A no brainer…. IF he was not the only person completely forgiven for steroids while every other known user, including players far better than Ortiz, are denied. If we want to throw in a Red Sock user, why would it be him instead of Clemens or Ramirez? The double standard is obvious.

He has since admitted he failed.

Shaughnessy is the hack to end all hacks. The Globe should be embarrassed to employ him. I'm pretty sure the other writers that work there are...

This is what happens when we turn the HOF ballot into the morality police. Who did what? When? Who was clean? A Boy Scout?

Shaughnessy votes for Kent because he "knows" he's clean. I mean, we can't know. Pretending we can is absurd.

Not for nothing, but Kent had a 107 career OPS+ heading into his age 29 season...when he became teammates with a guy named Bonds. For the rest of his career, his OPS+ was 128 and he hit 299 of his 377 career home runs.

I'm in no way implying that Kent used PEDs...I have no idea. I'm just saying that saying "THIS is the guy I can vote for in good conscience" is pretty dumb.

Calm down we are sharing opinions. You think stolen bases and .984 vs .980 fielding beats hank aaron? A negative dWar is almost meaningless for individual or team success. Many amazing defenders are negative or a point or two above zero. Griffey jr had a staggering 2.2 career dWar. Not to mention Hank played quite a few games at first base which obviously hurt his defense.

Hank was busy running out his 3771 hits while bonds was jogging to first with a full sprint still reserved for stealing second after his 2500 walks. Of course he’s going to have more steals.

Bonds didn’t even hit .300 with 2500 less ABs. That’s a bit pathetic for a best ever contender imo.
“Oh well he got walked allot”
Exactly right.
So extremely high chances his career average would’ve been even lower than what it is now if he didn’t get those walks.

We haven’t even factored in performance enhancement that skewed his physical abilities. Arm strength and Speed namely. Basically the only 2 things he could beat hank in.

Bonds will never be the best.
Ever.

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I can nit pick plenty too. Bonds is the best. Ever. Everything backs it up. And much better than Aaron.

We'll never see eye to eye, that's fine. Always an interesting topic.

Sing it, sister!!

Yes it’s a very interesting conversation, And I agree I could never see eye to eye on this topic with you [emoji28].

Maybe. It would have been better if MLB took real action and stripped them of the WS. Then it would be easier to deal with players about their Hall of Fame potential, having been penalized in an appropriate way. Same with the roiders, if MLB did real testing and had real punishments (not just suspensions, but statistical judgments, like removing HRs). Bonds would probably be in if MLB tested, he was guilty, and they took away 150 home runs. I have some sympathy for the Joe Jackson case for the Hall because he was banned from the game for his actions. He paid a price that affected his career performance (since his career was over). I also still see the case against him, throwing games is a foundational blow to the spirit of the game. I consider the kind of steroid use alleged by the biggest stars of the game - significantly distorting aging curves, salary economics, and the sacred record books - to also be a foundational blow to the spirit of the game, so if I was voting, I don't think I'd vote them in even if they were appropriately tested, caught, and punished. But it would make it easier to sort through these things if they had.

What do y'all think about this... there are at least two kinds of cheating, cheating within the game, and cheating without (and brought within). Fixing games is taking cheating outside of the field of play and bringing it in. Fixing an at-bat for your buddy on the other team by telling him what pitch is coming, within the field of play. Performance-enhancing drugs like steroids are done outside the field of play and brought in. Doctoring a baseball, stealing signs, taking LSD (maybe), all within the field of play. If you can get away with it, more power to you. If you get caught, you get tossed. The Astros crossed a line by stealing signs outside the field of play (using video technology from outside) and bringing it in.

These two kinds are substantially different, and the consequences should be different. That doesn't mean one can't judge a within-the-game cheater, or a strong case can't be made against chronic ball-doctorers or the like, but I don't think those cases are well-argued when they equivocate one type of cheating with the other.

You're right, it's more than stats. Let's revisit how Barry's ignorance/arrogance lost the NLCS to the Braves in 1992, by not being able to throw out Sid Bream, the slowest runner in the history of runners, at home on a base hit. And this was before the 'roid usage in SF. From Wikipedia (with references):

"On the third pitch, with Belinda behind, 2-0, Cabrera ripped a foul line drive to left field. After the play, Van Slyke and Bonds got into a brief argument as Van Slyke signaled to the left fielder to move in so he could cut off a potential single and keep the runners from scoring; Bonds gave Van Slyke the finger and refused to move.[16][23][24] Sure enough, Cabrera again lined a pitch to left that dropped in front of Bonds for a hit.[25] Justice scored from third easily, which tied the game.[16][21][24] Bonds came up with the ball, but was out of position and had to throw across his body.[24][25] Third base coach Jimy Williams spotted this as Bream, running on five-times surgically repaired knees and thus, one of the slowest baserunners in the league, got to him at third. Williams decided to wave Bream in, thinking the off balance throw might not reach catcher Mike LaValliere in time for him to tag the slow-footed first baseman. Bonds' throw was indeed offline, which caused LaValliere to move to his right to field the ball just before Bream got to the plate. The extra motion allowed Bream to slide in ahead of LaValliere's tag, and the Braves won, 3–2.[16]"

Barry did things at the plate that I've never seen anyone else do. But Barry always put Barry first, and in a team game, that doesn't fly. And I don't know how stats measure that. So you are right, his measure is beyond stats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgjIVvEQo_o

Look to me like the ball wasn't hit in front of Bonds but well to his left.

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If Bonds had played in that ball probably goes to the wall. Ball was hit WELL to his left (heck, you can see how long it takes him to get into frame). We all know Bonds is a dick. But this play is a bad example because the outcome most likely is the same, a run scored. But, let's not forget to give props to Bream who had a great jump as well off the bat and no hesitation rounding third. He ran the bases perfectly for someone like him.

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Yep. Not even CLOSE. He's well out of the frame and runs quite a bit. If he played in, that ball goes to the wall and he has no chance to cut it off like he barely did.

I wonder how good Aaron would have been if he had a PED assist. Greenies are amphetamines, not really attributed growth/strength enhancement. The bench mark for HRs could probably be well over 800 if Aaron had PEDs.

That said, Bonds most likely would have hit 500HRs without the PEDs. Bonds is a poster child for what PEDs can do to enhance a career. Bonds without PEDs would have put up HOF numbers, he was just that good. I'm not a Bonds fan, I would be if he didn't lie and try to cover it up. I have much more respect for McGwire because he knew better than to try and BS the public. Look at A-Rod. Wow, only about half the requirement to be enshrined and look at the numbers he put up (oh yeah, another one of those I never used PED guys).

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It's certainly fun to entertain and think about for Aaron.

I don't have an opinion on Bonds' HR total if he never used (don't really care honestly), but totally agree on what you said in regards to the character aspect. It's tough to see how someone can be that angry over such small trivial things. Oh well.

I was very surprised to see Sheffield get more votes than A-Rod, maybe character issues and PEDs kind of like Bonds?

Regardless of how it's looked at, it just sucks. While there may be so called "winners and loses" out of this, in my opinion, I still feel like we all lose. All this arguing etc is not how I want to remember baseball.

+1

Not sure I am reading your post right, but A Rod admitted it.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/news/story?id=3894847

Eventually, yes, but before that, there were plenty of denials.

Peter, that's correct, he did admit it, after he got caught. Kind of like the Palmeiro thing. Notice how many votes Rafael got.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAxo4pCITRM

A-Rod was a beast of a hitter. The one thing he didn't learn was a bit of humility when he was playing with Jeter. Does humility count for HOF voting? It shouldn't but apparently it does.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=994hkVav5qM

He was a very good defensive player as well IMO. Clearly upper tier all time great in terms of performance. On the whole very unlikeable guy which will not help his cause.

When thinking about future ballots, this is interesting…

2,801 votes were cast in 2022 HOF election. Of those, 42.6% went to players who won’t be on ballot next year (elected, aged off, <5%)