Now I love Pete's blog with the insider access to the Yankees, but he's not an analyst. I'm not worthy of that title necessarily either, but this is just terrible evidence that steroids helped Arod's statistics:
Arod played in the prime years of his career in Texas in a ball park that vastly favors hitters. He then moved to the Yankees to a park that hurts right handed batters. You don't need to be a smart to realize it, and you don't need to be a statistician to show you the stats. Arod's OPS+, which is park adjusted, in 2001, 2002, and 2003 are160, 158 and 147. Since then they've been 131, 173, 134, 177, 150. So he hasn't been as consistent, but his better years are far better than they were on Texas.A-Rod from 2001-2003: 161.7 games, 52 homers, 131.7 RBI and a .615 slugging percentage.
A-Rod’s other seasons: 149.2 games, 39.2 homers, 119 RBI and a .574 slugging percentage.
On Fangraphs, in 2002 and 2003, Arod posted win values of 9.9 and 9.1, since then he's been at 6.9, 9.5, 5.0, 9.3, 6.3. A lot of his value on Texas was based on him playing a harder position at shortstop, and playing it very well. Since he's come to the Yankees he's basically been an average 3b, maybe slightly below. I haven't heard anyone use steroids to help their fielding, but since Arod has left Texas he's actually had better seasons hitting. If he really hasn't used steroids since, this is pretty good evidence it doesn't always work, but then there's always this guy.
You really can't say enough how important context is. This isn't about finding complicated formulas to evaluate players, it's about thinking about more than just a few numbers. Did Randy Johnson use steroids when we went to the National League? Was Preston Wilson on the juice when he had 141 rbi on Colorado after having 65 the year before? The park, league, and team you play on have a huge influence on your performance, this isn't VORP or wOBP or EqA Pete, it's simply context and next time please keep it in mind.
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