Baseball players face toughest standards in North American pro sports

Commissioner Bud Selig long has said that Major League Baseball holds itself to a ?higher standard? than other professional sports.

For a long time ? and it still applies ? MLB allows a lower percentage of its teams (33 percent) to qualify for postseason play, than the other major North American pro sports, compared to 37.5 percent for football and better than 50 percent or so for basketball and hockey.

More recently, the ?higher standard? phrase has been applied to MLB?s more comprehensive drug testing policy, and far stricter penalties that are issued by the other sports.

But the standard has been set so high now that some of baseball?s greatest stars probably never will get the Hall-of-Fame recognition they would have received in other sports.

For instance, there are several former stars (and two current ones) who have combined for six league batting titles, 15 home-run championships, six runs-batted-in crowns, 13 Most Valuable Player awards and seven Cy Young awards (all by one man), who have been kept out, or surely will be kept out, of the Hall of Fame by the baseball writers.

The man who has the most career hits (Pete Rose), the man who has the most home runs (Barry Bonds) and the man who is second, by one win, for most victories by a living pitcher (Roger Clemens) all are the outside looking in. So, too, are Sammy Sosa, the only man to hit 60 or more home runs three times; Rafael Palmeiro, the only man to have 3,000 hits and more than 500 home runs who won?t be in the Hall, as well as former Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire, the first man to hit 70 home runs.

Rose has been suspended for betting on baseball. The others are out for their association with steroids.

Now along come Alex Rodriguez and Ryan Braun. Rodriguez, who might never play again after Major League Baseball is through with punishing him, is the only righthanded hitter to belt 50 or more homers three times in the American League. A three-time American League MVP, Rodriguez?s 647 homers rank him fifth all time.

But what do those numbers really mean now? And, for that matter, what do the numbers Braun put up to win the National League MVP for Milwaukee in 2011 mean? (He hit 33 homers, had 111 RBIs and a .331 batting average then.) Or the league-leading 41 home runs he had last year?

Texas outfielder Nelson Cruz, a likely candidate to be suspended, hit six home runs in the American League championship series in 2011. That?s a record for one postseason series. But should it be?

Baseball always has been a game of numbers, way before the sabermathematicians became involved. Now that MLB is taking these unprecedented steps to help clean up the game, maybe we can start believing performance numbers again.

But, perhaps the only numbers that really should have mattered anyway are the final league standings.

As an aside, the suspension of Braun and the imminent suspensions of a handful of other stars might actually be a slight benefit for Bonds and Clemens in their chances to make the Hall of Fame. Each received less than 40 percent of the vote in their first year of eligibility last year. But despite their known and perceived alignment with the PED culture, they never were suspended.

THE PEAVY FACTOR

For those who wanted the Cardinals to acquire recently traded Chicago White Sox pitcher Jake Peavy, who is owed $14.5 million next year, here are a few cautionary notes about Boston?s new pitcher.

Including this year, Peavy, 32, has been on the disabled list seven times since 2004. That doesn?t count the time Peavy, then with San Diego, spent in Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis after his playoff start in 2005 when he was found to have suffered two rib fractures, a similar injury to that which disabled him this year.

Peavy was a Cy Young Award winner in 2007 when he was 19-6 for the Padres. Before his scheduled start Saturday for the Red Sox, he was just 52-46 since then and he hardly has been either a grizzled or successful playoff pitcher.

He has made two playoff starts, both against the Cardinals in 2005 and 2006 at the division level. He lost both, allowing 19 hits, including three homers, and 13 runs in 9 2/3 innings. That?s an ERA of 12.10 and an opponents? batting average of .442.

Lance Lynn, the pitcher who, in theory, Peavy would be moving ahead of as a No. 2 playoff starter behind Adam Wainwright, has won 30 games in the last two seasons. No one else in the National League has won as many.

DODGERS REBOUND

Much has been made of the Los Angeles? Dodgers? remarkable ascent since June 3, the day Cuban rookie Yasiel Puig made his big-league debut. On that morning, the Dodgers were 23-32 and in last place on the National League Western Division, 8? games behind Arizona.

In the two months after that, Puig hit .367 with 11 homers, 11 doubles and 24 runs batted in as the Dodgers went 35-17 and swept into first place. But not to be overlooked is what Dodgers shortstop Hanley Ramirez accomplished virtually in the same time frame.

Returning from a hamstring injury that kept him out of all but four games in the first two months, Ramirez returned to the lineup on June 4 and went on a tear in which he hit .364 with 10 homers and 36 RBIs.

Injured Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina easily was the first-half MVP in the National League but his health and availability for the second half are in question, as are the Cardinals? chances of winning the division. If the Dodgers stay hot, a case could be made for either Ramirez or Puig, even with them each potentially playing only a four-month season.

Source: http://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball-players-face-toughest-standards-in-north-american-pro-sports/article_85d6c3dd-111c-5176-ade8-bd69d58978ca.html

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