After a miserable 2013 season, the 2014 Toronto Blue Jays are right in the middle of the painfully tight AL East race, and one of Toronto's biggest contributors has been now-notorious Melky Cabrera.
Cabrera, famously suspended in 2012 after his first All-Star appearance and given the full-on damnatio memoriae treatment from the San Francisco Giants and the batting average rankings, is hitting .333/.368/.521 after a 2013 season ruined by a spinal growth.
In fact, Cabrera isn't the only hitter coming out of the Biogenesis scandal (he wasn't suspended in 2013 as testing already had caught his involvement in 2012) who is making some noise in 2014. Ryan Braun, who is out with an abdominal issue, is hitting .318/.361/.591 with 6 homers on the season. Nelson Cruz and Jhonny Peralta both easily lead their teams in OPS and home runs. Yasmani Grandal's .738 OPS places him second on the Padres. Even former top prospect Jesus Montero, whose .685 OPS for the Mariners in 2012 and lost 2013 dropped his stock to Great Depression levels, is finally hitting in the minors again, currently at .267/.333/.517 for Tacoma.
There's little dispute that PEDs can have nasty long-term health effects, but most of the debate about PEDs has been based not on concern for the health of players but on the more superficial concern of tainted hitting statistics. But a close inspection of the numbers shows that we shouldn't be all that concerned about the impact PEDs have on hitting stats because there doesn't seem to be one.