I saw this story on Wells blasting Bonds and thought, "Good gosh ... another David Wells rant that he will be sending out a written statement to apologize for in a day or two." .... then I saw he mentioned Biggio. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2452948
Biggio did bulk up toward the second half of his career, but it is much more natural looking than what we've seen from others. His HR production went up when he was introduced to the Crawford Boxes. I'd bet well over half of his homers have landed there since 2000. Wells is fat idiot. Isn't he on the DL? Is that all he has to do is run his mouth?
While we all know that David Wells is known to pop off at the mouth, for sake of argument I checked out Biggio's stats for his career, and what I found was interesting, yet explainable. The last 5 years (2001-2005) have been among Biggio's most productive years in regards to home runs. In fact, he had his career high for home runs last year (26). One of the larger red flags for steroid use is an increasing number of home runs after the age of 35...that's one of the reasons why Barry Bonds' explosion was also looked at skeptically. However, Biggio's numbers are all within his career ranges, his strikeout numbers increased, and his BA stayed consistent. To my untrained eye, it would seem to me as if Biggio has learned how to use the Crawford Boxes like Lance Berkman, if to a lesser degree. The Astros do play in one of the best home run parks outside of Coors Field, so that seems to account for the majority of his homeruns. So I guess David Wells does need to lay off the whiskey before he talks to the press.
Man, Wells needs to learn when to keep his ****** mouth shut. Seriously, he says dumb **** all the time.
Biggio has become somewhat of a dead pull hitter. His OPS the last couple years is below his career average despite the rising homers. It's a late career hitting style renaissance. It's also not unheard of to see the late career homer rise for a non-power hitter - Tony Gwynn played 20 years, and had 5 double digit HR seasons - ages 26, 34, 37, 38, and 39. Gwynn averaged a homer every 69 ABs for his career. At age 37, he hit one every 35 at bats and at 38, he hit one every 29 at bats. For a hitter as good as Biggio was, it's not unheard of for him I would believe Biggio has taken amphetamines (like apparently most MLB players), but not steroids.
I had forgotten about Tony Gwynn. Then again, it was said that Gwynn could have hit 30 homers every year if he had wanted to; but he chose to concentrate on his overall hitting. You could say that Tony Gwynn was just a hitting scholar, or the exception that proves the rule. I'm prone to agree with you to an extent on that point though. As for greenies...those were rampant throughout MLB. Jim Bouton wrote about greenies over 30 years ago, and not much changed until last year. You'd have an easier time getting a list of people who didn't[/u| take greenies than those who did.
I read his comments completely differently, that he was making a joke about Biggio and the other guy. Not that he was accusing them. DD
I think Wells may have been refering to Bagwell, but he was either too drunk or stupid (or both) to get the right name.
apparently biggio didn't take it that way. after the game he said, "yeah, well consider the source." the rabid steroid suspicion needs to stop. it's way out of hand, now.
Astros on juice=cami-gonzo-bagwell are the main three guys during the beginning of the steroid era who I either know did juice or I suspect did it. Now I gaurantee there were many more but I am not gonna call someone out. As far as pitchers who knows how many? As far as Clemens I would not be surprised. I played high school baseball and there were plenty of kids on the juice then (late 90s) Last night I saw my friends little brother who plays on the top ranked Woodlands team and he said 8 of there 24 players were currently taking the juice. The point is it is widespread on every leval and back in the late 1990s about half of the ballplayers were on it and that includes Houston Astros. As far as Biggio I think he is clean but who knows for sure?