ESPN says Tampa Bay is interested in Barry Bonds. He would have to come in between 5 and 10 million for salary. They feel that the release of so many players using drugs has diminished the black mark on Barry somewhat. They want him to become a team member and forgo the special treatment he has been receiving.
Could he put spectators in the seats. ? Would he be booed ? Is it a good idea. ?
Is he likely to accept being another team mate.?
I would guess we would be a bit more expensive then that. Maybe $10-$15 million
He would help them win baseball games. That would, in turn, increase attendance.
Probably, but you have to buy a ticket to boo.
If the object is to compete with the Red Sox and Yankees, then an unqualified yes.
Sure, why not. I don’t recall him having any problems being accepted as a teammate in the past.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/inside_game/magazine/life_of_reilly/news/2001/08/21/life_of_reilly/
This is what they want to avoid.
I hope he ends his career playing in front of 5 000 fans in that God-forsaken stadium.
I had hoped that nobody would sign him and he’d have to retire unwanted, but this might be even better. Let him DH for a 75-win Tampa team in a cavernous, mostly empty ballpark. It’d be like sending him to Siberia.
I love what ESPN said about this:
TAMPA BAY RAYS
Pro: Could do great juice promotions at Tropicana Field.
Will he be booed? Yes, because everyone who goes to a Rays game is a fan of the opposing team.
Agree, and it would be funny to see if he would accept a role on a team going nowhere when he has always said he cares about winning championships over individual awards. I see him attracting fans at the beginning but after one go around with each team and a month or two at home the novelty would wear off. And in an empty home stadium the personal insults from fans are more easily heard- will he be able to take such abuse? 
A team going nowhere? Tampa has more young talent, then anyone in the game and it isn’t really that close. They might not get there in the next year, even with Bonds, but they are certainly on the rise.
Well, if you mean “on the rise” in the sense that they might not be as bad as they’ve been, and probably won’t be as bad as Baltimore, then OK, we are agreed. But that “young talent” is not necessarily “good talent,” or more properly, it’s not elite talent. The hitting talent is good, but Upton, Crawford, and Evan Longoria just aren’t going to even approach producing at the plate anywhere near the level of, say, Ortiz-Ramirez-Youkilis. Or Rodriguez-Jeter-Posada. And the Rays pitching staff is just basically Scott Kazmir and then pray.
If the Rays were playing in, I don’t know, the NL Central, they’d be an interesting team. But in the AL East, in order to make the playoffs, they will have to finish ahead of either the Yankees or the Red Sox, and very possibly both. I don’t think it matters how good, say, Longoria turns out to be; the chances of that happening are virtually zero.
So, yeah, they’re going nowhere - their ceiling is third place and a .500 record, and even that will require some breaks. They may be a serious wild card contender in 2010, if they can keep that talent together, but by then Bonds will have either retired or been staked through the heart by an itinerant Slayer, so it won’t matter to him.
And chances are if any of that young talent pans out, they’ll get signed up by a bigger club.
Story,
First off, to me this is much more interesting discussion then whether Bonds should be exiled to the moon. The Rays don’t just have young talent, they don’t just have good young talent, they have early 90’s Braves level of talent. Furthermore, they have the best hedge against prospects failing, tons of depth. Sure things might not work as well as planned, but the Rays are in as good a postiion as anyone for the future. However, since the Bonds question focuses on 2008, lets look at the short term. Here is my opening day lineup
Crawford
Upton
Bonds
Pena
Longoria
Floyd/Baldelli/Gomes
Iwamura
Bartlett
Navarro
That is a good lineup. Two guys at the top who get on base, have some pop and can fly. A number 3 hitter who still better then anyone else at not making outs. Pena and Longoria are bit more of wild cards, but ones with good odds, and obviously the Rays will need to catch some breaks here. The bottom 4 hitters should all be around league average for there position, perhaps a little below. While it isn’t the Red Sox or Yankees, I would take this lineup over say Toronto.
There pitching is also significantly more then just Kazmir. Shields established himself last year as an adequete number 2. Garza dominated the minors in 2006, and has been at least okay in the majors thus far. And again, they have 3 more potential aces on the way. They are young and deep, perhaps even more so then their hitting. Most importantly, they have moved Upton to a position he can play and have acquired a shortstop who can field. There ERA’s will go down across the board just based on significantly better defense.
Pecota projects them as 82-80 right now without Bonds, so I would say there upside is a bit better then that. The Red Sox and Yanks are both teams that are filled with old players and very young ones and there is plenty of risk there. Ortiz and Manny aren’t the type of players that age well, and Youk isn’t really any better then league average at his position. That said, I don’t expect the Rays to make a run at either of those two this year. However, I believe that it is still worth for them if they can make run at 85 wins. It changes their image from a laughing stock (see posts in this thread thus far), to an up and coming contender. With that will come more prestige, money, and everything else. The Tigers are a good example of what can happen if you take the first step to respectability.
Hawk -
Damn you for posting an interesting discussion topic less than twenty minutes before I have to leave work. Gah!
Off to baseball-reference.com.
OK, short version response upcoming:
The problem for a team like the Rays is not so much hedging against prospects failing; it’s hedging against prospects up and leaving when they start getting good. Are you really so confident that Carl Crawford will be playing left field in Tampa Bay, and not in the Bronx, by the time 2008 ends? Also, the depth of the position player talent is a little less, now. They’ve traded away Delmon Young and Elijah Dukes, remember.
Agreed. Although I wouldn’t under-rate Toronto’s lineup. But the problem is that in order to make the playoffs, you don’t have to get past Toronto. You have to get past Boston and New York, and the lineup above doesn’t even come close to competing with either of those lineups.
Again, if .500 is your goal, then Shields is an adequate number 2. But he’s not as good as the number 2 starters for Toronto, New York, or Boston. Also, his workload increased by 100 innings from 2006 to 2007, so a decline from last year - when he was basically average as a #2 - might well be in the cards.
Nearly every team in the majors has “3 potential aces on the way.” The Red Sox will roll out Jon Lester and Clay Bucholtz this year, and both will likely outperform every pitcher on the Rays other than Kazmir. The Yankees have Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy, and Joba Chamberlain - all very young, and all proven contributors at the major league level - and that’s just their first wave. And we haven’t even mentioned the bullpens, where both Boston and New York absolutely obliterate the Rays across the board.
There’s not really any more reason to expect that Evan Longoria will be a star than to expect that Jacoby Ellsbury will continue to improve. Both Boston and Tampa (and New York) will be relying on young players to supplement their veterans; the difference is that Boston and New York have much better veterans.
Sure! But they’ve already taken the first step to respectability. My point is, if they try to rush it this year, by signing Barry Bonds to a big contract and stuffing him at the DH spot, it will hurt them in the medium term. They’ll feel pressured to win, so one or two of those prospects you like so much will be gone at the deadline for, like, Steve Trachsel, in a vain and doomed attempt to make the playoffs. Bonds on the payroll may impede the team’s ability to sign a player that will be useful when they are ready to contend with the big boys. There’s just no reason to sign him now; he won’t make them good enough this year, and he’ll hurt them in the future.
I don’t think the word short means what you think it means.
Well, Carl Crawford is under contract cheaply for a while, so yes. But I understand your larger point. However, Tampa Bay hasn’t really dealt with this situation before. They have never been in position that they had young players worth keeping. So I can’t really predict what they will do when the situation occurs. Teams are flush with money, so in most cases, teams are keeping their young talent. Just look at the free agent class of the last couple years.
Eh. I don’t think Toronto’s lineup is particularly good, but that is a whole different argument 
Red Sox and Yankees both have elite lineups, but they are both filled with people on the wrong age of 30. And a number of players on both rosters (Damon, Matsui, Ramirez, Varitek etc.) have already shown signs of slowing down. Collapses can occur quickly, and the Rays should be in a position to take advantage.
Two might be pushing it, but he had an ERA under 4.00 in the AL east, with an awful defense, that is better then average.
Teams may say they do, but they don’t. The mets, for example, have none. Not all prospects are created equal. Keith Law has 3 Devil Ray pitchers ranked in his top ten pitching prospects of the game. I can grab any other list and the results would be similar. Does that mean that all three will become stars? Of course not. However, given a conservative estimate lets say one becomes quality 2, and one a mid rotation starter. Suddenly, if Garza continues to improve, then Shields could potentially be the #5.
Yes, the Red Sox have a couple good young hitters. Yankees do as well. But the core of there lineups are over 30. The core of the Rays lineup is much much younger.
Signing Bonds doesn’t mean you have to do other stupid things. He is a short term gamble and should not have any affect on the medium or long term.
What would his impact be on the morale?
You have played Mafia with me, right? That was the short version.
I hope you’re right; I really do. History suggests that the Rays best players will end up in Boston, New York, or Los Angeles in a few years. But I hope I’m wrong.
I understand your point, but I think you’re overstating your case. In Boston, of the nine guys likely to make up the everyday lineup, only three - Lowell (34), Ramirez (36) and Varitek (36) are really old. Ortiz is 32, and coming off the best season of his career; he’s not going anywhere. J.D. Drew and Julio Lugo are 32, not exactly Methuselahs. But they also have Youkilis (29), Pedroia (24), Ellsbury (24), Coco Crisp (28), and eventually, Jed Lowrie (24), who slugged .506 at shortstop in AAA. As for the Yankees, yeah, their lineup is old. But Jose Tabata and Austin Jackson are both pretty well regarded and are on their way, and Robinson Cano and Melky Cabrera are still quite young. Alex Rodriguez is not likely to decline for the next five years at least. And their rotation: Wang (28), Chamberlain (22), Hughes (22), Kennedy (23) - that’s a group that will be together, and in its prime, for years. And every one of those guys has proven that they can succeed at the major league level - Kennedy is the worst of them, and he had an ERA of 1.89 in New York last year!
Of those three guys, one of them, David Price, has never thrown a pitch in professional baseball. Ever. He’s 22, the same age as Hughes and Chamberlain. Do you see why suggesting that the Rays young talent is superior to that of the Yankees or the Red Sox is dicey? Would you really prefer Price, Wade Davis, and Desmond Jennings over Hughes, Kennedy, and Chamberlain? Over Bucholtz - the best pitching prospect in baseball according to BP - Lester, and Daisuke Matsuzaka, who is only 27 and almost guaranteed to improve in the coming year? (And Justin Masterson, too).
And of course, the main point is: if Manny Ramirez stops hitting, the Red Sox have the financial resources to go out and replace him with top-of-the-line talent. They won’t even have to give up Bucholtz or Lester to do it, because someone will be frantic to unload a contract. The Rays simply do not have that flexibility. If one of their gambles - Pena, or Longoria, or whoever, doesn’t pan out, they can’t carry the kind of payroll the Yankees or Red Sox can, and if they go after a more cost-effective option, they’ll have to give up one of those good young prospects to get it.
And finally - the Rays lineup is going to have at least three spots well below league average as hitters: Bartlett is well below average, Navarro is a terrible hitter, and the Gomes/Floyd/Baldelli hydra is not going to produce an OPS+ of 100 and probably will collectively contribute fewer than 500 at bats. No one in the Yankees projected lineup is as bad as any of those three; it’s not even close. The Yankees could slip by 10% and still outscore the Rays.
Payroll isn’t infinite. If you give Bonds $10M this year, that’s $10M you can’t commit to someone else. It means Johnny Gomes has to play the outfield, and he shouldn’t. And it means you’ll be expected to try to win in the short term - why sign a 40 year-old-outfielder with injury problems and baggage if you’re not trying to win - which is a good recipe for bad decisions.
My whole point here is - they’re not making the playoffs this year, with or without Bonds. The gap between Tampa Bay and the top two teams in that division is massive, and the Rays’ youth is not so much better than the youth of the other teams as to make a sudden, dramatic shift in that dynamic likely or even possible. Given that, why blow $10M on a rental of a player who won’t get you to the playoffs but will retard your financial flexibility and disrupt the really interesting team you’re developing?
If they win, the morale will be just fine.
Aside from the fact that Reilly hated Bonds, exaggerates the case to a ridiculous degree, and based his article on the world of Jeff Kent, who in fact HAS been despised by most of the people he’s played with…
…the Rays are in business to make money. Bonds could sell more tickets and make them some money. This is a team that really needs to do something soon before they fade into oblivion.
I realize the Rays have a lot of young talent, but I’m not sure I trust them to develop it. I remember people saying last year they’d be a lot better and they stank again.
The list of those who hate Bonds is long. He might want to go to a contender to finish his career off but he would be a dangerous acquisition. He is 90 years old and he might be done.
I’m sure a guy with his own section of the clubhouse, sitting in a Barcolounger in a roped off area where other players aren’t allowed within 10 feet and aren’t allowed to address him or make eye contact is going to great for morale.
But other than when/if he’s two hits or two HR’s shy of 3000/800, are people going to come out just to see and or boo him? Where’s the draw when he’s at 2970 and 770?