Give Bonds and McGwire some respect

[fenrir]

mcgwire is about the equivalent to rob deer if you take away his roids. he's the prime example of what the juiced era values...one dimensional guys like mcgwire who can't do much outside of hitting homeruns and taking walks. his career ba is .263 for godsakes...and he was juicing since oakland.

as to bonds...as much as i despise the man i'll admit he was a great allaround player before balco...but as he continues to lie about his roid use and play the race card when it's convenient for him...it makes him even more deplorable.

[digglahhh]

mcgwire is about the equivalent to rob deer if you take away his roids. he's the prime example of what the juiced era values...one dimensional guys like mcgwire who can't do much outside of hitting homeruns and taking walks. his career ba is .263 for godsakes...and he was juicing since oakland.

as to bonds...as much as i despise the man i'll admit he was a great allaround player before balco...but as he continues to lie about his roid use and play the race card when it's convenient for him...it makes him even more deplorable.

Though you call him one-dimensional, you admit that he is really two-dimensional. Step one is to admit that.

Step two is to realize that the two aspects of the game he excelled at, hitting for power and not making outs (regardless of how the safe trips are distributed between hits and walks) are the two most valuable skills any player can possess.

Step three is recognizing that he was historically good at the two most important aspects of the game.

[SamtheBravesFan]

A misspelling of McGwire's name and most of a sentence in captial letters. Not exactly a good way to present an argument. Besides, I believe that Ruth was such a great hitter that he would have hit home runs off of people of any color and race. Assuming that he would have gotten less home runs is folly.

EDIT: Of course, I realize that others have said that too.

[Pere]

What evidence do you have that Mark McGuire, Executive Vice President of Business Operations for the Chicago Cubs, has ever used steroids?! This is a very serious accusation.

[Nutriaitch]

Step two is to realize that the two aspects of the game he excelled at, hitting for power and not making outs (regardless of how the safe trips are distributed between hits and walks) are the two most valuable skills any player can possess.

Only 4 times in his entire career did he finish in the top 10 in OBP. So he wasn't even one of the best guys of his era at "not getting" out, let alone good enough at it to be considered that he excelled at it.

[Sultan_1895-1948]

Even somebody liike Sultan, who is rather upfront about his negative opinions about Bonds only really makes those statements as they relate to Bonds being a top 5 player or so. I think he would admit that a natural Bonds would warrant placement in say, the top 20 or so.

Whaddup Diggs. I give Bonds a rather generous natural decline that of course assumes good health, so I suspect he'd fall somewhere in the 12 range for me naturally.

[Murderers Row]

Only 4 times in his entire career did he finish in the top 10 in OBP. So he wasn't even one of the best guys of his era at "not getting" out, let alone good enough at it to be considered that he excelled at it.

He was still good at not getting out.

[Nutriaitch]

He was still good at not getting out.

Good? yes
Great? no

Good players don't get into the HOF

[Sultan_1895-1948]

For example, SHOULD WE PUT AN ASTERISK BESIDE BABE RUTHS NAME BECAUSE HE NEVER HAD TO FACE A BLACK OR HISPANIC PLAYER?

This is pretty silly. Shoeless covered the main point. Everyone faced the same circumstances back then. There was no choice, unlike with steroids. Actually, there was a choice for Ruth, and he did choose to face the best that the Negro Leagues had to offer. Guess what. He was still the same Ruth. For the record though, you said no hispanic players. There were some back then. Acosta and Palmero are two Cuban pitchers that come to mind. In fact, they actually started a game against eachother in 1921. Actually, just looked up on baseball reference. From 1914 to 1935, 17 different hispanic players made their debuts, which isn't a lot at all....but to say NO HISPANIC players is just false.

[Sultan_1895-1948]

Good? yes
Great? no

Good players don't get into the HOF

Cal Ripken Jr says hello

[Murderers Row]

And Steroids or not, Bonds is top 10. Without a penalty he is top 3. With one, he is probably 7-10. Up until 1999 he had 64 batting wins. I used batting wins because each event ( BB, 1B, 2B, SB, CS etc) are all weighted individually, is adjusted for run enviornment, and for league average. Just for comparison sake Foxx had 72 in his entire career And Williams had 72 in his first 13 seasons, without giving credit for the war. So needless to say Bonds was an ELITE hitter before he used steroids. If we say Bonds averages 6 wins per year from 00-03 that puts him at 88 wins. From 04-05 I'll say he'll average 3 wins and that puts him at 94 wins. Now of course this is a really rough estimate, but I believe it is fair.

Gehrig had 88 wins.
Mantle had 87 wins.
Hornsby had 85 wins w/o stolen bases included because of lacking CS, but I would assume his CS would hurt him by looking at what is available.

You had his great offense with great defense in LF in his peak, and slowly falling off, you have yourself a top 10 player

*Note The batting wins were done WITHOUT PADJ

[Nutriaitch]

Cal Ripken Jr says hello

I have no intelligent arguement for this one, other than Cal was better defensively.

[Murderers Row]

Good? yes
Great? no

Good players don't get into the HOF

Ok. He was great...

[Sultan_1895-1948]

So needless to say Bonds was an ELITE hitter before he used steroids.

I disagree. He might have been an elite level offensive player which includes everything, but not an elite hitter. No way, no how.

[Murderers Row]

I disagree. He might have been an elite level offensive player which includes everything, but not an elite hitter. No way, no how.

Yes he was. From 1990-1998 he was in the top 3 in OPS+ every year, and lead the league four times. He was also in the top three in batting wins every year and lead his league 5 times and thats excluding his SB.