they were not so bulked up. McGwire had a swing designed to hit HRs. He could have hit HRs as a 90 lb weakling with that swing. He'd likely not hit 70 in a single season but probably would have had 100 more career HRs if he hadn't used steroids. So for some players it's a mistake. Jaun Gonzales I suspect was another that shortened his career by steroid usage.
As for when it started. The interesting thing is that Canseco I think it was got introduced to steroids by Reggie Jackson's personal trainer. If that don't make you same hmm you are incapable of curiosity. Might be steroids go back a great deal farther than we thought. Remember the NFL had a major steroids problem back in the early to mid 80s when they finally banned the use of steroids.
What it has done was change the game for the worse. We live in a tainted era of baseball. Unless MLB scrubs the record books of all the tainted players nobdoy will trust the stats of any player from this era. They will be called the steroid era stats and ignored. All the numbers from our time will be considered with the same contempt as the pre-1900 stats. Every year that they fail to remove the steroids and fail to punish the steroid users is another year we as fans are robbed of one of the greatest rights of a fan. That is when we are old and passing the love of the game on to younger fans the ability to talk about the greats we got to see play. Who are we going to talk about from this age who isn't tainted by steroids? What kid can look up to artificial enhanced performances and hold them up to the greats that came before? They can't. So the games we watch are meaningless. They are all going to be thrown away sooner or later. The longer it takes the more baseball we lose.
20 - sal m
draciron:
great post...you seem to get that the use of steroids and other PEDs have negatively affected the game in every possible way including affecting what happens on the field of play.
because the league and players acted in concert on this issue neither side should get a pass, and that the damage can't be undone unless records are wiped out.
steroid and PED users did more harm to this game and flat out change outcomes than pete rose did by gambling on baseball.
21 - Ed B.
Is this what it has come down to, Sal? Are you that synical that you think we should go back and look at every player who played the game at its highest level in the 70's and 80's to see if we can tie them some sort of performance enhancing drugs?
22 - sal m
since this is a definition of cynical,
"bitterly or sneeringly distrustful, contemptuous, or pessimistic," i am supremely cynical with regard to the "accomplishments" of players like sosa, anderson, bonds, mcgwire, gonzales, caminiti, greg vaughn, canseco, palmiero, etc.
at every turn we've been given the reason to be cynical when it goes to what many baseball players have accomplished, especially career years, or a series of career years from otherwise ordinary players.
nothing i said remotely suggests that every player's accomplishments should be challenged. however, a guy like sosa of the corked bat and corked physique who fizzled when people caught on to him, is an embarassment to the game.
23 - Ed B.
Sal, you didn't answer my question. I am not talking about current players, or people like Sosa who fell apart after they had a few good (or even great) years. That's a no-brainer. I asked whether you would like to start questioning the records of stars of the 70's and 80's - like, for example, the entire over-500 club who played during those decades, i.e., Schmidt, Jackson, et al. That seems to be what you were saying. Why else would you talk about the guy who (you say)was Reggie's trainer, but who, in fact, Reggie did not even know until years afer his retirement from Baseball. This is a fact that either you did not bother to check out or that you conveniently "forgot" to mention - just so you could make your point. Either way that was irresponsible of you. Questioning the achievements of those players would be a travesty and a huge insult to them and to their legimate accomplishments. Most importantly, it would be an insult to the Game. If you knew anything about Jackson, you would know that this is a guy whose work ethic as a player motivated other players for 20 years. Even today, he is in great shape and he's 60 years old! You should be more careful before you start throwing around unfounded accusations in an attempt to spark a little controversy.
24 - sal m
Ed B:
You should work on your reading comprehension, as the comment that has your panties in a bunch was made by DRACIRON, and not me.
I never mentioned Jackson or any of the other real sluggers of the 70's who have had their numbers overrun by the cheaters that came after them. I was critical of the guys from the mid-80's on through the present.
In your rush to criticize and to make your point you conveniently "forgot" to read who said what.
You should brush up a little on your reading skills before you make more ridiculous errors and unfounded accusations about a writer in an attempt to make a irrelevant point.
25 - Adam
How about Richard Hidalgo in 2000? He hit 44 HRs that season, but never hit 30 any other season. He slugged .636 that year, but his lifetime SLG was under .500?