Do We Have It All Wrong?
An interesting take on Barry Bonds that those not in the Bay Area probably shrug off in disbelief. This is from Baseball Prospectus, and is clearly food for thought. A snippet, then the rest after the break:
The Giants are free to run their team however they care to, but we shouldn’t persist in this fiction that Bonds is what stands in the way of the rebuilding process. The Giants, as effective as they’ve been in drafting and developing pitchers, have had little success with hitters. The Dan Ortmeiers populating the outfield and the lineup aren’t prospects, they’re MLB fourth and fifth outfielders who are being evaluated generously by virtue of not being Barry Bonds. The Giants have no prospects being blocked by Bonds, and if they did, they’d actually be being blocked by Dave Roberts and Randy Winn. As we saw with Alex Rodriguez and the Rangers, the team, the press and the public is focusing far too much on the best player with the biggest contract, rather than the money being wasted on the ridiculous contracts for inferior players throughout the rest of the roster. Bonds is worth the money; Pedro Feliz, Ray Durham and Barry Zito, not so much.
End of an Era
On Friday, the Giants held a press conference to announce that their sub-.500 team, with its mediocre offense, was going to play the 2008 season without its best hitter. From the press reaction, you would think that they’d announced that the AT&T Park press box was going to expand the free buffet.
The naked glee generated by this decision was embarrassing, with the San Francisco writers falling all over themselves to praise McGowan for cutting loose the best player in franchise history, the most productive player on the current roster, the best hitter in the National League and, dollar for dollar, one of the better values in the game. The press pool showed no recognition that Bonds remains an amazing player and an asset to any team, even one far from contention. Yes, he requires special treatment; is it some kind of news to everyone that the very best people in any line of work tend to get perks that separate themselves from their peers?
Of course, the story about Bonds, for that crowd, has never been about performance. It’s always been about Bonds’ disdain for the media, his refusal to provide access and quotes and make the media’s job easier. However, to allow that one aspect of the man to become the driving force for years of negative coverage strikes me, has always struck me, as just as unprofessional as his approach.
The disdain for Barry Bonds among the local media is disproportionate to anything the man has ever done, amounting to a collective tantrum that has poisoned the man’s reputation among baseball fans nationwide, Bonds’ relationship to the media, and the media’s treatment of him because of it, queers the entire discussion about Bonds’ accomplishments and whether they may have been influenced by extra-legal actions on his part. He’s never been evaluated fairly because the world has been told he’s a bad guy, and we don’t like bad guys. It’s a lesson in how the media can make or break men of any hue.
Well, bad guys can rake, too, and whatever you think of Bonds as a person, Bonds as a baseball player has been a force of nature. Even at 43, he’s the best hitter in the NL on a per-AB basis, and second only to Alex Rodriguez in the majors. His defense, despite appearances, is just a bit below average, and his baserunning costs his team a few runs a season and isn’t among the worst in the game. He remains a championship-caliber baseball player who will be the best player on the market this winter, and almost certainly the lowest-risk one. Torii Hunter for five years and $75 million? Andruw Jones for five years and $70 million? Kyle Freaking Lohse for Gil Meche’s deal? Or Barry Bonds for one year at $18 million? Which of those sounds like the most sensible deal to you?
The Giants are free to run their team however they care to, but we shouldn’t persist in this fiction that Bonds is what stands in the way of the rebuilding process. The Giants, as effective as they’ve been in drafting and developing pitchers, have had little success with hitters. The Dan Ortmeiers populating the outfield and the lineup aren’t prospects, they’re MLB fourth and fifth outfielders who are being evaluated generously by virtue of not being Barry Bonds. The Giants have no prospects being blocked by Bonds, and if they did, they’d actually be being blocked by Dave Roberts and Randy Winn. As we saw with Alex Rodriguez and the Rangers, the team, the press and the public is focusing far too much on the best player with the biggest contract, rather than the money being wasted on the ridiculous contracts for inferior players throughout the rest of the roster. Bonds is worth the money; Pedro Feliz, Ray Durham and Barry Zito, not so much.
Bonds is a distraction, the people who have covered him will tell you. Are wins distracting? Are pennant races? Playoff appearances? Persistent in the coverage of Barry Bonds is this notion that evaluates his clubhouse persona, the evaluation of him as a teammate, as being just as important as what he does on the field. MLB isn’t Little League, and it isn’t your rec softball league; what a guy does between the white lines is infinitely more important than what he does anywhere else.
Steroids? We’re no closer to legal action against him than we were the day he testified in the BALCO case. Check back with me when the protests over Rafael Betancourt helping the Indians to a division title reach a fevered pitch, or when the multi-year deals awarded to Guillermo Mota and Ryan Franklin are voided due to their past—and proven—steroid use.
There’s not a team in baseball that he wouldn’t add value to. When he’s once again among the league leaders in OBP and OPS, distanced from the poisonous San Francisco media, it will be interesting to see how his performance is covered.