Twins reliever Juan Rincon tested positive for steroid use, and while I don't want to caste aspersions on his career, I think that upon reviewing his stats, one has to wonder if steroids were an integral part of his renaissance last season.

Take a look at his career record, and a few things leap out at you. First, he was a pitcher whose strikeouts per nine innings were consistently in the mid-6.00's to mid-7.00's throughout his seven-year minor-league career and in his first few major-league seasons. Then in 2004, he hit almost 12 strikeouts per nine innings and remained close to that this year. He also recorded his first strikeouts to walks ratios over three in his professional career. His Walks plus Hits Per Innings Pitched (WHIP) was significantly lower than his minor-league numbers.

But maybe Rincon was just maturing and steroid use had nothing to do with it. How many times has a pitcher had a one-year turnaround in K per 9IP like Rincon had last year? Let's see (min. 50 innings each year):

OK, there are a lot of young pitchers who were just maturing in their big turnaround year. Rincon's up there, but it's not as if he's out of place, right?

Well, Rincon had already pitched a hundred innings in his major-league career before 2004. How many pitchers who have pitched a hundred innings can all of a sudden increase their strikeouts from well under one per inning to well over one per inning?

Let's see…There are 36:

There's Rincon in fourth place, right ahead of Sandy Koufax. That seems pretty rare to me.

It seems all this time the media has been keying on the one-year, Brady Anderson-like increases in home run totals as the main affects of steroid use. Congress seemed ready to break out asterisks for every home run hit after Jim Bunning retired. However, given Rincon's suspension and Tom House's recent admission, one has to wonder if the should have been scouring the strikeout, not the home run, totals—except Alex Sanchez's.