merlin wrote:How old was he though when he left the Red Sox? Wasn't that why they let him go because they (or Duquette) thought he was done? He left the Red Sox topping out at 92 and reappears with the Blue Jays pumping 98 again. That's when the suspicion would start for me.
Hmmm.... his last year with the Sox, he K'd 20 guys in a game, his ERA+ was right in line with his career numbers, his K rate was the highest it had been since '88....
None of that means that his fastball was at 92 that year. But I'd think it's circumstantial evidence, at least, that he was probably throwing more than 92 that year.
You're absolutely right RC21, I'm going strictly off of memory, which I know isn't perfect. I don't know how his stats rate between those two years. I can't remember what he was topping out at exactly that year, whether it was 95 or 92. But my memory was of his stuff declining, him not throwing as hard as he used to, him getting hit around in his last year with the Red Sox, this then leading to the Red Sox letting him go and then he comes back with the Blue Jays, throwing in the upper 90's again and he's all-world again. I have a vague memory of there even being an ESPN commercial to that effect where they questioned whether he still had it and Clemens responded by throwing Trey Wingo across the room at 98 mph. If his name does come out, that's where my suspicion would start.
I guess this is kind of what I'm asking, what is the Mitchell report going to end up doing to our thoughts on these guys?
The big thing that happened for Clemens is that he took his splitter to the next level at the end of his tenure in Boston. He'd been experimenting with it for a few years (and that's part of why '93-'95 were generally down years for him- he was relying on a pitch that he wasn't really comfortable with). By '96, it started to come together and then you saw the results after he left. Throw in the extra motivation he had of Dan Duquette saying that he was "in the twilight of his career", and the fact that he's a notorious workout freak, and you get what happened.
Again, though... none of that means that he didn't juice.