HOF/PED Quandry

by backtocali on Aug 20, 2010 2:45 PM EDT

2nd post in a week...VERY slow week at work....

So in reading Baseball Ref's blog this morning about "Top Player Added" to Franchise History pages" I noticed that on the Pirates career WAR total, Barry Bonds was in the top 10 with 50.6. Recalling that he did not spend a ton of time there, I realized that that is a very large WAR number for any player's career, much less during a 6 year, pre FA span.

I started to wonder how far from the Hall of Fame, this number might put him. Granted, a player needs 10 years of service time to be eligible, but this would only require 4 additional years of solid play (lets say 3 WAR), he would be in the top 100 All time, surrounded by other Hall of Famers.

Of course, the questions relating to Barry Bonds' Hall of Fame worthiness are coupled with the suspicion that he took Performance Enhancing Drugs. Its probably pretty safe to say that he did not use PED's during the first 10 years of his career. Given this belief, is Barry Bonds a no doubt Hall of Famer?

A lot of the PED talk started to swirl around Bonds AFTER the Sosa/McGwire chase to 61 Home Runs in 1998. The belief was that Bonds was upset that he was putting up 130 RBI, 30+ HR and hitting over .300; and then finishing 8th in the MVP race, that it was perhaps time for him to get "into the game" when it came to PED's. Of course this is all speculation and if you believe that wherever there is smoke there is fire, you believe, like most people do, that Bonds was a PED user.

If you take it a step further and assume Bonds didnt start using until 1999, that he put up an additional 39 WAR, which then places him right behind Cal Ripken Jr and above Wade Boggs (both Hall of Famers) and number 26 all time. Now this is definitely a Hall of Fame career to this point.

The rest of the numbers, the ones where he piles them on under a dark cloud of PED suspicion, are immaterial for the purposes of this argument, but they do stain his case for the HOF (we can only assume).

I have always believed that despite Bonds' proximity to the PED issue, that his career prior to his suspected use warranted a strong HOF case. Should this be the case? Or do the "piling on" years taint the entire record?

He probably would have played for as long as he could have, he put up 68 additional WAR after 1999 (a year which was shortened by injury), if you cut that number in half, or by a third, its not as much of a pile on, but he is still a top 20 all time offensive player.

So is Barry Bonds a sure fire Hall of Famer? Maybe a Hall of Famer? Or not at all a Hall of Famer?

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I'd say put him in the HOF

as soon as he’s eligible. He used PEDs, I do not believe there is anyone who doubts that. But some HOFers were alcoholics (Grover Cleveland Alexander, Hack Wilson) and who is to say that if they were not taking the drug alcohol, that they would have been able to endure the pressures of MLB?? After all, the mental part of baseball has a lot to do with who makes it and who fails at the ML level.
Bonds would have been very good, HOF caliber if his career had stopped the day he started PEDs. So IMO put him in the Hall, just don’t put anything on his bio about his statistics. I think I’d put Pete Rose in the same category. No stats, just language like “regarded by his peers as one of the premier hitters of his day.” and some mention of his special “set aside” inside the Hall because of PEDs, or gambling.

Blez: Most folks seem to believe that the big flaw with the 2010 Oakland A's will be the lack of any power.

Beane: They believe it because it's true.

by One won lost won on Aug 20, 2010 5:13 PM EDT reply actions

Bonds was a HOFer

You could probably split Bonds into two players (86-97) and (98-07) and they might both make the HoF on merit.

by Jamee999 on Aug 20, 2010 5:15 PM EDT reply actions

For me, Bonds is a sure-fire HOF

He reportedly starting using PEDs in 1999, but he was already a HOF-worthy player by then if he had simply retired.

The PEDs only moved up Bonds from sure-fire Hall of Famer to essentially one of the two or three greatest players of all-time.

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by Satchel Price on Aug 20, 2010 6:46 PM EDT reply actions

That's where I am too

I just wonder how the voters will respond.

I mean, McGwire is a guy I dont think deserves the nod steroids or not, but the voters have shied away from him because of the steroids issue.

Not many players associated with the steroid era have a record like that of Bonds (ie, one that pre steriods was HOF worthy), and I think that Bonds is a special case here. The same beliefs I posted here about Bonds probably also apply to Clemens Pre TOR years when he reportedly starting taking the juice = 74,8 WAR, which puts him in a definite HOF position, top 25 all time. Post 97, another 50 WAR, which as in the case with Bonds, puts him 2nd all time.

Will be very interesting to see how the voters handle both of these players.

by backtocali on Aug 24, 2010 4:24 PM EDT up reply actions

So is Barry Bonds a sure fire Hall of Famer?

Yes, and there’s no real argument otherwise.

by Missing Barry on Aug 25, 2010 12:56 PM EDT reply actions

This is kind of beside the point

But Bonds putting off retirement has really helped his chances to be 1st ballot. At the end of 2007 it seemed as though people believed he was the only player to ever do so (that was significant at least). There was all the talk about A-Rod breaking Bonds records and doing it “clean.” Well the truth was leaked about him, Clemens, and numerous other players by now.

He’s now put himself in a much better position with the media in that they SHOULD be realizing, “wow, this guy really isn’t the only player to ever use PEDs in the game of baseball.” And hopefully, they do get it right and vote him in 1st ballot.

"There was hatred. And they had some hatred. And then there was some more hatred. And then the Giants won. Woo hoo!" - Mike Krukow

by DrDC on Aug 26, 2010 1:06 AM EDT reply actions

I forget who I asked, but someone who should know (I think it was a reporter) told me a while ago that the HoF vote isn’t dependent on an official retirement, but rather when you stopped playing. So even though he didn’t “officially” retire, for HoF purposes, his career ended in 2007 when he was forced out of the game.

by Missing Barry on Aug 26, 2010 2:39 PM EDT up reply actions