Statistics, Performance Enhancing Drugs, and Major League Baseball.

"If the effects really were minimal, then players wouldn't be using them." Non-sequitur. This conclusion does not follow. Many players will use whatever they BELIEVE to help, even if it is minimal. In a cutthroat world such as professional sports, athletes will be doing whatever they can to gain any sort of edge. "Furthermore, the effects are known [1]:" You just showed me the effects of using steroids. We are arguing the effect of using steroids on baseball playing ability. I have questioned how much this muscle mass and strength helps baseball players, specifically. "There's a simple answer here. The poor players decided that they would use PEDs to give themselves an advantage. Plus, the side effects of steroids may lead people to stop using them, which would lead to a decrease in performance, which would put them out of the major leagues." Uh... aren't you making my point? If the side effects of steroids eventually resulted in a decrease in performance, then steroids could have actually resulted in a decrease in performance, which means that those statistics should NOT be thrown out due to supposedly being artificially inflated. "1. They were bad, which made them use PEDs. 2. They eventually quit, and therefore could not stay in the [sic] MLB." So they barely got better. That's my point. "Increased muscle mass helps increase the strength of the core-abs, which would immediately lead to better performance in baseball." No–the increased muscle mass is largely located in the "thorax, neck, shoulders and upper arm." [1] "Obviously, a pitcher would want to stay away from steroids, but a batter would use them." I provided an extra argument to show why pitchers specifically shouldn't use steroids–however, this is unrelated to whether or not a batter should use them, and you have not provided any extra argument here why batters should use them. Just pointing that out. "Yes, but they can also be attributed to steroids." You have not shown why. "The PF thing is interesting, but it does not account for any increase at all in pitching strength." I don't know what you're trying to say here. Accounting for the ball change, offense was level–therefore, PED benefit was minimal. The only argument you could be trying to make that seems relevant would be to say that since it doesn't account for pitching strength, if the trend is level, then the pitching strength was balanced would be balanced by the hitting strength. 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. "Great. Let's just let everybody use steroids. That way, we can have every single MLB player suffer the side effects of steroids [2], which many players would rather not do." Straw man. This is completely irrelevant. We are arguing about the validity of statistics. "According to a source that seems to be biased towards PRO [3], there is always a risk of side effects with PEDs. Why not avoid having to take such a risk? Plus, most players don't use steroids. This puts them at a disadvantage against the steroid-abusing players." If by biased, you mean it agrees with me, then yeah. I don't see why that's important though, especially when the things I cite are based in fact. You have not at all qualified the claim that "most players don't use steroids." 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. "2. These players believed that steroids in baseball were a significant enough factor in statistical evidence to influence decisions on which players were the best or worst. (Re-wording of 1)" 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. "So, basically, they think that the PEDs have a significant effect on their stats. Well, let's give them the benefit of the doubt. Let's punish them for what they believe to be true. They took that risk when they took the PEDs. It's really only fair." No, they do not necessarily expect a significant effect. You have not shown that. Your benefit of the doubt argument is unreasonable. 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. "A "level playing field" in which the cheaters always win isn't a level playing field at all." PED users don't always win because basically everyone's a PED user. That's the point. In conclusion: My opponent has not really provided evidence for why a PED user would necessarily benefit in terms of his baseball skills. 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. Some of his other arguments don't really seem to make much sense, and hopefully he'll expand on them in the next round. Overall, however, my opponent does not seem to have refuted any of my arguments, relying mainly on non-sequiturs or straw men. I eagerly await my opponent's response. Vote PRO. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org... (the part I'm citing cites source 25)