I thought that same mental exercise could be fun with baseball too.
Barry Bonds used PED’s.
He did with every intention to cheat.
if you don’t believe me, check out the great book Game Of Shadows.
But having said that, it would be a total lie to exclude him from this list.
I’m also going with 1984-2004.
This wound up being longer than I thought so I’ll do 2005-present next week.
His peak was so short but so great.
From 1984-87, Mattingly hit .337/.381/.560.
It’s even more incredible when you see how much of that time was dominated by pitching.
His back went and it ended far too soon for Donnie Baseball.
After turning 27, Mattingly never hit 25 home runs or slugged .480 in any season.
He retired at the end of the 1995 season when he was just 34 years old.
He’s the greatest Yankee to never play in a World Series game.
1988 Orel Hershiser, SP (Los Angeles Dodgers)
You could make a case for Jose Canseco.
This was his 40/40 season and he was only 23.
It seemed like the future was so bright.
But this was Orel’s season.
He pitched 59 scoreless innings to end the 1988 season and then promptly won the World Series.
He won the NL Cy Young, NLCS MVP and World Series MVP.
The crazy thing is he was almost as good in 1989 too.
It was a small window but speaking as a nerdy fucker, it was cool seeing this guy dominate.
Rickey was the ALCS MVP in 1989 en route to the A’s winning the World Series.
1991-93 Barry Bonds (Pittsburgh Pirates/San Francisco Giants)
How good was Barry Bonds before he used PED’s?
The 1992 Giants went 72-90.
Barry Bonds joined the team in 1993 and they went 103-59.
He led the league in WAR (with a WAR of 8+ each year) during this stretch.
In 1991 and 1992, the Pirates lost to the Atlanta Braves in the NLCS.
After the 1992 season, both Maddux and Bonds were free agents.
Imagine if they had revered teams and Maddux went to the Giants and Bonds landed with the Braves.
Would things be different?
That’s an AVERAGE of over 53 home runs a season.
He also missed 20 games due to injury in 1996.
That is wild production from a guy who was also playing some great center field defense.
Barry Bonds had a better career than Griffey.
Take the PED’s out of it and there is really no argument.
In these two seasons, Pedro went 41-10 with a 1.90 ERA.
This is at a time when hitters dominated like no other time in history.
The Rangers had a team ERA in 2000 of 5.52.
It felt like anything was possible.
Would he strike out 15+?
Would anyone get a hit off of him?
How electric will he be?
It was a event every fifth day.
That’s back when Ruth would out homer entire teams.
I know he was juiced to the gills.
He cheated and I have no issue with him being out of the Hall of Fame.
But even with all of that, those numbers are absolutely insane.
I’ve never (before or since) heard the ball come off the bat quite like that.
It was like an explosion.
