Statistics, Performance Enhancing Drugs, and Major League Baseball.

"Many players will use whatever they BELIEVE to help, even if it is minimal." Well, at least we acknowledge that the effects exist. "I have questioned how much this muscle mass and strength helps baseball players, specifically." 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. "If the side effects of steroids eventually resulted in a decrease in performance..." The side effects aren't impacting their performance. The side effects just impact the rest of their life. Steroids lead to a better MLB career, but it makes the rest of life worse. Therefore, it still is an increase in performance, but players eventually decide that it isn't worth it, so they quit steroids, and therefore quit baseball. "So they barely got better. That's my point." No, they got better. But it was at an expense that they weren't willing to continue to pay. "No–the increased muscle mass is largely located in the 'thorax, neck, shoulders and upper arm.'" "Largely"? That means that increased muscle mass is also located elsewhere, such as the core-abs. "...you have not provided any extra argument here why batters should use them." They can use them to strengthen their core-abs, and they can use them to have easier workouts. "You have not shown why." Clarification above. "I don't know what you're trying to say here...." I'm restating your "level playing field" hypothesis. "To this, I would say that you have not shown evidence of any supposed increase, and even if there were an increase, it would support my balanced playing field argument." Any increase wouldn't appear because of the balanced playing field argument. However, I can attack your balanced playing field argument from a different, moral standpoint. "Straw man. This is completely irrelevant. We are arguing about the validity of statistics." 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]. "If we condone some players taking steroids, that puts pressure on other players to do the same if they want to be competitive. No one should have to risk his health in that way to play in MLB." "You have not shown why that puts them at a disadvantage–in fact, you seem to have argued that it would put them at an advantage, due to the numerous side effects." Again, the side effects do not affect performance. They affect the rest of the player's life. 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. "This is not a rewording. You are operating under the assumption that players who used steroids expected massive gain, when it is clear that many athletes would do anything to gain any sort of edge, no matter how small." They were expecting a significant gain, which doesn't imply a massive gain. "No, they do not necessarily expect a significant effect. You have not shown that." Well, that's the only reason they'd take the PEDs. "Statistics are meant to accurately show who played well and who did not. We who use statistics for this purpose are not concerned with the morality of throwing out certain stats just to punish players, because that distorts the truth, that distorts what actually happened." 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. Here's an argument against putting PED-using players in the Hall of Fame, which can be extended to allowing their statistics to be considered legitimate [2]: "It is because if they were that good, they would not have had to cheat and if they could have made it into the Hall of Fame without cheating, then they really blew it, but to congratulate these players for cheating is preposterous." "PED users don't always win because basically everyone's a PED user. That's the point." 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. "My opponent has not really provided evidence for why a PED user would necessarily benefit in terms of his baseball skills." It increases general muscle strength and allows for easier workouts. "Many of his arguments seem to prove my point, especially the ones about the negative effects of steroids–in these, he seems to show that the statistics of PED users were adversely affected, which would make it absolutely absurd to throw them out due to artificial inflation." He thinks that the side effects affected their performance. However, that's the only part where the steroids had a positive effect. "Some of his other arguments don't really seem to make much sense, and hopefully he'll expand on them in the next round." What, the benefit of the doubt? Clarifications 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 Well, this makes it a no-brainer. The PED users did not conform to the accepted anti-PED rules. Thus, they were illegitimate, and their statistics are therefore illegitimate. The resolution is negated. With all of that aside, I eagerly await my opponent's response, as well. Vote CON. 1. http://www.sports-central.org... 2. http://bleacherreport.com...