Re: Juan Gonzalez
 

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Both are borderline HOF'ers, in any case.

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is this a joke?.....Frank Thomas may be the best player in baseball after Barry Bonds over the last 15 years....

Re: Juan Gonzalez
 

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Both are borderline HOF'ers, in any case.

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is this a joke?.....Frank Thomas may be the best player in baseball after Barry Bonds over the last 15 years....

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Not a joke. Dave Kingman has more career HR's than Frank Thomas. And whatever you may believe, HOF voters look at career stats first.

Re: Juan Gonzalez
 

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Until MLB has a reliable drug testing system that we believe catches the cheaters, players who hit a bunch of home runs but are injured a lot, and/or lose a lot of weight, and/or play in the major leagues, are going to be vulnerable to speculation. Other players I like to speculate about are Ryan Klesko, Eric Gagne and Pudge Rodriguez. I used to like to speculate about Jason Giambi, but that's not exactly speculation anymore.

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There is NO "reliable drug testing system" that catches anyone that's smarter than Alex Gonzalez or Jason Giambi. The "clear" Barry Bonds was using - THG - there's absolutely no piss test for it, and blood tests are hugely unreliable. The NFL does not have such a system, the NBA does not have such a system, etc.

What Eric Gagne did is not at all unsual. He converted from a SP to an RP and that conversion allowed him to add a few MPH per pitch which made him much more effective...

Pudge Rodriguez speculation isn't well-founded. He hired a new nutrionist, Sari Mellman, that has clients like Jack Nicklaus... she's actually raved about by just about everyone. Also, he was called "Pudge" for a reason... aside from that, like I said, I doubt high-profile star that was taking steroids (with the exception of Jason Giambi) was taking someone with no chance of detection in a test, so they'd probably not quit...

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So, by that you mean every year?

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Well, let's see, Frank has played 16 seasons and missed 30 games or more three times...

Re: Juan Gonzalez
 

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Both are borderline HOF'ers, in any case.

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is this a joke?.....Frank Thomas may be the best player in baseball after Barry Bonds over the last 15 years....

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Not a joke. Dave Kingman has more career HR's than Frank Thomas. And whatever you may believe, HOF voters look at career stats first.

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Which is a travesty, since Frank Thomas does things that are underrated very well (doubles and walks).

Re: Juan Gonzalez
 

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He and Frank Thomas should start a useless club.

Oh, and they NEVER took the roids.

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let's please not compare Juan-Gone (career: .343 OBP) to Frank Thomas (career: .429 OBP).....

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Both are borderline HOF'ers, in any case. They've had great careers.

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Frank Thomas should be a lock; his peak is unparalleled by any 1B not named Foxx or Gehrig.

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Well, Thomas was primarily a DH for a goodly portion of his career, and will be judged accordingly. But I think his career OPS is most definitely Hall worthy. It'd be nice to see him put another good year together, though.

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As I said, Frank Thomas's peak was just about unparalleled - and during those 7.5 seasons he was a 1B 75% of the time...

Re: Juan Gonzalez
 

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Both are borderline HOF'ers, in any case.

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is this a joke?.....Frank Thomas may be the best player in baseball after Barry Bonds over the last 15 years....

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Not a joke. Dave Kingman has more career HR's than Frank Thomas. And whatever you may believe, HOF voters look at career stats first.

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Which is a travesty, since Frank Thomas does things that are underrated very well (doubles and walks).

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Correct. I believe his career OPS is so good that he should be a lock, but lets face it, there are a bunch of guys ahead of him in career numbers, like Dawson, McGwire, and Canseco, who will likely not get in. Look at Rafael Palmeiro...guy has 500+ homers, and I don't think he was ever even considered one of the top 4-5 players in his league at any given time. I don't even know if he's a lock at this point. You gotta look at league context, and Thomas' and Gonzalez' stats were accumulated in the 90's, where all the offensive numbers were way out of whack.

Re: Juan Gonzalez
 

Palmeiro is a lock. McGwire is a lock.

I AM looking at context. Even with context, Frank Thomas put up such a huge peak that not voting for him is lunacy...

Re: Juan Gonzalez
 

I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge that I am not a sports expert and I'm in over my head here. So, I'm folding. Ni han.

I still think Klesko was juiced, though. Didn't the Braves GM say something about once confronting a player he believed was taking steroids? Wanton speculation, I know, but I'm guessing you might have some insight...

Re: Juan Gonzalez
 

I dunno; I chose not to speculate. I suspect there are quite a few players on steroids...

It's not that you're not a sports expert, really - 99% of the world knows SQUAT about steroids... and these are the people leading witchhunts and calling for two year bans and putting their fingers in their ears and singing.

Steroids need to be legalized and monitored very carefully simply because they're so dangerous. If they were legalized, it'd be out in the open, with education, with doctors monitoring it, with studies, etc. Barry Bonds can more or less take steroids with impunity because he has doctors monitoring him 24/7, getting blood tests, etc...

Re: Juan Gonzalez
 

check out Frank Thomas' sick 10-year run:

1991: 32 HR, .452 OBP, .552 SLG
1992: 24, .438, .535
1993: 41, .426, .606
1994: 38, .487, .729
1995: 40, .454, .606
1996: 40, .459, .626
1997: 35, .456, .611
1998: 29, .380, .480
1999: 15, .413, .471
2000: 43, .435, .625

and then after some injury problems in '01 he rebounded with this:

2002: 28, .361, .472
2003: 42, .389, .562


he really was the prototypical run-creating, on-base machine, power slugging super-hitter right before it was even in fashion....