ESPN has a feature article up currently that purports to establish what Barry Bonds’ and Roger Clemens’ career totals would have been minus PEDs. The authors acknowledge some limitations, such as playing against other players who also used PEDs. Other limitations include not truly knowing when either started using PEDs—assumptions are made/other people’s words are taken as gospel, nor when they stopped—the assumption is they didn’t. It’s likewise an assumption that their health would have been worse off the medications.
Without continuing to detail variables that really cannot be accounted for in this hypothetical, the ultimate stats they project are less than what actually happened. Duh. Water is wet, too. The stats also happen to still be HoF worthy. Again, duh. Their stats were HoF worthy before their assumed PED use start dates.
So, what’s the point of this exercise? The authors themselves admit that voters won’t use their numbers to vote for/not vote for them. The voters who have voted for them in the past, and will this year in their final time on the HoF ballot, do so based on their actual career numbers; and speculating lesser but still excellent career stats won’t cause them to say ”only 551 homers, pffft! that’s a no from me now!” Meanwhile, the voters who do not circle their names do not omit them on the basis of stats. They do so because they feel the two crossed an unforgivable line in taking PEDs, formal rules in place or not.
In short, my opinion is that it was a pointless exercise.
The original article can be found here:
Fan Interference 
Every time I read about PEDs i wonder why don’t we calculate how many fewer home runs Babe Ruth would have hit if the original Yankee Stadium hadn’t been intentionally built with a short right field fence.
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I find the PED tiresome, and particularly the ostracism of specific players when the consensus is that many (probably most) players in that era used anabolic steroids.
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I wonder what the statistics for pre 1947 hall of famers if they had to compete against the negro league stars who were not allowed to play in MLB
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True, although the people who agree that Bonds and Clemens deserve to be pariahs over PEDs would point out that segregation in baseball was a league decision and not an individual player decision. They’d also then no doubt neglect to point out ways in which teams and the league were complicit in the “steroid era.”
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Also, what would stats be for players from maybe 1900 – 1940 if the outfielders then had the gloves that today’s players have. How many one handed diving catches could be made with some of these things? https://www.justballgloves.com/blog/post/the-history-of-baseball-gloves/
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ESPN Pointless (fixed the headline for you)
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