It’s rather obvious that steroids work, in the sense that they fulfill their function. In the medical arena, for example, our coronavirus death toll would be a lot higher were steroids not something humanity had harnessed the power to use. In the baseball world, our best indication they do their job remains the home run spike around the turn of the millennium. The six most prodigious single seasons, measured by home runs hit, all come from a four-year period. Yet, mostly in discussions around the Hall of Fame, it’s easy to discount steroids’ impact. “The guy still has to be able to hit a baseball.” “Everyone was doing them.”
There’s legitimacy to both of these arguments. I personally fall somewhere on the side of believing the best players from any given era should be admitted to the Hall—baseball, after all, is a human game, not a divine one. It’s ok for its Hall of Fame to be a bit messy. The sport itself is quite messy.
But while these arguments have that legitimacy, they can also minimize the impact of steroid use. Which makes Robinson Canó’s 2020 a worthwhile reminder.
Canó, if you’re unaware, recently tested positive for stanozolol, and has been suspended for the entirety of the 2021 season. Previously, in 2018, Canó missed eighty games in the middle of the year after testing positive for a diuretic.
Here’s Canó’s wRC+, by year, from FanGraphs. Remember: wRC+ is a hitting-encompassing metric in which 100 is always the league average.
| Year | wRC+ |
| 2005 | 105 |
| 2006 | 128 |
| 2007 | 119 |
| 2008 | 86 |
| 2009 | 124 |
| 2010 | 142 |
| 2011 | 134 |
| 2012 | 149 |
| 2013 | 143 |
| 2014 | 137 |
| 2015 | 116 |
| 2016 | 139 |
| 2017 | 112 |
| 2018 | 135 |
| 2019 | 93 |
| 2020 | 141 |
There are, to be sure, a few caveats in order. The 2020 season was a small sample size. Canó’s wRC+ was actually better after his suspension in 2018 than before it (139, vs. 130). Non-drug-induced bouncebacks happen routinely in the sport.
But still.
Canó turned in the fourth-best offensive season of his sixteen-year-old career this summer, and close to his best ever. No, we don’t know how much of the credit for this should go to stanozolol. But it’s possible a whole lot of the credit for this should go to stanozolol. That’s a big jump, and we can be somewhat confident it coincides with the introduction or reintroduction of the PED.
Robinson Canó doesn’t answer the question of how much steroids matter. But he sure raises it.
