Photo by Michael P. Whelan
It’s the middle of May, 30+ games into the baseball season, and teams have already begun the process of identifying needs and reevaluating their talent. Traditionally, teams make their most serious adjustments after Memorial Day, but it’s never too early for a team to make a change to their roster if it seems so obvious as to be necessary.
This makes it all the more interesting to see that three of the most decorated, dominant players of the past few decades – if not all time – are still sitting at home, unemployed. With each passing day, it seems increasingly likely that we’ve seen the last of Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, and Roger Clemens.
In 2007, Bonds hit 28 homeruns in 340 at bats, to go along with a league-leading .480 on base percentage, remaining a powerful offensive force in his age-42 season. Meanwhile, Clemens famously signed mid-season with the Yankees, and pitched 99 innings of 4.18 ERA ball – a far cry from his established level of performance, but more than respectable in this day and age. And Sosa shocked everyone by coming back from a one-year hiatus to hit 21 homeruns for the Rangers, including his 600th career homer.
All three demonstrated last year that they can still put up solid to strong individual performances. And yet they all three share the ignominy of being ignored this season. Oh, and for being three of the names most associated with baseball’s steroid era – but who remembers that?
As it happens, team executives around the league remember, and for good reason. Fans, journalists and bloggers have regularly suggested that their teams pick up one of these three free agents, seeing them as an easy, guaranteed way to add performance to a team looking for one last piece. David Chalk of bugsandcranks.com has spent the past 6 months begging for his Tampa Bay Rays to sign Bonds to become a real contender, while Ken Rosenthal on foxsports.com suggested in a video story yesterday that the Tigers ought to look at signing Bonds to solve their early-season funk. The Rays and the Cardinals are known to have looked at Bonds, while a number of teams have been suggested as options for Sosa’s right-handed bat and Astros and Yankees fans have occasionally speculated about replacing their young, unproven, and nonperforming arms with Clemens.
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