In 2007, Barry Bonds hit .276/.480/.565 in 126 games, leading the NL in OBP for the sixth time in seven seasons. He hit a homer every 12.1 at-bats, was intentionally walked about once every 11 plate appearances — in 29% of his plate appearances with runners in scoring position — and played a below-average left field that was far from among the worst in the game.
In 2007, Carlos Delgado hit .258/.333/.448. It was his worst season since establishing himself in 1996. Delgado played in 139 games, two weeks' worth more than Bonds had played, was intentionally walked eight times and led the league in nothing.
In 2008, no one signed Barry Bonds, citing concerns about his durability, his defense and his impending perjury trial. All three of this concerns were easily mooted, given his performance in 2007 and the pace of the legal system. At least three teams, arguably as many as six, missed the postseason in 2008 for want of a credible left fielder or DH.
In 2008, Carlos Delgado bounced back to hit .271/.353/.518, most of that in the season's final four months after a terrible start. The Mets had little choice to retain him after the poor 2007 season — he was owed $16 million in the last guaranteed season of a heavily-backloaded contract.
In 2009, no one signed Barry Bonds, now citing Bonds' advanced age and missed season as additional reasons to avoid him. The use of the missed season due to industry ignorance as justification for not signing him was noted by some, but most just allowed the matter to pass.
In 2009, the Mets picked up Carlos Delgado's $12 million club option at a marginal cost of $8 million over a $4 million buyout. Delgado hit well, .298/.393/.521, but played just 26 games before a hip injury forced him to the sidelines for the season.
In 2010, Barry Bonds' career is over, although the trumped-up perjury case that served as part of the reason for not signing him still hasn't reached trial (it is scheduled to next spring; coincidentally, so is my triathlon).
In 2010, the Boston Red Sox signed Carlos Delgado, with one good, healthy season in the last four, and possibly one good, healthy hip in the last two, to a minor-league contract that could be worth up to $3 million if he plays well for the team down the stretch. Delgado is a DH, able to stand around at first base but not provide much the way of defensive value.
I spend a lot of time in the book on the Bonds case, as it was arguably the biggest story of the decade, intertwined with the ongoing controversies involving not so much performance-enhancing drugs as the media, executive and Congressional behavior they inspired. The industry's collective pass on Bonds in 2007 remains, in my eyes, a more shameful rejection of competitive principles than anything Bonds or his peers supposedly did. And every time a player who doesn't have the ability or projected value that Bonds did in the winter of 2007-08 gets signed, gets an NRI or gets slotted into a lineup only to kill it, I get angry.
I liked watching Barry Bonds. I liked seeing what he did to baseball games, how he distorted them, forcing managers to simply give up more often than they did with any other player in baseball history. I liked the mechanics of Bonds' swing and the way he knew the strike zone. I liked the fact that he was 21 for his last 22 steal attempts, despite being so "slow" that no one wanted him to play baseball for them. Frankly, I liked his arrogance, his recognition of the parasitic nature of the reporter/player relationship and his open rejection of it.
I was cheated. Not by Bonds and whatever he may or may not have done, but by a baseball industry so cowed by the commissioner and the media and an issue they were complicit in that they let a great player sit idly by while their teams burned outs.
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Seriously?
Perhaps a review of the definition of "perjury" might be appropriate.
Turns out that when you raise your right hand and swear to tell the truth in a court of law, you need to tell the truth.
Bonds didn't. Arguing otherwise undermines the credibility of everything written in this post.
At the end of the day, your last point is what really matters here. Bonds was/is a Class A d-bag who treated everyone like crap: his employer, his fans, reporters, the league. Everyone. He thought rules didn't apply to him, and it manifested itself in everything he did, from the way he treated people to what he put in his body.
That said, I couldn't care less what he put in his body. And if you look at how other high-profile PED users (or suspected users) have been treated (Pettitte, Ortiz, Manny, A-Rod, etc.), it seems MLB doesn't really care either. They've all paid a PR price, but then been accepted back into the game. Bonds is the only one that was treated differently. (And Clemens, but he's really just Bonds in cowboy boots with a underage girl on his arm.)
Bonds wasn't forced out of the game because he took PEDs. He was forced out of the game because he was such an unbelievable d-bag that everyone in baseball wanted him gone, regardless of whether he could help their team statistically. At the end of the day, baseball is a business, and baseball made the business decision that they didn't want Bonds any more. I've got not problem with that, as he dug his own grave.
2003: 3rd in % of seats filled in road games
2004: 3rd
2005: 14th (Bonds missed the season)
2006: 8th
2007: 5th
2008: t19th
2009: 10th
Data from espn.com. Note that there was a significant drop leaguewide in 2009- the Giants seats filled % in 2009 would have ranked 17th in 2008. I think the dropoff in 2005 and 2008 shows pretty clearly the amount of fan interest in watching Bonds play.
Regarding public perception of him -- a lot of his teammates had issues with him. I heard he cheated on his wife. He cheated at the game. It's not as if there's no rational basis for labeling him a bad person.
2. when i said i don't respect a team, i am not hatin on teams. i just do not give teams positive respect for playing along with a misguided sentiment amongst its customers.
3. my interest in the bonds business is not a sports interest. no matter what the media or some fans say about bonds, my opinion of him as a player will not change.
however, i care about fans reactions just like i care about say how people react to muslims in their neighborhood or something like that. i don't agree with the condemnation and such because humans are behind the condemnations and they are not being smart/correct/fair etc etc.
4. saying bonds cheated at the game seems to view him as a "baseball player." bonds however would say he was just improving his career, doing what he does but doing it better with some technology. i find any sort of judgmental attitude about "cheating the hallowed game" to be taking the fans perspective too seriously.
5. your response is largely reasonable. i just thought you misunderstood my points.
thank you for the article. I certainly couldn't have said it better myself.
Hank- I don't know much about lawyering, but I remember reading that when federal charges are brought that they have a high likelihood of conviction. Given the length between the charges and the trial it would seem that there was political pressure to bring charges even though they don't have much of a case. Just my guess and I could obviously be wrong, but if they have a strong case why are they taking so long?
Mike- Manny was making ~$20 million, and other teams were willing to give up prospects to pay him that amount. Bonds offered to work for the minimum. TO was a much worse teammate, IMO, and cooperation is significantly more important in football than baseball, so character/compatability concerns are more relevant. Nevertheless, he did not have a hard time finding employment when he lowered his asking price. Some teams are turned off by the character issues. However, Bonds didn't need the entire league to agree he was worth the risk, he only needed to find one team.
I know you obviously don't believe in these things, but a lot of teams (including smart ones) do. Whether these things matter or not (or, more accurately, how much they matter, because they must somewhat) is something which hasn't been precisely proven. But it seems like there's a lot of teams that would have had huge incentives to add a bat like Bonds. And none of them did, despite, again, some of them being very smart and forward-looking teams. That tells me something.
So far as I can tell, Jeff Kent and Barry Bonds did not like playing with each other. Jeff Kent also had well-publicized incidents with Milton Bradley (ok no huge surprise there) and James Loney. Bonds had no problems with anyone else.
And, while of course it was rarely covered outside of the local sports media (didn't fit the Bonds storyline), teammate after teammate talked up how great a teammate he was, advice he'd give them on their swing or on another pitcher, etc.
The last season Bonds played for the Pirates: 1992
The last 30 HR hitter produced by the Pirates system: Barry Bonds (1992: 34 HRs, 39 SBs, 127 BBs, 1.080 OPS)
And Bonds was HATED in this town. Still is...
Given Joe's long years here, why is this news to anyone??
My two cents: most of us Giants fans were initially upset that Bonds had cheated, but the way he was singled out made us much angrier at those using him as scapegoat for an entire era of baseball or for cheap political points (see Justice Department). Plus, yeah, he had and continued to play great for us.
The federal government has already spent more than $50 million of our tax dollars prosecuting Bonds for lying under oath about something he did to perform better in a game. Most of the case has already been thrown out, and an acquittal is likely (the prosecutor was so incompetent that he failed to pin Bonds down, so he never directly stated that he did not use steroids, making a perjury conviction almost impossible).
If that waste of OUR money just so we can pretend the game is now being played cleanly doesn't make you sick, what would?
He has firm opinions, sometimes agreeable sometimes crazy. He isn't afraid to say what he means. Any topic vaguely related to baseball is fair game as long as the author cares about it.
It doesn't have to be Joe I think most of the BP staff could do this if they would pull up an imaginary stool in an imaginary bar and start talking as if we were sharing the peanut bowl while watching a game.
When I read a daily column I want to see the author as someone I am confident I'd have fun agreeing to or arguing with while watching a game.
Find a columnist please I miss it.
I love the objectivity feel like they are in danger of loosing the impassioned fanship and especially the brinkmanship.
heh - think of it as the beer and taco's debate but not with Scouting and Stats but with Opinion and Fact. BP still serves up someof the meanest fact tacos around but if I'm forced to eat them without a opinion beer to wash it down I can only handle a couple at a time. Throw in a six pack and I'll have a night I'll remember fondly and my wife will complain bitterly about for the next several days! Without the beer neither of us will remember in fondly however good the tacos were at the time.
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3460993
Lebron James gave Cleveland the rope-adope, and many people now dislike him even outside of the region. But that doesn't mean we don't want to watch him play the game.
Just so we don't mix issues, let's go back to the early to late 1990s (before all the PED rumors)... Why on earth did fans dislike Bonds then? What did Barry Bonds do to you personally that you would boo him (while he's leading your team to the playoffs no less)? Why boo one of the best baseball players ever?
I guess I'm an idiot (but not Brian Sabean) and I just don't get it.
Of all the GMs you can blame for not signing Bonds in '08, I think Sabean deserves the most leniency. He knew the joys of employing Bonds more than anybody else, and he also knew the status of Bonds' health. It seems that Sabean was happy to employ Bonds when Bonds was (in Sabean's mind) worth the trouble.
The media played much the same role. Trumpeting the home runs, ignoring the rumours, then turning on many of those same ballplayers. There's lots of blame to go around but it's all being shoved in one direction.
I'm honestly asking, I don't remember from the time.
In Bonds' case, mention should be made of how he treated the Giants the last year, ditching the home run derby, declining to play the last several games after the team indicated it would not be offering a contract the next year, etc. And it seemed pretty clear Selig put out word that baseball did not want him back.
I don't believe the reported stories that he would have played for any offer. His agent was looking for $10 million according to other stories I read at the time. Saying he'd play for nothing was just posturing agent talk.
I don't recall Giants fans at the time considering that Bonds mistreated the team or city in his last year. I recall a lot of people upset that the Giants waited until he broke the home run record, milking as much $$ as they could out of him, and then unceremoniously dropping him. I remember that pissing off a lot of Giants fans who wanted to keep watching him play as long as we could.
On the remaining talent portion of the equation, I'm sure many organizations figured Bonds could no longer get away with whatever PEDs he was using and that his talents would resultantly be greatly diminished. He was, afterall, 43.
Some people in this thread have just discounted this as posturing, and that he must have secretly been seeking more money. Maybe that's true. I'll stick with the only evidence we actually have, which has not been disputed by any contrary evidence. So the claim that it was his asking price that was the issue is false.
I agree teams made the decision the negatives outweighed the positives---I agree with Joe that I think this was a miscalculation. I don't know how orchestrated it was, but I'm sure some weight was given to media reaction and I think teams way overrate their local media's influence over fan attendance.
As to Bonds---having watched perhaps 5 or 6 hundred at bats, many in person behind the plate, the remarkable fact was not the power but the pitch selection. He wouldn't flinch at balls just off the plate.
Along with PEDs to make himself stronger and game ready (able to workout longer and recover more quickly), I think by late 1990s he entered the Ted Williams' 'zone'---where he could calmly just wait on the pitch he wanted with utmost concentration and discipline. This later attribute had nothing to do with PEDs.
Joe is right---we were cheated of seeing him play a season or more, and teams miscalculated in not having him on their team.
In 2008 Carlos Delgado was 36
I agree that some of the hatred of Bonds is over the top, but this is also a piece of it.
I'd be reluctant to pay $8-10 Million (I'm not believing that Bonds would play for the minimum) on a player who could fall off the cliff at any time. Combine that with him being a D-bag and the negative attention that it would bring, and I'd say you could make a case that it wasn't worth the hassle.
Delgado was 35 in 2007 (Joe's second point)
The fact is, they were both old. It's tough to imagine that Bonds, who was better in 2007 was going to suddenly fall apart while Delgado would AT BEST stay the same.
The point was, public opinion won out her. Fans were open to the idea of their favorite team not making the playoffs because of the person they envisioned Bonds to be.
Just because he played baseball?
Get over it already.
Crocodile tears.
But his use did distort the game as much as the above players' did. Juicing has serious health hazards that he was a part of promoting. Baseball is cut-throat competition and he was a part of setting an attitude that you had to cheat to survive. They promoted a culture of bad sportsmanship. He and the other juicers not only promoted an activity that endangers people, they made it more difficult for people like Frank Thomas to get their due.
And that's wrong. Frank Thomas deserves credit that he'll never get precisely because of what McGwire and Sosa and Palmeiro and Bonds injected into their bodies, let alone Pettitte and Clemens and the other pitchers.
Frank Thomas was right: there's no place in baseball for this kind of drug use.
What evidence do we have of this?
Maybe many fans didn't like Bonds, but I'm sure those same fans like pennants more. Bonds made the Giants a playoff team and made Dusty Baker look like a genius manager.
Don't mess with combination Dylan Thomas-Kenny Lofton fans... I imagine I'm not the only one out here.
Considering that the Rangers had 8 different players play left field and 11 different DH's (not to mention 7 different first baseman) I think there was room for a Barry Bonds in Arlington. I guess the team couldn't afford the liability insurance. After all, fans sitting out in the right field seats could have easily gotten seriously harmed by his constant battery.
as far as signing him in 09? let me say this simply. The Rangers signed Andruw Jones coming off a season where he hit .158/.256/.249 and let him DH for them. I'd take the press problems and legal problems to find a DH who could crack .550 OPS.
He had become the boogeyman, though, so nobody would sign him. But Andy Pettitte (who I like and all...), oh he's fine. Gary Sheffield - sure! But not big bad Barry.
Oh, and I'm a lawyer. Not claiming any special privilege or insight from that. Just identifying a bias (shared more strongly, I believe, by lawyers than the general population) against lies under oath.
I think Joe is either forgetting, or eliding over, the situation with regards to Bonds during the 2007 season and the immediate post season.
To recap: in Spring 2007, Bonds returned to camp defiant in the face of an ongoing perjury probe. The media circus that was the procession to 756 was endless, and by all accounts hugely distracting, and greatly intensified by the oddity of the player involved being accused of cheating and likely subject to federal criminal charges.
As the year went along, the G's, no doubt expecting that it was impossible to sign Bonds to a San Francisco contract for small money, and not unreasonably expecting that he would be facing federal criminal charges that might go to trial during the 2008 season, made the decision to cut him loose.
Bonds gets indicted on November 15, 2007. The indictment has many counts, but it is focused on two different areas of perjury in Bonds' testimony. One has to do with Bonds' knowledge about what he was getting from his assistant, Greg Anderson. He claims NOT to have known he was taking steroids. The second has to do with WHEN he was taking steroids. Bonds, one suspects to protect the 2001 single-season HR record, was adamant that he never got the cream or the clear until 2003.
It is the latter type of claim that seems most problematic to me--at least so long as Anderson continues to refuse to testify against Bonds. One could prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Bonds knew he was taking steroids just with circumstantial evidence. But proving that he "must have known" seems awfully difficult absent Bonds coming forward or another witness materializing to say that Bonds admitted it. (I don't believe that Bonds' mistress, Kimberly Bell, has him admitting to his own knowledge of what he was taking.) But it seems easier to prove that Bonds was in fact taking the cream or clear during a period (2001 and 2002) when he very clearly denied such use. The feds apparently have positive test results for steroids from the 2001 and 2002 period, and they have other information such as the BALCO calendars with his initials. His best defense to the counts about denial of 2001-02 use is probably legal--that he either did not remember when he began use, or that his false statements about the timing were not material to the federal investigation that was ongoing.
But back on the owners in off-season 2007-08. You've got a player who has a reputation of being an extreme prima donna to the extent that the treatment he requires is disruptive to the team's relationship with other players. He is coming off serious injury problems in prior seasons. And he may well be consumed by legal problems (and a trial) during 2008. It just doesn't seem to me to be a smart decision to make the investment. Even if Bonds would sign for the MLB minimum, which I find doubtful, you are committing your team to a distracting circus that might heighten in the middle of the baseball season.
The thing I most disagreed with was the notion that the perjury charges are "trumped up." Maybe it's semantics, and Joe really meant that Bonds walked into a perjury trap that was aimed at snaring athletes unwilling to admit to their uses of PED. But (as the first poster noted) the perjury charges as filed by the U.S. are not at at all unsupported or even weak. Joe (and many others) may think that the government's perjury trap, which snared so many athletes unwilling to admit PED use, is a trap that should not have been sprung. And one can have a debate on whether the feds should be chasing the issue of PEDs--either their manufacture and distribution, or their prevalence and use in sports generally--as opposed to terrorism or financial fraud. But if you want to have that debate, let's tee it up that way.
BTW, I find it fascinating how strongly the sabermetric community (admittedly through my unscientific review of sabermetric writings) wants to ignore the impact of PEDs and generally supports players who used them (like Bonds). I'm not going to vilify someone like Bonds for using them when they were so prevalent in the sport. But I am very uncomfortable ignoring their use and the impact that the use had on the standard of play. And the fairness toward players who did not use them. And the difficulty of knowing who was clean and not. And how to assess the stats of the era in light of their use.