He was one of several players throughout the league who had career high numbers that year. At the time, he commented on the high number of young or rookie pitchers he had the good fortune to face that season, that he hit well off those young, mistake-making, pitchers, and that the new ball parks being built in the early and mid 90s were more hitter friendly than the old parks.

He left Oakland after that season to go home to Minnesota. At the time, his reasoning, at least to the public in the Bay Area, was that his kids were getting to an age where he didn't want them to be shuffling around from Minnesota to Arizona, to Oakland during the school year. He turned down several offers more lucrative than the offer he took with the Twins, including a huge ( I can't remember the exact number, something like $18 million/4 years) offer from Toronto to be able to keep his family in one place year round.

I realize that in your blog you do not come out and make an accusation of steroid use. It is likely that being an A's fan makes me a bit more sensitive to hints of shenanigans than I would be if my team didn't spawn Jose Canseco, but
it seems irresponsible to me to call someone's reputation into question based on nothing more than something you can't explain.  His explanation seems perfectly reasonable to me. It makes less sense that he would take PEDs after years of not taking PEDs so that he'd have a big season in order to take an enormous pay-cut and go to a team not likely to  make the playoffs for the remainder of his career. That's ridiculous.
 

McGuire, Canseco, Giambi, & company.  And Tony LaRussa the architect.

enough said.

While I understand where your sentiments and bold-font indignation come from, OaklandFan, but both the ballpark assertion and rookie pitcher assertion are false

The new ballparks of the 90s would have needed to appear as a group in 1996 and then disappear again in 1997 to have contributed to a one season phenomenon. The affect of more homer-conducive ballparks would be to cause an upward trend in Steinbach's homerun totals from their opening onward and not an isolated one year spike. There is no evidence, however, of even an upward trend from the new ballparks in Steinbach's stats after looking at his road homeruns by ballpark before 1996, in 1996, and then after. 

Steinbach's 1996 homeruns on the road in ballparks opened in 1989 or later were Texas-3, Chicago-3, Cleveland-2, Baltimore-1,and Toronto-1. (10 total) His road homeruns in stadiums open prior to 1989 were California-3, Detroit-3, Seattle-2, Boston-1. (9 total.)

The Toronto Skydome - now Rogers Centre - opened in 1989. Steinbach hit 2 homeruns there in the 7 seasons prior to 1996, 1 there in 1996, and then none the final three years of his career. He hit 1 at the previous Toronto ballpark in three seasons.

New Comiskey Park - now US Cellular Field - opened in 1991.Steinbach hit 2 homeruns there in the 5 seasons prior to 1996, 3 there in 1996, and then none the final three years of his career. He hit none in the previous White Sox ballpark in three seasons.

Camden Yards opened in 1992.  Steinbach hit 2 homeruns there in the four seasons prior to 1996, 1 there in 1996, and then none for the final three years of his career.

The Ballpark in Arlington - now Globe Life Ballpark in Arlington, opened in 1994. Steinbach hit one homerun there in the two years prior to 1996, three there in 1996, and then none for the final three years of his career. He hit 7 at the previous ballpark in Texas over 7 seasons. 

Jacobs Field - now Progressive Field, also opened in 1994. Steinbach hit 1 homerun there in the the two years prior to 1996, 2 there in 1996, and then two over the final three years of his career. He had hit 5 at the previous ballpark in Cleveland in 7 seasons.

I thought there might be something to your rookie pitcher assertion but that turns out a false assertion, as well.

The pitcher Steinbach particularly feasted on in 1996 was Kevin Tapani, 32, who was pitching for the White Sox that year. Steinbach hit three homeruns off him in 10 plate appearances after only hitting 1 off him in 24 total plate appearances prior. He also hit 2 in 7 at bats off Darren Oliver in 1996, who was in his third year with the Rangers, (No other homeruns against Oliver in other seasons.) 2 off Mike Christopher who was 32 in his fifth MLB season, 2 off Rocky Coppinger, who was a rookie that year, 2 off 29 year-old vet Juan Guzman in 10 at-bats in 1996 although none in the other 30 at-bats versus Guzman in his career.  

The other pitchers who each surrendered a single home run to Steinbach in 1996 were Wilson Alvarez 7th season, Mark Brandenburg rookie, Norm Charlton 10th , Cal Eldred 6th, Alex Fernandez 7th,Jason Grimsley 7th, Erik Hanson 9th,Sterling Hitchcock 5th, Greg Keagle rookie, Mark Langston 15th, Dennis Martinez 21st, Jack McDowell 9th, Jaimie Moyer 11th, Charles Nagy 7th, Gregg Olson 9th, Paul Quantrill 5th, Brad Radke 2nd, Paul Shuey 3rd, Dennis Springer rookie, Mike Stanton 8th season, Matt Wagner rookie, Bob Wells 3rd, David Wells 10th, and Shad Williams rookie.

The final tally for 1996 for Steinbach is 28 home runs off veterans (80%) and 7 off rookies.

Just throwing something out there to see if there is anything to it - is it possible the disruption of the previous two years had more of an impact on pitchers?  Nobody pitched 200 innings in 1994, and in 1995 there was the shortened spring training.  Then in 1996 everyone was back to the full schedule.  I'm not sure how we would test that - DL rates, maybe?  Attrition rates?  Were there a large number of pitchers who continued to pitch for a while but were never the same after the strike? 

I think we're really fighting Occam's razor on this one, though, because 1996 is right in the middle of the steroid era, and the whole generation is suspect. (Even Andy Pettitte used them?)  My understanding of the way steroids work is they allow shorter recovery times between workouts, so they allow more workouts. Maybe someone can follow that type of routine for a limited time without steroids.  Maybe Steinbach was working out with one of the users - there was no shortage of them.  But that's one maybe too many.  The simple answer is maybe he was juicing. 

Even if he wasn't, it was so prevalent that there's no way he knew nothing. If he knew something and did nothing, he's an accomplice. 

If it walks like a duck....

Couldn't the high increase in home runs one season and decline the next be a sign the season was on the up and up? Kind of like Wade Boggs in 1987 or Joe Mauer in 2009.