If Bobby Abreu and Pat Burrell are both lining up in left field in Philly, who's playing right? (In other words, Bobby Abreu is their starting RF up there).

The thing that continues to baffle me is why teams are so eager to walk Barry* rather than pitch to him.

While today's column makes some good points, it overlooks this:

On any given at-bat, he has a 76.7% chance of making an out.

It makes no sense to walk him. Make him hit it.

Charlie

I expect my readers to know that whenever I say "Bobby Abreu," what I mean is "Nick Swisher."

Thanks for the catch. I must have confused which list I was looking at. Hardball Times doesn't separate OF by position, and Abreu is at the top of win shares. Must have glanced there when I was meaning to get the LF OPS leaders from ESPN.com.

Fixing.

that seems to get glossed over about the amount of times Barry Bonds walks is how much more Barry has to do with it than the pitcher.

While part of the walk rate certainly still goes back to baseball's fear of throwing to Barry, the guy simply has the smallest internal strike zone in the majors. He doesn't swing it a lot of bad pitches, and even chooses to take some good ones. I'm not a scout so can't say exactly if pitchers are being more cautious with Bonds than with Pujols, but common sense leads me to believe that Bonds is probably getting about the same amount of pitches to hit.

Not saying he's better than Pujols obviously, just better at walking I guess.

-- essmeier: While today's column makes some good points, it overlooks this: On any given at-bat, he has a 76.7% chance of making an out. It makes no sense to walk him. Make him hit it.

While I agree that it doesn't make sense to intentionally walk him or even pitch around him, I don't think you can translate his .767 out rate (.233 batting average) to an environment where pitchers "made him hit it." They're pitching him carefully, nibbling. That approach is going to lead to a lot of walks, especially with a batter who, as J. Rauch points out, is selective to a historic degree.

If they pitched him less carefully, threw more hittable strikes, he'd walk less, but he might get better wood on the ball.

I don't know if it would be a net gain for the pitchers or not. I suspect so, that his on-base percentage would come down from the .480 range. But I don't think you can just say he'd continue to hit .233 if they pitched him like they pitch everybody else.

This is not the Barry of old. He's starting to wear down. His mechanics at the plate are horrible, his timing is off, and he has no power to drive the ball because of his knees. The only way Barry is going to play beyond this year is if he gets traded to an AL ball club so he can DH (speaking of which, he's playing in Oakland this weekend and gets to DH. Look for him to finall tie Ruth).

And the analysis of Barry being an "average" defensive left fielder are garbage. Defensive aptitude is one of the few things in baseball you can not evenly remotely attempt to quantify with statistics. Watching Barry run after a ball in his direction is almost comical if it weren't such a sad statement of how badly his skills have been decimated by injury. And it's not like he was the greatest left fielder in his prime either- remember, this is the same guy who couldn't throw out SID BREAM at home plate in the '91 NLCS.

This article brings up a point that has really bugged me over the years, and that's the idea that there's such a thing as an average, or even lousy, major league ball player. Maybe there is within the context/culture of the major leagues, but in the context of the world of athletes who play baseball, these guys are so superior it's joke. The "laughing stock" players (Mickey Hatcher, Mario Mendoza, Mitch Williams, etc.) picked out as warts on the butt of MLB by the media, had one-in-a-half-million talent. And you can't even begin to quantify talents like Cobb, Gehrig, Ruth, DiMaggio, Williams, Mantle, Mays, Aaron, Koufax, Clemens or Bonds.

Which leads me to a second point, and that is the "role" of the Hall Of Fame in validating baseball talent. A few years back Bert Blylevin was on TV, bluntly stating that if he didn't make it in to the Hall Of Fame before his parents died he was going to be furious. And I'm thinking to myself, if I had a son who made it to the majors for one at bat, I'd be doing back flips for the rest of my life. The idea that every player who "stood out" deserves to be in the HOF cheapens both the hall itself, and the stature of major league players who made it to the highest level and stayed there. Being in the majors is reward enough for any ball player, and it's up to us as fans to believe that.

While I'm always entertained by the articles where you scientifically prove that Barry Bonds is a good baseball player, there's a lot going on in baseball that's way more interesting than his standing on the top echelon of the middle of the road this year.

For one, how 'bout them Tigers? 27-13, atop the majors, a ridiculously good pitching staff out of nowhere, and an exciting home series with the also surprising Reds coming up tonight. Can't we at least get a little paragraph on the most exciting team in baseball right now?

Sincerely,

A Total Detroit Homer...

I think you touch upon one issue that pisses me off about Barry Bonds, probably more than anything else. He was a hell of a player before steroids.

Does anyone remember his 1990 season? Hit for power and average and stole a LOT of bases. Showed a lot of prowess at the plate, especially for someone so young.

He isn't Ken Caminiti or Phil Nevin -- some one hit wonder owing his trophies to the Juice. He was on track to be one of the best ball players long before steroids. And thats what cheapens and sickens the whole deal.