I don't know how into American baseball you are, but I was watching the Twins play the Red Sox last night and the announcers made a couple of key statistical points(baseball ain't nothing but stats on everything). The key stats they were talking about were these:
1. The home run pace in the major leagues is down by almost 1,000 home runs from three years ago.
2. Average fastball radar speeds are down by 5-8 mph across the leagues from three years ago.
What baseball is seeing is the return to a statistical normal base throughout the leagues with the final banning and enforcement of steroid use. The other point they made on why the falloff has been so dramatic is due to the Congressional hearings on steroid abuse and the fact that none of the current players wants to be hauled before Congress.
What this tells me is that all the records set during the steroid years are invalid and not a true indicator of performance in the Major Leagues.
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