Statistics, Performance Enhancing Drugs, and Major League Baseball.

"Well, at least we acknowledge that the effects exist." My statement did not imply that. "It allows them to have longer workouts with less required effort. This in turn leads to an increase in the strength of any muscle in the human body. A baseball player who uses steroids allows himself to attain physical greatness more easily than a moral player." How much longer? How much effort? The added stamina part of PEDs is minor, especially compared to the muscle mass benefits. How does the added stamina work? Does it add stamina when working the muscle groups important to baseball? If so, please provide a source saying that. "The side effects aren't impacting their performance... therefore quit baseball." How do they impact life after baseball, but not impact life during baseball? You pointed out the debilitating effects of steroids. You cannot choose to apply them to one argument but not to another by saying that they only exist after baseball. All of the sources I have cited that mention the harmful side effects of steroids do not differentiate between during a player's career and after the career, because the side effects obviously come during the steroid use–i.e., during the player's career. "No, they got better. But it was at an expense that they weren't willing to continue to pay." See above. If it was at an expense they couldn't pay, then steroids ultimately didn't help them. ""Largely"? That means that increased muscle mass is also located elsewhere, such as the core-abs." This, to me, seems like nit-picking. If 99% of the increase is in the not-important-to-baseball upper body, and 1% of the increase is elsewhere, then it's still largely in the upper body. The benefit to muscles important in baseball is insignificant. Second, even if it is located elsewhere, you cannot definitively single out the core as the elsewhere. There are still many other muscle groups besides those I named which aren't important to baseball which could be benefitted by PEDs, just less so than the upper body. "Any increase wouldn't appear because of the balanced playing field argument." So you agree. Good for me. "However, I can attack your balanced playing field argument from a different, moral standpoint." No, you cannot. Morals are irrelevant in the validity of the statistics when used to compare player performances. "Letting everybody become famous for illegal statistics makes more people want to use PEDs, which makes the people who originally chose not to use PEDs have to use PEDs in order to keep up, which in turn gives them undesired side effects [1]." Sorry, but this is irrelevant. Read the resolution, specifically, "should still be held as legitimate in assessing those players' talent relative to other MLB players." We are only discussing the merit of the statistics in assessing performance. Risking health and morality don't pertain to this debate, making all of your arguments about them straw men. "Again, the side effects do not affect performance. They affect the rest of the player's life." Like I said, this is a ridiculous distinction. "And even if most players use PEDs, we should just throw them out, rather than force the only remaining moral people to turn to the dark side." Yep, irrelevant to the statistics. "They were expecting a significant gain, which doesn't imply a massive gain." What? Significant is basically the same thing as massive. This is just semantics. "Well, that's the only reason they'd take the PEDs." No, it's not, and you have not provided any logical explanation why. I said that in such a high level of competition, athletes will do anything to gain any edge, no matter how small. I think this is quite logical. Players have millions of dollars at stake, especially when they are on the cusp of playing in the minor leagues and playing in the Major Leagues. "However, if a player broke the rules to attain such statistics, then should they really be glorified for it? If you know that a student cheated, should you grade his test as normal, or should you throw it out and give him a zero? They are illegitimate, just as the student's test was illegitimate." Glorification is irrelevant to the debate. Your analogy basically ignores all of my arguments. Analogies for my arguments would say that all of the students cheated, and that the student's cheating basically didn't help them, and using your own arguments about the negative effects of steroids, that the student's cheating inadequately prepared him for the types of questions on the tests, and thus actually inhibited his performance. "Here's an argument against putting PED-using players in the Hall of Fame..." There's no reason for that moral logic to be extended to the legitimacy of statistics. The argument itself is foolish–there are various magnitudes of "good." A player can be extremely good, HOF caliber, and still wish to get better. Heck, I think almost all athletes want that. It's basically the definition of athletic drive. "You assume this at the expense of the few MLB players out there who don't use PEDs, who continue to keep up what little integrity there is left in the once-great game of baseball. Harsh." Wow, appeal to emotion. These few MLB players are, at this point, outliers. We are only discussing statistics. "It increases general muscle strength and allows for easier workouts." General muscle strength doesn't necessarily help baseball. You haven't even shown that it's general muscle strength. The benefit is concentrated in the upper body. I addressed the workout argument earlier. "He thinks that the side effects affected their performance. However, that's the only part where the steroids had a positive effect." By "he," I meant you. The rest of your statement doesn't make any sense to me, unless you're basically just outright saying that you only think a PED's positive effects affected performance, which seems to clearly show me and the audience that you're just selectively applying your arguments. "What, the benefit of the doubt? Clarifications above." Yep. Thanks. Refutations and straw man labels above. "Because the word "legitimate" appears in the resolution, I think that it's about time we gave it a definition [3]: Legitimate - conforming to recognized principles or accepted rules and standards" In the world of statistics, this would mean that the statistics are not skewed by factors outside of the player's own natural ability. Also, you did not provide a source for this definition. "Well, this makes it a no-brainer... The resolution is negated." You're completely, completely flying over the point of the debate. The whole reason I started this was to argue that even though they broke the rules, their statistics were legitimate. You're simply saying that the fact that they broke the rules makes their statistics legitimate. You can't just say that. You're supposed to argue that. You have not negated the resolution. Conclusion: Most of my opponent's argument revolve around the morality of using steroids, and morality of retaining these statistics. These arguments are all straw men. Whether or not it is moral to keep the records of those who broke the rules is completely irrelevant to whether or not the records accurately show the players' performances. The only other relevant argument my opponent gave regarded workouts, which I refuted earlier. My opponent's other argument was basically just stating that my resolution was wrong, and unfortunately, he did not support this argument at all, instead focusing on his straw men. Finally, my opponent seemed to actually agree with my level playing field argument, and often supported me when he mentioned the negative effects of steroids, and then tried to selectively apply his arguments about the negative effects of steroids. To conclude the conclusion, I refuted all of my opponents relevant arguments, and the re