I'm with you, Ronny. The truth is that no known steroid user has ever experienced as dramatic an improvement as Jose Bautista, from taking steroids for any period of time. The average juicer was somebody like Nook Logan, Jerry Hairston Jr, or Miguel Tejada. But even if you point to Mark McGwire - nobody really thinks that McGwire without the juice would have only hit 15 home runs.
I can certainly buy this argument, aside from one issue. No player, EVER, has witnessed this dramatic of an improvement. So using that as the underpinnings of an argument invalidates PEDs just as much as it does improving his swing. Thus why I think it's a little of both. Never mind that, as I mentioned, whatever PED he may or may not be taking obviously isn't what McGwire, Bonds, Sosa, et al. took. If it were, it'd be detected. So who knows what it is, and thus just how powerful it is. If anything, using the argument that this hasn't been done before by anyone, PED or otherwise, just furthers the fact it is partially due to PEDs in my mind. Since he's coming up clean and there apparently is a new drug out there, the fact no one has ever had such a dramatic improvement points to some new and ridiculously strong PED. Increasing strength, reaction time, etc. etc. etc.
Bottom line, if this is an isolated event and Bautista does what he does in the future, I'll accept it's just a miraculous improvement in his swing. But if sometime in the next five years we start to see more "miracles" or a dramatic increase in HRs per year, then I'm going with PEDs to my grave.
Something I find interesting is the dramatic number of HRs by the Blue Jays. Now that the stories have come out, you find trainers were the suppliers. And a number of Blue Jays are hitting a significant number of HRs this year. That could go both ways. Pointing to a trainer supplying them with some brand new PED as a test case for the manufacturer before going wide, or an amazing hitting coach.
Vernon Wells hit 20 in 08, 15 in 09. 30 thus far. Doubled last years number. Lind and Hill have had less this year than last. Overbay went from 15 and 16 to 20 so far. Buck went from 9 and 8 to 18 this year. Another doubler. Gonzalez has 16 so far with Toronto, in 85 games. In the other 65 with another team, he had 6. He had 16 with the Reds in 07, a hitter park by far, and 8 with two teams last year. Most of the other guys, there are no standouts. But particularly Buck and Wells, and possibly Gonzalez, you're seeing a number of guys hitting far more HRs than they have in the past. It could mean one of two things, excellent coaching or a trainer supplying PEDs. Obviously these guys don't knock on doors asking for PEDs themselves. Personally, I would be more apt to believe it was natural if no one else on the team hit a dramatically higher number of HRs. That's not the case.
But it's all conjecture at this point. The next couple of years will tell the story of whether this is natural or some new, dramatically effective and undetectable PED.
