I’ve often heard the argument that Barry Bonds is worthy of induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame because of what he accomplished before he allegedly began using performance-enhancing drugs. This begs several questions, one of which is “What would his numbers look like if were clean?” I’ve wanted to do this analysis for some time, but have been too busy/lazy to sit down and hash it out. Fortunately, Peter Keating did it for me. In an ESPN excerpt of the Keating’s book, ESPN Dingers - A Short History Of The Long Ball
, clean Bonds checks in at the end of the 2005 season 74 homeruns short of where he actually stood. He loses 73 RBI, 12 points off of his batting average, and doubtless takes a hit on his on-base percentage and slugging percentage as well. Hall-worthy numbers? Absolutely. Keating writes, “Bonds’ first 15 seasons make him one of the three best left fielders in history; his next four would make him one of the three best players in history. Too bad we can no longer take them seriously.” Too bad indeed.
From Buster Olney’s blog entry today:
“Derek Jeter had another moment at Yankee Stadium. A note from Rob Tracy of the Elias Sports Bureau on the Jeter hit: It was only the second hit of Jeter’s career in the eighth inning or later that drove in the tying and go-ahead runs. The other was in 1999 (including the postseason). During Jeter’s tenure on the Yankees, Jorge Posada has five such hits and Scott Brosius had four. Jeter has had 56 chances to drive in a tying and go-ahead run in the eighth or later.”
Thank you, Jacob Luft.
In his piece, “Defensible Position,” Luft writes, “If the Nationals had an owner — and a GM that wasn’t pulled off the set of Cold Pizza, for that matter — they could have gotten serious about winning and acquired some Mike Cameron types to take advantage of the barn they play in.” Okay, so he dangled a preposition — it happens. But what rarely happens is curiosity about how Jim Bowden has his job. This is a GM who signed Vinnie Castilla and Christian Guzman. The latter, one of the most inept offensive players in all of baseball, actually got a 4-year deal. What’s the explanation for his acquiring John Patterson? You know what they say about broken clocks.
ESPN’s Gene Wojciechowski writes, “Bonds is finished. He might play again, but there is only a chalk outline left around his integrity and home run totals. And the only way he gets into Cooperstown is if he spends the $14.50 for a Hall of Fame admission ticket.”
I disagree. What do we know about Bonds today that we didn’t know yesterday? Not much. There is no new hard proof. I’m not defending Bonds — I’ve long thought he was guilty. Today’s news merely reinforced/affirmed my thinking. Ultimately, I think that Bonds’s bid for the Hall of Fame will be influenced by three factors:
1) He will be viewed through the prism of the “steroid era.” With voters unable to know with any certainty who juiced and who didn’t, many of them will just ignore the issue.
2) Absence of hard proof. If the government pursues perjury charges and Bonds is convicted, voters may well be swayed. Without it, I think that many will take the “innocent until proven guilty” approach when they cast their ballots.
3) Bonds posted HOF numbers before he was suspected of doing steroids. Indeed, if voters opt to disregard the years following 1998, they will still be looking at fantastic numbers. Who knows how many of them will rationalize that he was Hall-worthy without the drugs, so he’s Hall-worthy in spite of them?
It will be interested to see what happens when Bonds is finally eligible for induction. By then, we’ll have seen what happened to Rafael Palmeiro and Mark McGwire. If either of them makes it, Bonds is probably a shoe-in. If neither does, then it’s anybody’s guess. But if I had to venture a guess, I’d bet that he makes it.
PS Since I neglected to mention it earlier, SI has an excerpt from the book and lots of other interesting information relating to the Bonds story.