Barry Bonds & Roger Clemens Should Be In the BBHOF.
Even if you subtract the years they were identified as being steroid users, they still put up numbers deserving of admission.
I am a big sports fan, but we typically don’t talk about it here at Letters From The Wasteland. It’s not the typical milieu of this outpost, but today we’re going to.
Baseball Hall of Fame voting concluded the other day with Joe Mauer being inducted into the hall. Now, Mauer was a catcher, and there’s always a handicap applied to them because of the demands of the position physically. Fine. In this instance, though, when you put Bonds’ pre-juiced numbers up against Mauer, Bonds still largely comes out on top despite three less seasons played.
Barry Bonds (1986-1998)
.289 batting average, 1917 hits, 411 HR, 1216 RBI, 403 doubles, 63 triples, 445 SB, 1357 BB, 289 IBB, 1050 SO, 1364 runs in 6621 at-bats.
3 MVP Awards, 1986 NL Rookie of the Year, 8 All-Star Games, 7 Golden Gloves, 6 Silver Sluggers
Joe Mauer (2004-2018)
.306 batting average, 2123 hits, 143 HR, 923 RBI, 428 doubles, 30 triples, 52 SB, 939 BB, 145 IBB, 1034 SO, 1018 runs in 6930 at-bats.
1 MVP, 6 All-Star Games, 3 Golden Gloves, 4 Silver Sluggers
1996 is largely considered to be the start of the “juiced ball” era in Major League Baseball, and it shows in the numbers of total home runs hit by all players. And yet, Bonds’ best year for home runs was 1993, when he hit 46 of them, along with 38 doubles, 123 RBIs, stole 29 bases, and hit for a .336 average. In that vein, you cannot equate his increased production with cheating or juiced balls. He was already producing at outstanding levels.
Mauer, meanwhile, played during record years of home runs being hit, and did not come close to the production that Bonds did. He didn’t even draw as many walks as Bonds, which speaks to the level of patience Barry Bonds had as a batter. It’s not often you find a batter with hundreds of walks more than strikeouts. Bonds’ lower number of hits over this point in time can be traced to the fact that a full 20% of his plate appearances ended in walks, even after he started using steroids. He consistently walked 20% of the time for his entire career. There’s no mistaking that Joe Mauer was an excellent player. I’m not saying that he shouldn’t be in the Hall of Fame, but simply that Barry Bonds, pre-steroid, did more than enough to justify his induction, and he’s being made an example out of for something that a whole lot of players were guilty of.
Turning to Roger Clemens, the closest comparison is Roy Halladay, inducted in 2019. He was the last pitcher inducted, so I’m using him as a comparison point, and again, Clemens pre-steroid use easily matches or outshines Halladay’s excellent career.
Roger Clemens (1984-1997):
213-118 record, 3.09 ERA, 109 complete games, 41 shutouts, 2882 strikeouts, 968 total walks.
1984 AL Rookie of the Year, 4 Cy Young Awards, 6 All-Star games, 1 MVP
Roy Halladay (1998-2013):
203-105 record, 3.38 ERA, 67 complete games, 20 shutouts, 2117 strikeouts, 620 total walks.
2 Cy Young Awards, 8 All-Star games
Again, none of this is disrespect to Halladay. I’m not arguing he shouldn’t be in the Hall, but if you induct him, you can induct Clemens on the strength of his record before he touched a steroid. The same for Pete Rose. For God’s sake, you’re not inducting him based on his managerial stint. The punishment just makes the Hall look political, and it should be based on achievement. Don’t honor players for any season where they have been reasonably proven to be using PED’s (performance-enhancing drugs), that’s fair. Keeping Bonds and Clemens out for what they did in latter seasons when their pre-PED seasons exceed the achievements of other players that have been selected is gross, it’s wrong, and it needs to change.
Oh, yeah, induct Pete Rose already. He’s still the greatest hitter of all time. He doesn’t have to be a saint.