Former Cubs and Phillies Outfielder Doug Glanville Says PEDs Hurt Players More Than Sign-Stealing

Doug Glanville played nine MLB seasons with the Chicago Cubs, Philadelphia Phillies and Texas Rangers in the midst of the steroid era. Natural,y, what he had to say in his latest column for ESPN will certainly make its rounds.

With the Houston Astros' sign-stealing scandal still raw for many, Glanville's stance will spur even more debate. He expresses a clear belief that performance-enhancing drugs harmed individual players across baseball far more than sign-stealing ever could.

Glanville spoke about his time in Philadelphia and how he eventually lost his job to Marlon Byrd, who was hit with two suspensions -- the latter of which was 162 games -- for banned substances.

"The inequities of PED use make it personal. With the proliferation of PEDs, there was always a chance you could be supporting a teammate who was using in order to replace you -- even if that was not his original intent," he wrote.

Glanville explained the negative chain reaction that reached across baseball in which clean players feared losing their playing time to PED users, sometimes forcing them to use the substances themselves, possibly to devastating results.

"If you are clean, PEDs immediately put you on the downhill side of your career, and if you are already declining like I was in 2002, PEDs push you off a cliff," he said. "Sign-stealing does none of that."

Glanville's perspective here is interesting, as the Astros were ostensibly working independently to steal signs, while steroids were omnipresent across all teams. When you look at it that way, you could understand that every position battle across the league was affected in some way by PEDs. Sure, the Astros likely negatively impacted the careers of many for their actions, but the numbers are tough to compare when you're looking at how widespread steroid and HGH use was.

"In the PED era, numbers got juiced, and when enough players juice up, it raises the bar at any given position. And I don't mean in a spiritual, greatness kind of way. It shifts the expectations of how that position should produce, artificially. It influences the money an organization will commit to you and it directly influences your opportunity," Glanville added.

These are some powerful words from someone who experienced the lows of the steroid era. Perhaps we should remember this perspective when we're outright saying the knowing which pitch is coming is automatically worse for baseball than doping.