Comments on: FYI: Barry Bonds can use a baseball bat again

By: foreverchipper10

foreverchipper10 — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:15:51 +0000

I love me some Julio Franco.

By: realgone2

realgone2 — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:54:54 +0000

We could use him on my wiffle ball team

By: Kevin S.

Kevin S. — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 05:11:42 +0000

Huh, when did we find that out at all? Seems to me the only reason we found out about any juicing A-Rod did was because the government isn’t a fan of the Fourth Amendment.

By: brewcitybummer

brewcitybummer — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 03:16:16 +0000

Remember when people use to use the argument that Bonds was a HOFer before he started juicing. It seemed like that phrase disappeared as soon as we found out that A-Rod started juicing when he was a 100lb 13 year old.

I’m not taking a shot at either guy. I just didn’t like the way the sports media quietly changed the “script” in the middle of the night. In the end they’ll both get in.

By: scatterbrian

scatterbrian — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:32:56 +0000

(Costanza, not Steinbrenner)

By: vols84

vols84 — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:21:58 +0000

Didn’t Julio Franco play until he was 63? Why not Bonds?

By: scatterbrian

scatterbrian — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:12:18 +0000

George once had a plan to get both Bonds and Griffey to the Yankees without having to give up too much…

By: churchoftheperpetuallyoutraged

churchoftheperpetuallyoutraged — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:15:54 +0000

By any chance did you see the post on RAB about how between the 92-93 seasons, the Yanks were after Maddux and Bonds? And the only reason Bonds turned them down is because Stick wouldn't offer a guaranteed 6th year. Made me want to cry.

By: churchoftheperpetuallyoutraged

churchoftheperpetuallyoutraged — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:14:12 +0000

Still shocks me how he didn’t end up with like 10 MVP awards. Take ’96, put up 10.8 bWAR that year, no one was within 2.5 bWAR of him, came in 5th(!).

By: contraryguy

contraryguy — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:03:13 +0000

I can’t stand Bonds because he symbolizes the Roid Era. But if he were to come back, Emperor Bud should put his foot down and say “finish where you started” and only let him join the Pirates. Nobody else seems to want sign there, and it would liven up the dreadful bottom half of the NL Central.

By: SOBEIT

SOBEIT — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:57:47 +0000

Bonds is not returning to baseball….99.9% sure of that. The reason his lawyers went to the judge to get the exclusion order is because Bonds has many bats at his home (wall/trophy case) from past memorabilia and accomplishments. Under the previous conviction order, which is being challenged by his attorneys, Bonds could not have any “dangerous weapons” which a baseball bat is classified as…apparently. So his attorney’s got a singular exception to the ruling so that Bonds does not have to get rid of all his memorabilia. This has nothing to do with trying to make a comeback at 48 or play baseball with his kids or whatever.

If Bonds had a collection of antique guns or swords on his wall like some afficionados of that genre, they would also have to be removed or he would have to get an exception to the ruling or be guilty of failing to comply with a court mandated order.

By: thekcubrats

thekcubrats — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:38:30 +0000

boys, please, he’s gonna be 48 this year, get a grip

(he’d still out-OBP Branyan, even if he never got a hit)

By: jdd428

jdd428 — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:37:37 +0000

Sorry, but Leyland has already said Young will not be the DH. The regular defensive alignment will be Young, Jackson and Boesch in the outfield, Cabrera, Peralta, Rayburn and Fielder around the infield, Avila at catcher and the last lineup spot will go to Inge or Dirks. This will be the worst fielding team in MLB history.

By: marshmallowsnake

marshmallowsnake — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:19:57 +0000

Well, if Manny comes back…then I would not rule this out.

By: dlevalley

dlevalley — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:14:32 +0000

“Open question: if Bonds declared that he wanted to play again and would accept the league minimum, would he get signed to DH before Johnny Damon, Vlad Guerrero or any of those guys still on the market? I kind of think he would.”

I don’t think so. Bonds said he would play for the league minimum in the middle of the 2008 season. At the time, there was some speculation that he was making such a claim public so that he could build a collusion case against the league.

A related question, though, is whether Bonds would be better, at 47, than any of the remaining ‘hitters’ on the market.

The guy hit 28 home runs in 340 at bats in his last season, for a 1.045 OPS. I know if I’m a GM, I’d give his agent a ring to schedule a workout… Of course, I would have in 2008 as well.

By: Kevin S.

Kevin S. — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:10:24 +0000

I’d totally be down with the Yankees bringing Bonds in to be the long half of a DH platoon.

By: imaduffer

imaduffer — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:51:19 +0000

I’m still confused, do you use the Clear during the week and the Cream on the weekend or do you use the Clear for day games and the Cream for night games?

By: cur68

cur68 — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:50:07 +0000

Get him in the right park (Arlington, say) and that OPS goes north by a good bit, I’m guessing.

By: cur68

cur68 — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:48:33 +0000

Fair enough, I guess.The hoopla would be nutty. However, I can think of a couple 3 teams that could use the press and the fans this would attract. Mind you, if it was The Feesh, they’d screw it up by demanding he bunt more and playing him only in away games…then they’d drag him through arbitration for all the balls he loses in the outfield seats…

By: thefalcon123

thefalcon123 — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:45:38 +0000

2001-2004 Barry Bonds was the equivalent of me and my friends at age 9 playing backyard baseball with my 16-year-old brother. MLB should have instituted similar rules, in that Bonds only got 1 strike, took 10 balls to draw a walk and only balls that left the stadium would be counted as home runs.

He still would have won at least a couple of MVPs in those years.

By: Louie Schuth

Louie Schuth — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:42:03 +0000

I believe Bonds will get crazy press if he comes back. All of his trial stuff has to be taken into consideration. It’s just my own speculation, but if I were a team, I wouldn’t touch him with a 10 foot pole.

By: thefalcon123

thefalcon123 — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:40:59 +0000

Fun with complete nonsense, based on no logic or hard data projections in which I pull a number out of my ass and go with it:

If Barry would have suffered a 5% annual decrease in OBP and Slugging since 2007….

….his .807 OPS in 2012 would be higher than Damon, Manny and Vlad.

Barry Bonds was pretty good.

By: cmutimmah

cmutimmah — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:39:51 +0000

Inge won’t DH. Raburn will play LF and Delmon will DH, Cabrera will play 1B when Fielder DHs, and Inge will play 3B when Cabrera DHs. There won’t be lower than a .275 hitter with at least 20 HR power DHing this season… this isn’t the Mariners with Adam Kennedy DHing…

By: cur68

cur68 — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:39:11 +0000

…after first falling on the buyers foot & breaking some of his toes.

By: cur68

cur68 — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:37:30 +0000

Louie, ya lost me with this one. How does one manage to liken Bonds’ press to Favre’s? Aside from being aging jocks with injury histories, they are unalike in nearly every possible way, and especially so in regards to the press they got as players. Such an equivalence either serves to severely diminish Favre’s press coverage or radically elevate Bonds’ and doesn’t reflect reality in any recognizable way, IMO.

By: mdpickles

mdpickles — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:33:45 +0000

I know the guy is a huge jerk, but Bond’s swing ranks up there with Tigers golf shots and Michael Jordan jumpers and jams.

By: braddavery

braddavery — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:30:37 +0000

He probably just wants to be able to take batting practice (he still loves the game of baseball, I’m sure) and play ball with his kids. No story here at all.

By: Louie Schuth

Louie Schuth — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:21:53 +0000

I’d take Raul Ibañez and his .289 OBP over Bonds and his Favre like press any day.

By: scatterbrian

scatterbrian — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:18:59 +0000

Vlad turns 37 tomorrow, Damon’s 38, and Manny will be 40 in May. Barry turns 48 in July. Seems like a huge stretch…

That said, if any team looks at Barry, I imagine it would be Oakland.

By: itsacurse

itsacurse — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:16:10 +0000

He’s still a jerk!