OT: Bonds & Clemens Miss HOF

[Cavsfansince84]

Guaranteed there are players in the HoF right now that have done roids. Bonds is IMO the best player to ever play the game, even without roids he would have been an all-time great.

I think you could argue that had Bonds retired after the 99 season at the age of 34 just before he roided up he would be widely considered a top 25 player of all time.

[makubesu]

I can only assume that the people complaining about the “hypocrisy” of letting Ortiz in but not Bonds are too young to have watched them in real time, because that’s the only way I can excuse such an ignorant take. Early in Ortiz’s career his name appeared on a leaked list which was related to a league wide survey. After that he went on to have a HoF career with no positive tests. Bonds on the other hand is and was the face of the steroid era. There is zero doubt that he was juicing and this fact dominates his prime.

Now I am sympathetic to the point that Bonds should be in based on his pre-PED extraordinary career. Maybe we should let them all in even. But there is just no comparison between these guys, Bonds is the guy dancing in front of the camera while he robs a bank, while Ortiz was listed as a “person of interest” by the cops.

[RaoulDuke79]

[andyhop]

Early in Ortiz’s career his name appeared on a leaked list which was related to a league wide survey.

Manfred also basically cleared him ,without explicitly doing so as that would break the agreement for the testing, in 2016 indicating that his failed test was a false positive that further testing cleared and not a true positive test.

[Lalouie]

we wouldn't be having this problem is everybody and his grandma weren't already in the hof

once you loosen restrictions everything spirals downward

[dlts20]

Bonds was a hof before the juice and I always felt bad for him because it seemed like he didn't want to but then you had all of these inferior guys pass him or get on his level clearly due to juicing so he felt like he had no choice

[Johnny Bball]

Yeah, this is disgusting. That is a lot of very salty baseball writers. And they voted in Ortiz who was busted for PEDs in the early 2000s. And please, let’s not pretend that it isn’t just easier to hide doing steroids than it used to be. Anyone thinking nobody in baseball today is juiced is kidding themselves.

Roger Clemens was arguably one of the the best pitchers of the era and bonds was a world class athlete.

[Knightfall]

barry bonds on steroids was the greatest hitter in the history of baseball.

A healthy Ken Griffey Jr would be in the conversation for that. And he wasn't juicing.

[heezyo2o]

we wouldn't be having this problem is everybody and his grandma weren't already in the hof

once you loosed restrictions everything spirals downward

Baseball HOF is tough to get into. Very different from the basketball HOF

[MrPerfect1]

Guaranteed there are players in the HoF right now that have done roids. Bonds is IMO the best player to ever play the game, even without roids he would have been an all-time great.

Ruth was greater. Bonds wasn't also a HOF caliber pitcher.

[ty 4191]

This is the best article I've ever seen on Bonds/Clemens and PEDs. Everyone here ought to read it, and give it some serious though/contemplation:

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/32806209/barry-bonds-roger-clemens-far-less-great-subtract-ped-factor

I think that Bonds, given no ties to PEDs before 1999, with these numbers? 500 HR, 500 SB, ~128 WAR, ~150 OPS+, 8 Gold Gloves, statistically a top 10 defensive left fielder in MLB history, and all, put up across a 20 year career. Slam dunk, first ballot Hall of Famer.

I said at www.baseball-fever.com (my old stomping grounds) all the way back in 2003, that Bonds would have been a top 15 player all time WITHOUT PEDs, assuming a normal decline. I think that still holds true.  

I understand the 35%+ of the BBWAA's reasoning. In an incredibly bogus and illicit fashion, Bonds plodded his way to the most hallowed, cherished record in all of sports. He also toppled several of Babe Ruth's all time/sanctified records in the process. 

As Bob Costas said yesterday (paraphrasing):

"Especially with the near recent Sainthood or Hank Aaron since his passing, people are not going to let (what Bonds did), go. Even though it doesn't make sense intellectually, viscerally, I can totally see how it makes total sense, to so many experts, to keep him out."

[ty 4191]

A healthy Ken Griffey Jr would be in the conversation for that. And he wasn't juicing.

Griffey had a 56% chance to break Henry Aaron's 755 home runs after the 2000 season, using this: https://www.espn.com/mlb/stats/billjames/_/age/29/careertotal/438/yearone/48/yeartwo/56/yearthree/56/goal/756

That said, Griffey was never going to be the greatest hitter of all time. Hell, he wasn't even the best hitter/player of the 1990's, and wasn't even close. Ironically, Barry Bonds was:

Bonds 1990-1999:
-OPS+: 179
-HR: 361
-Stolen Bases: 343
-Wins Above Replacement (WAR): 80.2 (that ALONE is HOF level)
-3 MVP's (5 top 5 MVP finishes)
-8 Gold Gloves in left field

Ken Griffey, Jr. 1990-1999:
-OPS+: 152
-HR: 383
-Stolen Bases: 151
-WAR: 67.5
-1 MVP (5 top 5 MVP finishes)
-10 Gold Gloves in center field

Griffey was killer in the playoffs: .305/.382/.644 with 6 HR in 15 games. But still, that's only 15 games. He never made the World Series.

[Cactus Jack]

A healthy Ken Griffey Jr would be in the conversation for that. And he wasn't juicing.

Griffey had a 56% chance to break Henry Aaron's 755 home runs after the 2000 season, using this: https://www.espn.com/mlb/stats/billjames/_/age/29/careertotal/438/yearone/48/yeartwo/56/yearthree/56/goal/756

That said, Griffey was never going to be the greatest hitter of all time. Hell, he wasn't even the best hitter/player of the 1990's, and wasn't even close. Ironically, Barry Bonds was:

Bonds 1990-1999:
-OPS+: 179
-HR: 361
-Stolen Bases: 343
-Wins Above Replacement (WAR): 80.2 (that ALONE is HOF level)
-3 MVP's (5 top 5 MVP finishes)
-8 Gold Gloves in left field

Ken Griffey, Jr. 1990-1999:
-OPS+: 152
-HR: 383
-Stolen Bases: 151
-WAR: 67.5
-1 MVP (5 top 5 MVP finishes)
-10 Gold Gloves in center field

Griffey was killer in the playoffs: .305/.382/.644 with 6 HR in 15 games. But still, that's only 15 games. He never made the World Series.

Everyone focuses on offensive production. Which is understandable. But Griff's defense as the premier CF puts him in the conversation for goat. I've never seen a better two way player. Was he the best player of the 90's? Yes, he was.

[shakes0]

Absolutely not. They wouldn’t have been nearly as good if they weren’t juicing. And they took away from the guys who didn’t cheat. I grew up a White Sox fan and we had Frank Thomas who was completely clean and still put up amazing numbers. I always wondered just how much higher he would’ve been in the record books if he didn’t have to compete vs juicers.

Screw Bonds and Clemens. they were good enough to still be great if they didn’t cheat.

If Frank Thomas didn't get injured at the worst times of his career he could've easily topped 600 home runs. The fact that he voluntarily submitted urine samples to show that he was clean makes it even better. He was known to be vocal about his opposition to steroids as well where he had advocated for drug testing as early as 1995 and was the only player who agreed to be interviewed for the Mitchell report in 2007.

It's sad that Bonds didn't take Ken Griffey Jr.'s advice in ignoring the hoopla and to just let his play do the talking. If he had laid off the steroids he could've been the 1st ever player to have 500hrs, 500sbs and potentially 3,000 hits not to mention all the other accolades he accomplished, but greed got to him in the end. Griffey was truly special and it's a shame injuries ruined him, but still impressed he got 600hrs nonetheless.

As a Blue Jays fan I wish Roy Halladay(RIP) could've had a Blue Jays cap on his HOF plaque, but still happy he got in regardless. Hate Alomar though especially for what he did(sexually harassed an 18 y/o staffer in 2014) which resulted in the Blue Jays+MLB severing ties with him.

this is a great post. Thanks for saying it way more eloquently and with more details than I did.

And I still hate your Jays for what they did to us in the 1993 playoffs

[shakes0]

tragic. Bonds is the greatest hitter the game has ever seen. but then again the Hall's credibility isn't great in the first place.

He wasn’t even the best hitter of his era. Frank Thomas was a better hitter and when comparing the two you absolutely have to put an asterisk next to Bonds since Frank was 100% clean.

Frank doesn't pass the "100% clean" eye test for me, and I loved him as a player. I'd be shocked if he wasn't juicing too.

But anyway, Bonds was the better player, and it isn't close.

Bonds:
Career fWAR: 164.4
Career wRC+: 173

Thomas:
Career fWAR: 72.1
Career wRC+: 154

Frank Thomas had an all-time great career. Bonds had a case for GOAT.

you lose ALL credibility when you say Frank doesn't pass the 100% clean test in your eyes. If there was a single player in all of baseball who was clean it was Frank Thomas. Go read Slicebread's post, he gives a great recap of how Frank was the only anti-steroid player in the entire league for a long time.

Bonds was not better player. Bonds was a better juicer. Frank was a better hitter.

[dhsilv2]

I can only assume that the people complaining about the “hypocrisy” of letting Ortiz in but not Bonds are too young to have watched them in real time, because that’s the only way I can excuse such an ignorant take. Early in Ortiz’s career his name appeared on a leaked list which was related to a league wide survey. After that he went on to have a HoF career with no positive tests. Bonds on the other hand is and was the face of the steroid era. There is zero doubt that he was juicing and this fact dominates his prime.

Now I am sympathetic to the point that Bonds should be in based on his pre-PED extraordinary career. Maybe we should let them all in even. But there is just no comparison between these guys, Bonds is the guy dancing in front of the camera while he robs a bank, while Ortiz was listed as a “person of interest” by the cops.

There is not a one in a billion chance that Ortiz wasn't using something. He and Sammy Sosa are the two guys I think most benefited from steroid use in those days. Just go look at his age 40 numbers...that might have been his best year. Nobody has a year like that at 40 naturally.

As for the face of the steroid era, it was Sosa and McGuire. Arod and Bonds were the "villains" from the trash media of that era because they just didn't like those two guys.

[shakes0]

tragic. Bonds is the greatest hitter the game has ever seen. but then again the Hall's credibility isn't great in the first place.

He wasn’t even the best hitter of his era. Frank Thomas was a better hitter and when comparing the two you absolutely have to put an asterisk next to Bonds since Frank was 100% clean.

You're argument is conditional on the basis of your fandom. Pre-juice Bonds and Frank Thomas had comparable numbers, so to flat-out say Bonds wasn't even the best hitter in his era, whilst adding an asterisk to his juicing era shows an argument in bad faith.

all of these guys did something for a competitive advantage. Whether they were caught or not. Never mind the fact that Thomas was just a bigger man. he had that advantage.

you said about 5 things and each one of them was more nonsensical than the one before. Steroids were an unfair advantage, but Frank had an unfair advantage as well because he was big?

You even said it yourself, they had comparable numbers. But one did it with steroids and one did it clean. Not hard to see who is the better player in that scenario.

[ty 4191]

Everyone focuses on offensive production. Which is understandable. But Griff's defense as the premier CF puts him in the conversation for goat. I've never seen a better two way player. Was he the best player of the 90's? Yes, he was.

3 ♦ Barry Bonds (1986–2000, 2143 G, 494 1405 .289)

Certainly the most un-appreciated superstar of my lifetime, Bonds, Biggio, and Henderson the three most unappreciated. Probably the second- or third-best hitter among the 100 listed left fielders (behind Williams and perhaps Musial), probably the third-best baserunner (behind Henderson and Raines), probably the best defensive left fielder. Griffey has always been more popular, but Bonds has been a far, far greater player. The ten best players of the 1990s:

1. Barry Bonds
2. Craig Biggio
3. Frank Thomas
4. Ken Griffey Jr.
5. Jeff Bagwell
6. Rafael Palmeiro
7. Barry Larkin
8. Roberto Alomar
9. Mark McGwire
10. Greg Maddux

The number two man, Biggio, is closer in value to the number 10 man than he is to Bonds.

James, Bill. The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (p. 1365). Free Press. Kindle Edition.

[azcatz11]

He wasn’t even the best hitter of his era. Frank Thomas was a better hitter and when comparing the two you absolutely have to put an asterisk next to Bonds since Frank was 100% clean.

Frank doesn't pass the "100% clean" eye test for me, and I loved him as a player. I'd be shocked if he wasn't juicing too.

But anyway, Bonds was the better player, and it isn't close.

Bonds:
Career fWAR: 164.4
Career wRC+: 173

Thomas:
Career fWAR: 72.1
Career wRC+: 154

Frank Thomas had an all-time great career. Bonds had a case for GOAT.

you lose ALL credibility when you say Frank doesn't pass the 100% clean test in your eyes. If there was a single player in all of baseball who was clean it was Frank Thomas. Go read Slicebread's post, he gives a great recap of how Frank was the only anti-steroid player in the entire league for a long time.

Bonds was not better player. Bonds was a better juicer. Frank was a better hitter.

Who knows though. I personally can’t say with 100% certainty that Griffey wasn’t juicing. It’s just an impossible statement to make

[dhsilv2]

barry bonds on steroids was the greatest hitter in the history of baseball.

A healthy Ken Griffey Jr would be in the conversation for that. And he wasn't juicing.

No he wasn't. Well no he wasn't a better hitter. No clue on if he did or didn't do steroids. He seemed too lazy to have done them, but that's another topic.

Jr's best slugging percentage was .674. Bond's peaked at .863. Best OPS was 1.076 vs 1.422

Bonds has 8 season as good or better than Jr's best OPS.

OPS + bonds has 11 seasons as good or better than Jr's best season.