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PEOPLE KEEP ASKING, ‘HOW DID THEY DO IT- 107 WINS…?’ How were the San Francisco Giants able to increase their homer output in 2021 by 33% (over last full season, 2019) 241 to 167 and lower their team ERA more than one point without any big time power hitters or a single returning starter from last year and just a lot of no-name players and no major trades?

We’ll try to provide some interesting information here so you may gain some insight how the Giants DID IT!

SF Giants Annual AI Watch – 10 Reasons Why the Surprising SF Giants Have Best Record (Part 2)

1. ) Camilo Duvol far outdid his minor league career in 2021during his short stint as relief pitcher with the Major League Giants. He sports a 3.00 ERA and 37 strikeouts in only 27 innings! 

WELCOME TO SAN FRANCISCO, WHERE YOU CAN LEGALLY SHOPLIFT UP TO $980 AND NOT WORRY ABOUT ANYTHING HAPPENING TO YOU

Nobody gave the Giants a chance. Everyone thought they would fold – and for good reason.

But, they haven’t. In fact, the Giants have their best record, over 100 wins, since coming to San Francisco!

But, yes, there’s a reason how this team devoid of real star power and a lot of journeyman players who’ve never distinguished themselves – until now. It’s largely the same reason how the 2010-2014 Giants teams won there first (three) world series in 56 years.

We know for fact the 2010, 2012 and 2014 World Series winning Giants had seven known PED users on the team (five of whom who had been indicted during or prior to coming to the Giants) – and there were likely more who never got caught. Remember, this was the team and era that spawned Barry Bonds, he of the ‘cream and the clear’ – or what he wrote off as ‘flaxseed oil.’ It was only three years since Bonds was effectively forced into ‘early’ retirement – though he was a still productive 42 year old player- following the Mitchell Report on steroid / PED use. Despite appearing nearly twice the physical size before coming to the Giants from Pittsburg where he was a very good player, his unworldly exploits since coming to the Giants at age 30 in 1997 included breaking single season (73) and career homerun records. Yet, Bonds was never convicted of anything in liberal San Francisco other than a single perjury charge for denying the use of steroids which was later overturned in similarly liberal 9th District San Francisco courts.

2) Logan Webb

–Logan Webb– a known commodity having been suspended already. And Logan Webb with his outrageous sliders you may remember was already a member of the ‘dumb and dumber’ having served a PED suspension as a first year Giant. No doubt he’s since gotten some tips from the Big Boys how not to get caught so he can once again throw those near unhittable pitches.

Logan Webb – If the PEDs helped him in 2019, something REALLY helped him this year as he lowered his ERA over two full points in one full season. from 5.47 to 2.93 while striking out more than a batter per inning.

The Giants added Webb to their 40-man roster after the season.^[10] He began 2019 with Richmond. ^[11] On May 1, 2019, Webb was suspended 80 games for testing positive for dehydrochlormethyltestosterone, an anabolic-androgenic steroid.^[12][1]

This year began with one KNOWN PED player of six in the league, Logan Webb, having been indicted in his rookie year of 2019, but he’s been the ‘best’ player for the Giants for the latter half of this season. You ask how do players like Webb and Bonds come back to perform so well AFTER PEDs. Well, who says ‘after’? Especially in San Francisco, where the science of PEDs was well honed in the labs of Victor Conte and BALCO, you have to be ‘dumb or dumber’ to get caught using PEDs – especially a second time- according to Conte. And, if one DOES get caught in San Francisco, it doesn’t seem to matter like it might in other parts of the country. Bonds has maintained hero status in San Francisco, after being shunned by baseball fans elsewhere. People have become so blase’ in San Francisco, there was hardly a mention by media or fan alike when a new Giant indicted PED player, pitcher Gregory Santos, was announced by MLB last month. And, this, supposedly after the steroid era was over.

San Francisco is where stores like Target and Walgreens now close early, at 6 pm, so they’ll still have some non-pilfered items on the shelves the next day. It’s the same city where the mayor, London Breed, can go out dancing without a mask after mandating everyone else to wear one. Or, the leader of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, can get her hair done without donning a mask, even before or after the cameras caught her at a supposedly ‘locked down’ salon. This was the same Pelosi who invited everyone to come to San Francisco to shop in Chinatown during the early days of the Pandemic not long after the Wuhan lab of China was caught leaking what they said was a ‘bat virus’ and allowed their own citizens to travel abroad to places like San Francisco but not within China. Not to say that ‘Do what I say, not as I Do’ hasn’t spread to other cities – it’s just that San Francisco seems to be in the forefront, and do it best, and do it more often.

Getting back to this year’ edition of ‘Make Believe Giants’ , you have player after player having ‘career’ years and younger players outperforming their minor league record. (as below) PEDs may have slowed a bit while baseball took on other forms of cheating – and we say baseball because baseball never really clamped down on cheating while looking for anything to boost the game. We never saw more than a handful , or two, of players actually caught and suspended during any year , except when caught by serendipity like the Biogenesis scandal in Florida or others like the MItchell Report that found a collection. Biogenesis Lap scandal in Florida netted a bunch that baseball never could catch. In recent years we’ve even seen other forms of cheating such as technological sign stealing that probably gave Houston Astros a World Series win and more and helped Boston and others. More recently there’s been the ‘foreign substance’ scandal with pitchers dominating the sport ; baseball thought they would solve the problem by requiring pitchers show their gloves between innings ; we’ve seen all of one or two players suspended with substance in their gloves.

Charlie Steiner, Dodgers announcer: the Giants dont look like homerun hitters… because they weren’t until this year.The giants hit almost 100 more homers this year than last full season and without unlikely power output by Yastrmski, who never hit many until he became a Giant, it would have been worse

Players have always been and remain ahead of baseball and there may be even more cheating than ever, today. Between various newer forms of getting advantage. Yet, it seems little has come in punitive action from the Commissioner’s office. Between the various newer methods of cheating and the old tried and true ones back there may be as much or more than the ‘upwards of 50%’ of players Victor Conte told us were using PEDs. Yet few and fewer of them are being caught and dealt with , it would appear. Rarely, other than the Mitchell Report, have we seen any big name players apprehended. It’s always the ‘no names’ and even if someone like a Alex Rodriquez or Melky Cabrera is caught they now seem to be like teflon and bounce right back and continue their careers, many performing as well or even better – no doubt on something bigger and better , and more disguised , than before.

Meanwhile, many have become used to new baseball with all its enhancements and changes. Younger fans have known nothing else. And, it seems to be the same teams, usually in more liberal cities like San Francisco, Oakland, Boston and even Houston. Of the 15 players who have been suspended for PEDs since 2019, 11 of the 15 have come from those four teams – all with two or more players having been caught. And you know what they say… For every player caught there are problems at leasts several more who aren’t. With out going into specifics, most of those caught were only caught because they chose to use older, more detectable forms of PEDs.

LAMONT WADE JR ‘Mr 9th Inning’ aka ‘Who He?

3) Lamont Wade Jr -Who he? From out of nowhere…
Never hit more than 11 homers in full season (minors,) yet was able to hit 18 with Giants playing part time – see PART 1 -with one in every 16 at bats = Babe Ruth territory

LAMONT WADE JR. – Even, in the minors, Wade Jr. never had more than 11 homers (2015) and that was in a more (424) at bats than his 18 this year in only 331 at bats

4) Thairo Estrada (venezuela ) never hit more than .250. Thairo Estrada  raised his average almost 25 points, from .250 to .273 since coming from the     New York Yankees to the Giants .  And, though a small sample size, Estrada , like Wade Jr. hit       homers at a Ruthian pace, 7 in 121 at bats or approximately 1 in every 16 at bats. No wonder the Giants hit more homeruns than other teams with players like this – and this only a year after the Giants hit among the fewest homeruns in baseball. And, Estrada’s OPS was 200 points higher than his two year average with Yankees!

5) Darren Ruf- from .796 OPs to 930 while raising his average at advanced age (35)

6) and 7) BRANDONS Crawford and Belt, age34 –same old story-
Just keep getting higher numbers as they get older, ala Barry Bonds at advance ages-with telltale injuries (e.g. obliques) along the way. Even with all their injuries and missed games, they’re hitting homers at a higher rate than ever while

TYLER ROGERS

8) Tyler Rogers, at age 30, was able to drop his ERA 50% , from 4.21 (last full year in the minors) to 2.22 while lowering his WHIP to 1.074, better than five years in the minors!

9) Jose Alverez, age 32, dropped his ERA one full point after coming to the Giants from Philadelphia

10) and more – Though a small sample size , Kevin Castro had a 0.00 ERA, down from 2.86 at Sacramento AAA minors.

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL! There’s Jarlin Garcia, a youngster at 28, who dropped his ERA , .262, over a point from his years at Miami and Check out ‘How Did the Giants Do It? Part 1 for 10 more! IMAGINE – only one player on the entire San Francisco Giants 25 man roster had a sub-par year over his previous full season (Curt Casali) ! 24 Giants players did at least as well or better -most did a lot better – in 2021 than there previous full season with about half of them having CAREER YEARS!

MLB and PEDs

While MLB may cite the minuscule proportion of failed tests as evidence of its drug policy’s success, critics of the testing regime believe the continued use of both conventional and “designer” drugs only serves to prove that many players remain able to stay one step ahead of detection, even in the “post-steroid era.”

Tom Verducci quoted a former major leaguer in a column for Sports Illustrated last year as saying, “I think we are back up to large-scale use again,” adding that without the “nuclear option” of a lifetime ban for a first offense, “it still seems to be worth the risk.” >

https://www.cnn.com/2013/10/31/us/balco-fast-facts/index.html

More References

While MLB may cite the minuscule proportion of failed tests as evidence of its drug policy’s success, critics of the testing regime believe the continued use of both conventional and “designer” drugs only serves to prove that many players remain able to stay one step ahead of detection, even in the “post-steroid era.”

Tom Verducci quoted a former major leaguer in a column for Sports Illustrated last year as saying, “I think we are back up to large-scale use again,” adding that without the “nuclear option” of a lifetime ban for a first offense, “it still seems to be worth the risk.” >

https://www.cnn.com/2013/10/31/us/balco-fast-facts/index.html

How Many Baseball Players Are On Peds Today?https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=567020051169192&id=100044294208489

Does Major League Baseball Still Have a Drug Problem?

:

Plenty of ways to get away with PEDs that aren’t easily detectable,

like those that Lance Armstrong used and many ballplayers who don’t seem to have a Problem staying ahead of the testing curve (the MLB players union is so strong t he players seem to always be ahead of the owners And are currently challenging one popular drug ,DHCMT, that is said to stay for months or years in ones system but may be more dstectable, AND resulted in at least one recent 80 game suspension.
Baseball Players Are Testing Positive for a 50-Year-Old East German Steroid. They Can’t Explain Why.DHCMT

The players’ association has proposed to MLB that a player’s urine sample should register with at least 100 picograms per milliliter of DHCMT before the test counts as a positive

Tony Clark, head of the Major League Baseball Players Association, shakes hands with Chris Colabello before an exhibition game in 2018.
PHOTO: CHRIS O’MEARA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

By
 
Jared Diamond

>>>

https://www.wsj.com/articles/baseball-players-are-testing-positive-for-a-50-year-old-east-german-steroid-they-cant-explain-why-11597845610

SEE PART 1

SF Giants AI / Steroid /PED Watch

WELCOME TO SAN FRANCISCO, WHERE YOU CAN LEGALLY SHOPLIFT UP TO $980 AND NOT WORRY ABOUT ANYTHING HAPPENING TO YOU

Nobody gave the Giants a chance. Everyone thought they would fold – and for good reason.

But, they haven’t. In fact, the Giants have their best record, over 100 wins, since coming to San Francisco!

But, yes, there’s a reason how this team devoid of real star power and a lot of journeyman players who’ve never distinguished themselves – until now. It’s largely the same reason how the 2010-2014 Giants teams won there first (three) world series in 56 years.

We know for fact the 2010, 2012 and 2014 World Series winning Giants had seven known PED users on the team (five of whom who had been indicted during or prior to coming to the Giants) – and there were likely more who never got caught. Remember, this was the team and era that spawned Barry Bonds, he of the ‘cream and the clear’ – or what he wrote off as ‘flaxseed oil.’ It was only three years since Bonds was effectively forced into ‘early’ retirement – though he was a still productive 42 year old player- following the Mitchell Report on steroid / PED use. Despite appearing nearly twice the physical size before coming to the Giants from Pittsburg where he was a very good player, his unworldly exploits since coming to the Giants at age 30 in 1997 included breaking single season (73) and career homerun records. Yet, Bonds was never convicted of anything in liberal San Francisco other than a single perjury charge for denying the use of steroids which was later overturned in similarly liberal 9th District San Francisco courts.

This year you only had one KNOWN PED player, Logan Webb, having been indicted in his rookie year of 2019, but he’s been the ‘best’ player for the Giants for the latter half of this season. You ask how do players like Webb and Bonds come back to perform so well AFTER PEDs. Well, who says ‘after’? Especially in San Francisco, where the science of PEDs was well honed in the labs of Victor Conte and BALCO, you have to be ‘dumb or dumber’ to get caught using PEDs – especially a second time- according to Conte. And, if one DOES get caught in San Francisco, it doesn’t seem to matter like it might in other parts of the country. Bonds has maintained hero status in San Francisco, after being shunned by baseball fans elsewhere. People have become so blase’ in San Francisco, there was hardly a mention by media or fan alike when a new Giant indicted PED player, pitcher Gregory Santos, was announced by MLB last month. And, this, supposedly after the steroid era was over.

San Francisco is where stores like Target and Walgreens now close early, at 6 pm, so they’ll still have some non-pilfered items on the shelves the next day. It’s the same city where the mayor, London Breed, can go out dancing without a mask after mandating everyone else to wear one. Or, the leader of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, can get her hair done without donning a mask, even before or after the cameras caught her at a supposedly ‘locked down’ salon. This was the same Pelosi who invited everyone to come to San Francisco to shop in Chinatown during the early days of the Pandemic not long after the Wuhan lab of China was caught leaking what they said was a ‘bat virus’ and allowed their own citizens to travel abroad to places like San Francisco but not within China. Not to say that ‘Do what I say, not as I Do’ hasn’t spread to other cities – it’s just that San Francisco seems to be in the forefront, and do it best, and do it more often.

Getting back to this year’ edition of ‘Make Believe Giants’ , you have player after player having ‘career’ years and younger players outperforming their minor league record. (as below) PEDs may have slowed a bit while baseball took on other forms of cheating – and we say baseball because baseball never really clamped down on cheating while looking for anything to boost the game. We never saw more than a handful , or two, of players actually caught and suspended during any year , except when caught by serendipity like the Biogenesis scandal in Florida or others like the MItchell Report that found a collection. Biogenesis Lap scandal in Florida netted a bunch that baseball never could catch. In recent years we’ve even seen other forms of cheating such as technological sign stealing that probably gave Houston Astros a World Series win and more and helped Boston and others. More recently there’s been the ‘foreign substance’ scandal with pitchers dominating the sport ; baseball thought they would solve the problem by requiring pitchers show their gloves between innings ; we’ve seen all of one or two players suspended with substance in their gloves.

Players have always been and remain ahead of baseball and there may be even more cheating than ever, today. Between various newer forms of getting advantage. Yet, it seems little has come in punitive action from the Commissioner’s office. Between the various newer methods of cheating and the old tried and true ones back there may be as much or more than the ‘upwards of 50%’ of players Victor Conte told us were using PEDs. Yet few and fewer of them are being caught and dealt with , it would appear. Rarely, other than the Mitchell Report, have we seen any big name players apprehended. It’s always the ‘no names’ and even if someone like a Alex Rodriquez or Melky Cabrera is caught they now seem to be like teflon and bounce right back and continue their careers, many performing as well or even better – no doubt on something bigger and better , and more disguised , than before.

Meanwhile, many have become used to new baseball with all its enhancements and changes. Younger fans have known nothing else. And, it seems to be the same teams, usually in more liberal cities like San Francisco, Oakland, Boston and even Houston. Of the 15 players who have been suspended for PEDs since 2019, 11 of the 15 have come from those four teams – all with two or more players having been caught. And you know what they say… For every player caught there are problems at leasts several more who aren’t. With out going into specifics, most of those caught were only caught because they chose to use older, more detectable forms of PEDs.

– Lamont Wade Jr -Who he? From out of nowhere…
Never hit more than 11 homers in full season (minors,) has 20 w giants playing part time with one in approximately every 15 at Bats. Babe Ruth move over!

–Thairo Estrada (venezuelan) never hit more than .250 before coming to Giants

–Logan Webb– a known commodity having been suspended already for PEDs. And Logan Webb with his outrageous sliders you may remember was already a member of the ‘dumb and dumber’ having served a PED suspension as a first year Giant. No doubt he’s since gotten some tips from the Big Boys how not to get caught so he can once again throw those near unhittable pitches.

The Giants added Webb to their 40-man roster after the season.^[10] He began 2019 with Richmond. ^[11] On May 1, 2019, Webb was suspended 80 games for testing positive for dehydrochlormethyltestosterone, an anabolic-androgenic steroid.^[12][1]

-‐Darren Ruf- from
796 OPs to 930 while raising his average at advanced age (35)

–  BRANDONS Crawford and Belt –same old story-
Just keep getting higher numbers as they get older, ala Barry Bonds at advance ages-with telltale injuries (e.g. obliques) along the way. Even with all their injuries and missed games, they’re hitting homers at a higher rate than ever while

MLB and PEDs

While MLB may cite the minuscule proportion of failed tests as evidence of its drug policy’s success, critics of the testing regime believe the continued use of both conventional and “designer” drugs only serves to prove that many players remain able to stay one step ahead of detection, even in the “post-steroid era.”

Tom Verducci quoted a former major leaguer in a column for Sports Illustrated last year as saying, “I think we are back up to large-scale use again,” adding that without the “nuclear option” of a lifetime ban for a first offense, “it still seems to be worth the risk.” >

https://www.cnn.com/2013/10/31/us/balco-fast-facts/index.html

More References

LATEST DRUG TESTING RULES ALLOW THC, marijuana, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/12/sports/baseball/mlb-drug-policy-opioids.html

10 Performance-enhancing Drugs That Aren’t Steroidshttps://science.howstuffworks.com/10-performance-enhancing-drugs.htm

5 non-steroid ways to cheat in baseball
https://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/5-ways-to-cheat-in-baseball.htm
So, it’s interesting that there are any number Of PEDs including new ones that perhaps only the Frontline players know about. The days if having to bulk up ala Barry Bonds are long gone. One can be on steroids are not detectable externally or Internally and the Giants have long been on the forefront wi t h more steroid users (20 KNOWN users ) than any other team -so many that Gia ts Preside t Larry Baer admitted in 2014 that the Giants reputation was being tartinishedAnd that it was their intent to steer away from ‘black market’ players, though they were right back aquiring people like Marlon Byrd, who had been indicted.

Interesting that two of the handful of players suspended for PEDs in the past three years have come from the Giants and 11 of the 15 suspended have come from the same four teams you might not be surprised by: the Giants, Houston, Boston and Oakland. But what is surprising is that the ‘smart’ Giants, who virtually pioneered  steroids in baseball during the Bonds – Victor Conte era and KNOW their PEDs -have been caught at all. (The Conte ‘magic’ must be wearing off.) Yet there are, no doubt, many who   proved NOT ‘dumb and dumber’ who have NOT been caught by using the latest designer steroids that are supposed to be u detectable in one’s system for long periods of time. (Note recent complaints from several complaining that the drugs were not supposed to be in their system after MAYBE having taken them years earlier).

Players testing positive for old German steroid that is more easily traceable https://www.wsj.com/articles/baseball-players-are-testing-positive-for-a-50-year-old-east-german-steroid-they-cant-explain-why-11597845610

LATEST DRUG TESTING RULES ALLOW THC, marijuana, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/12/sports/baseball/mlb-drug-policy-opioids.html

HOW STEROIDS IMPROVE PLAYER PERFORMANCE.The player most likely has an extra split second to decide what pitch is approaching and whether he wants to swing at it. ”Steroids make your hands faster in that they increase muscle in your forearms and pectorals and numerous muscle sets involved in hitting a baseball,” said Dr.Jun 14, 2004

Longest  Homerun in Baseball History (and without steroids)?https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2021/08/20/frank-howard-home-run-seattle/ 

InsideHook 2-18: While MLB may cite the minuscule proportion of failed tests as evidence of its drug policy’s success, critics of the testing regime believe the continued use of both conventional and “designer” drugs only serves to prove that many players remain able to stay one step ahead of detection, even in the “post-steroid era.”

Tom Verducci quoted a former major leaguer in a column for Sports Illustrated last year as saying, “I think we are back up to large-scale use again,” adding that without the “nuclear option” of a lifetime ban for a first offense, “it still seems to be worth the risk.”It is unlikely the Major League Baseball Players Association would ever consent to such severe sanctions in the next collective bargaining agreement. But as the evidence demonstrates, it’s folly to assume the use of PEDs in baseball exists only in a time since passed, making Joe Morgan’s fit of pique over PED users in the Hall of Fame equally anachronistic.

This article was featured in the InsideHook 
Looking Back at the BALCO / Bonds  ERAAnd seven Giants who testified to using PEDs early in the steroid era .https://www.cnn.com/2013/10/31/us/balco-fast-facts/index.html

San Francisco Giants

The Giants added Webb to their 40-man roster after the season.^[10] He began 2019 with Richmond. ^[11] On May 1, 2019, Webb was suspended 80 games for testing positive for dehydrochlormethyltestosterone, an anabolic-androgenic steroid.^[12][1]

Camilo Duvol

Camilo Duval jumped all the way from ‘A’ ball to the majors in one year, bypassing Double and Triple A while having a lower ERA than in A ball. Unheard of!

List of Major League Baseball players suspended for performance-enhancing drugs – Wikipedia

Why a 1969 Frank Howard home run in Seattle still sticks with a baseball fan – The Washington Post