Barry Bonds is the DEVIL!!!

The guy who "caught" the ball was waiting in line for BBQ way out in the bleacher outfield consessions and the ball rolled down and dropped next to him like a minute after the at-bat. He grabbed it and kept waiting in line for his BBQ until stadium staff pulled him out of line.

I'll have her email you! She's apparently not familiar with the stock personalities of superstar athletes.

Joe Sheehan:

What has been taken away from us, as baseball fans, is the ability to enjoy the moment with no reservations. Even for someone like me, who’s criticized the process and who thinks Bonds has been given something less than fair treatment, it’s clear that his last six seasons have occurred at the intersection of ability and something else, something of dubious legality or morality. Bonds has unquestionably taken a disproportionate brunt of the media’s manufactured outrage over the still-unclear effects of performance-enhancing drugs on baseball. He’s the only player who’s had six years of his medical history investigated and published in a best-seller. However, the end product of that investigation--“Game of Shadows”--makes it hard to watch any of Bonds’ feats without wondering. He’s never failed a steroid test, never been suspended, but there’s still a tinge of doubt with every at-bat, every long drive.

I’m someone who wants to celebrate the greatness of baseball and its players, and whatever Bonds has or has not done, he’s taken that away from me. I’m left with a choice between ignoring everything, cheering and feeling a little bit like a sycophant, or snarling at the feat and pointing to a hardcover book and reams of media coverage. Neither is satisfying...

I don’t dislike Barry Bonds. His arrogance has never bothered me, and as I’ve written in the past, the public image of athletes is largely driven by how well they treat the media. Ballplayers are defined by whether they help writers do their jobs, and that’s a very thin thread on which to hang a reputation.

But when I do feel something towards Bonds, it’s in a moment like yesterday, which should have been a time to revel, to appreciate a moment I’d tell my children about, along with stories of Bonds’ prodigious power, amazing bat speed, near-perfect hitting mechanics and otherwordly selectivity. I should have been excited, the way I was in 1998. The days and weeks leading up to the homer should have been filled with anticipation, not ambivalence.

They weren’t, and for that, I blame Bonds. He has taken away our ability to savor the history he makes.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/14690762.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

gary gillete in espn:
"Barry Bonds is unquestionably one of the greatest players ever to play the game. He is also one of the greatest home run hitters in history. He will end up holding many important records. He is not a perfect person, nor has his career been without controversy. As such, he fits perfectly into the imperfect history of the national pastime."

Considering the amount of attention focused on his public persona, Barry Bonds' 2006 season at the plate has been somewhat, dare we say, quiet. Currently in a three-way tie for the honor of being the 26th-most offensively challenged team in baseball when it comes to Equivalent Average, the Giants have struggled to field above replacement-level hitters at nearly every position. Bonds' efforts at the plate largely faded from view once he moved into second-place on the all-time home run list on May 28. "He's done," Giants fan and WFAN radio personality Chris Russo said recently. "He can't hit." Giants beat reporter Rich Draper opined in a mailbag that "Bonds is only an average player now."

The annual took a wild shot in the dark at Bonds this offseason, hitting a bullseye with his player comment, while missing more significantly on the projection. To wit:

Even if his numbers decline substantially in 2006, Bonds will produce a full win every 20 games; if he gets back to his 2001-2004 peak it's more like a win every 11 games. That means Bonds could play a historically awful left field with the leather, sit every day game after a night game, miss a month to injury, and he would still be worth almost ten wins in the standings. If the knee holds up, Bonds could easily lead a poorly constructed Giants squad to the playoffs, but if he misses substantial playing time this team is toast. PECOTA has absolutely no comps with which to make a Bonds prediction. A Wisdom of Crowds-style poll of BP writers yielded an average projection of .309/.474/.667 in 390 PAs with 32 home runs. If it happens, no one will be able to say that Bonds built his Hall of Fame case with steroids.

Bonds' return to the lineup at the end of 2005 was what tripped up the wisdom of this particular crowd. By coming back and recording 51 plate appearances while ignoring his missing knee for a few weeks, Bonds set up an expectation that he would be able to keep up his immortal levels of slugging. Instead, it looks like he was taking advantage of not having to worry about pacing himself.

Early on this season, Will Carroll immediately noticed the change in Bonds' plate coverage. "He's swinging all arms," he observed. Bonds' manager picked up a slightly different change recently. "I don't see the recognition of pitches the way he is accustomed to," Felipe Alou told MLB.com. "You didn't ever see Barry taking strikes without being ready to swing the bat. And he is swinging at some bad pitches. We're not used to seeing that." Since the batting eye is usually thought of as the last thing to go, it's possible Alou is simply examining an isolated chapter of a longer book, the one that Eddie Murray said really described the game, called "Adjustments." Unable to use his legs to power his swing, Bonds has focused on putting the ball in play and living with the results.

Assuming Bonds can stay healthy enough for another 200 at-bats, there's no reason to think he can't maintain his ridiculous strikeout-to-walk ratio, one that doesn't look remarkably different from his rarified peak. This year, his walks have stayed consistent even as his average (especially against lefties, against whom he is hitting .190/.420/.317) has declined.

BB K OPS
April 26 6 1121
May 21 9 854
June 20 11 1026
July 21 10 838

Bonds' offensive contribution to the Giants isn't only the best on the team by a wide margin, his .328 EqA puts him right behind Manny Ramirez and Jermaine Dye as the third-best hitting outfielder in baseball. Or should we say, the best walking? So much of Bonds' offensive contribution comes from his on-base ability--he's second behind Bobby Abreu in walks, and would lead the league in OBP if he had enough plate appearances to qualify.

Walking 20 times in August and 20 times in September--a plausible estimate if he stays healthy--would see him finishing the season with 128 free passes, the seventh highest total of his career. With all the talk that Bonds has lost it, it's worth noting that as long as his body can function at this level, he probably never will. His penultimate season, marred by accusations from pretty much everybody that he was on "the s---" during his peak years, stands in stark contrast to the graceful way that Ted Williams, Bonds' number one PECOTA comparable for this season, left the game.

It's worth remembering that Williams' second-to-last year, 1959, was far more disappointing than Barry's. For the first time in his major league career, Williams struggled at the plate. Largely because of neck injuries, he finished with a line of .254/.372/.419, for a still comfortably above-average EqA of .283. Batting average was the rate stat executives were more comfortable with in 1959, so it was suggested that Williams think about hanging it up. After all, he'd never hit for this low an average in his life.

"I'm not wealthy," Williams said, as Leigh Montville chronicled in his 2004 bio of the Splendid Splinter. "I can certainly use the money. But that's not all of it. I'd kind of like to redeem myself for last year. Another important reason I came back was I want to reach 500 home runs." Barry likely won't admit this, either, but he'd like to break another home run barrier as well.

In return for coming back to the team, Williams offered to take the maximum pay cut--thirty percent less than his previous year's salary. MORP, a new addition to this year's PECOTA cards, estimates that Bonds will be worth a Marginal Value Above Replacement Player of $3.8 million dollars.

Ted Williams' farewell tour was a joyous one, and with his neck feeling a lot better, the slugger posted a .357 EqA, hit 29 homers, and dwarfed the second-best hitter on the team that year, Pete Runnels. Though he might have played on, he had already completed his farewell tour with a famous home run in his final at-bat, so he turned down the Yankees' $125,000 offer to become a bench player for the 1961 season. If the Giants decide to let Barry continue his quest in another city, the other 29 teams should give him more of a chance than they gave Ted Williams to keep playing the game.

--Alex Carnevale

so 25 teams are more offensively challenged?

Last year, Keith Scherer contributed a chapter to Will Carroll's award-winning book, The Juice: The Real Story of Baseball's Drug Problem. Keith has been a legal advisor to Baseball Prospectus on the legal issues surrounding the BALCO and Barry Bonds cases, and we asked him to do an update on his chapter as a spectator's guide.

Q: Will Bonds be indicted?

A: It’s almost certain that he will. The federal government doesn't move against someone until the outcome is more or less guaranteed. Before convening a grand jury, the prosecutors prepare an internal memo analyzing every aspect of the case, including potential objections and motions and credibility problems, and then has that memo vetted by every link in the chain of command. Weaknesses get fixed. In high profile cases even the brass in D.C. has to bless the memo before the case will go forward. This doesn't ensure a conviction, but it just about guarantees an indictment. It also ensures that a vindictive and uninformed prosecutor doesn’t embarrass the U.S. Attorney’s Office and Department of Justice....

Q: Does it seem likely that if Anderson testifies he'll exonerate Bonds?

A: The government might have enough to get a conviction even without Anderson, but if he flips … Bonds is toast. A little patience might save everyone time and money in the long run....

Q: Can Bonds say he didn’t know what Anderson was giving him?

A: He can, but it won’t work. If he uses that as a defense the government will ask for (and get) what’s called an “ostrich instruction.” He told the BALCO grand jury that if the Cream and the Clear were controlled substances, he didn’t know it because he never asked and he was never told. In light of what we know about his teammates’ use of the same drugs, what we know of how Bonds’s body changed, and what we know about Anderson’s admitted crimes, it would seem that if Bonds really never knew what he was taking it’s because he deliberately avoided finding out. The ostrich instruction tells the jury it can find that this deliberate avoidance of knowledge is the same thing as actual knowledge. And remember that he wasn’t only asked about the Cream and the Clear. He was asked about a variety of controlled substances, all of them material to the BALCO case, and denied using any of them. He admitted to using the Cream and the Clear, but without knowing what they really were. If the government can show that he lied about using any of these drugs, they’ll have their case for perjury....

Q: Will Bonds go to jail?

A: The likelihood of Barry Bonds going to jail if he gets indicted is high. If he gets convicted of perjury, it’s certain. If he gets convicted of perjury, he will go to jail for at least as long as the guys who cooperated, but most likely longer. This means he’s likely to do more than three months. If he gets convicted on tax charges, he could do additional time. If he gets convicted of the tax stuff alone, he could do some time but he might be able to avoid jail. At a minimum, he would have to pay the back taxes, interest, a 75% premium on that amount, and a fine. I’m oversimplifying here, but a rule of thumb is to take the amount owed in back taxes and double it.

Kevin Goldstein: 1st; an AL team with low attendance.

Albert Pujols: 11 HRs/212 ABs (19.3 ABs/HR)
Barry Bonds: 9 HRs/154 ABs (17.1 ABs/HR)

Bonds' OBP (.447) is higher than (MLB Batting Average leader) Joe Mauer's (.437). Only the oft-walked Manny Ramirez (.446) is even close to Bonds' OBP.

Derek Jeter ($20.6M in 2006), enjoying a clutchtacular renaissance season with the Yankees, has a .411 + .471 = .882 OPS.

Alex Rodriguez ($25.7M in 2006), having arguably an off-year with a .389 + .502 = .891 OPS.

Bonds ($19M in 2006), an embarrassment to the game, hang it up already, a shadow of his former self: .447 + .482 = .929 OPS.

Here’s what’s aggravating: right now, there’s this idea catching fire that if Ryan Howard should hit 62 home runs, he should be granted some kind of populist home-run crown, because he’s "clean." (Setting Bonds, who at least had a book written about him, aside for the moment, when was it that Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were convicted of steroid use? One didn’t dance for Congress and the other…hell, I honestly don’t know what Sammy Sosa did that rises to any level of actual proof, even by the obnoxiously low standards of this particular cesspool.)

Howard is becoming some kind of hero for all the people who want to whitewash the recent hitters’ era, which as we all know was solely the result of steroid use and nothing else. Howard has been tested for his entire career, so they "know" he’s clean, making it safe to jump on this particular bandwagon. No chance of being forced to distance yourself from the things you write about Howard a few years down the road, no sir, and if you think that’s not a factor here, you’re kidding yourself.

Well, Barry Bonds has played the duration of Howard’s career under the exact same rules, and he’s tested positive exactly the same number of times as Howard has. I might argue that what he’s doing, having one of the greatest seasons ever by a 42-year-old and doing it with half a body, is perhaps as impressive than what Howard is doing in his prime. (Or do we only like our superannuated, record-setting superstars hopped up on greenies and The Racing Form?)

Missed this from earlier:
if I could play devil's advocate (ie Joe Morgan), the intentional walks devalue the OBP cuz they result from disproportionate fear.

I guess that was my question. Bonds is having a good year, especially for his age. But it seems like pitchers are walking him more than they need to (current hot streak aside). His AB per HR is 14.1, the highest by far since 1998. He's still good, but teams are nuts if they intentionally walk him in the 1st inning.

Bonds' forecasted estimate of 136 games played this may set a record for a 42y/o, can anyone verify?

someone parse this please, brane hurts.

and during that 3 season stretch, they have both been subject to the same PED testing policy.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/leaders_42_bat.shtml

1) Why did Cap Anson ever stop playing?

2) What happened in 1884 that the Cubs (mostly) magically started hitting home runs like crazy and what happened in 1885 that they stopped?