It was announced earlier today that Barry Bonds has not been voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Nobody was voted into the Hall of Fame, and there are several topics worthy of discussion, but I’m partial to the Bonds one, myself, because the voting results provide a reason to look at Bonds’ career statistics again. Asterisks or no asterisks, Bonds’ numbers are downright impossible, and looking at them is the most fun a person can have at work the most fun a person who doesn’t write from home for FanGraphs can have at work. You shouldn’t be allowed to drive and drink, you shouldn’t be allowed to drive and text, and you shouldn’t be allowed to drive and consider Barry Bonds’ career baseball statistics.

By WAR, Bonds’ best season was 2001. By wRC+, Bonds’ best offensive season was 2002. By wRC+, Bonds’ 2002 is the best offensive season in baseball history. At 244, he beats out Babe Ruth’s 1920, at 237. Bonds also had a 234 and a 233. Ruth had a 231 and a 223. A new name finally shows up at #7. Anyway.

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Earlier in the offseason, it seemed absurd to think the Yankees wouldn’t acquire an established veteran catcher. Or re-acquire, if we’re speaking about Russell Martin. The Yankees are the Yankees, and even a fiscally restrained version of the Yankees is less fiscally restrained than almost everyone else. The Yankees, in theory, had the resources to get a catcher, and the Yankees, in reality, appeared to have a need at the position. And the Yankees always plan to contend, so addressing needs is sort of a thing.

Martin left, for a very reasonable contract with the Pirates. Other options have turned into non-options. The Yankees could still get a backstop, in that offseason time remains, but now they seem content to run with Francisco Cervelli, Austin Romine, and Chris Stewart. No one’s been promised a job, but this is the situation staring the Yankees in the face. These have been the in-house options all along, and the Yankees, to date, have been okay with them.

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Adam LaRoche lost a lot of 2011 to injury, okay, and in 2012 he had himself a bounceback season, okay. Sometime during the season, the Nationals approached LaRoche — a free-agent-to-be — about a contract extension. Nothing was agreed to; the Nationals were willing to give LaRoche two years, and LaRoche was seeking three years, citing a desire to stop bouncing around. Come the offseason, the Nationals extended to LaRoche a qualifying offer, and LaRoche turned it down; LaRoche was seeking three years. LaRoche kept on seeking three years. On Tuesday, LaRoche re-signed with the Nationals. He re-signed for two years, with a mutual third-year option. I’ll quote Amanda Comak:

“[The negotiations] were pretty much not moving for a couple months,” LaRoche said. “It got to a point at one time where I really thought ‘OK, I probably am not going back to Washington.’ We were in talks with some other teams and things were looking promising and Washington wasn’t budging.”
[…]
The deal, which a source said is the same one that had been on the table for the first baseman for much of the offseason[…]

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Everybody loves a long home run, because they’re impressive, because they’re difficult. Last year, there were 96 particularly long home runs, if we somewhat arbitrarily set a minimum distance of 450 feet. That’s according to the ESPN Home Run Tracker. Giancarlo Stanton was responsible for seven of them. Miguel Cabrera was responsible for four of them, Yoenis Cespedes three of them. Phil Hughes, three of them, from the other end. Josh Hamilton hit one of them, and Curtis Granderson hit zero of them. Robinson Cano hit zero of them. Jay Bruce and Mike Trout each hit zero of them.

Michael Bourn, much like Kyle Lohse, is a fairly high-profile player who remains an available free agent as we start to think about the middle of January. Bourn, like Lohse, will end up signed to a significant contract, but Bourn, like Lohse, has seen his market fail to develop as expected. One issue might be that neither Bourn nor Lohse is a superstar. Bourn contributes an awful lot of value in the field and on the basepaths, but he strikes out fairly often, and he doesn’t hit for much power. His nine home runs last season were a career-high, by four. Bourn is 30 years old.

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A thing that happens every offseason is that available players are valued. Front offices for teams decide how much a given player deserves. Fans of teams will do something similar, as well. Fans will evaluate players, but, often, they will tend more toward the extremes. They will identify players they badly want on their teams, and they will identify players they want no part of. These are usually exaggerated responses, as the desired players aren’t that great, and as the undesired players aren’t that lousy.

Based purely on my limited, anecdotal observations, it seems like a lot of baseball fans want no part of free-agent starter Kyle Lohse. Lohse is still out there, ready to be signed, but a market doesn’t seem to have developed, and no team seems to be the frontrunner. No fan that I’ve seen is too broken up about this. Based on contract crowdsourcing, Dave Cameron identified Lohse as a poor free-agent value. Many fans feel similarly, to the point at which they aren’t particularly interested in Lohse at all. The gut response to Kyle Lohse’s name is “ugh, stay away.” Thus, I have decided here to come to Kyle Lohse’s defense, with an issuance of pro-Lohse propaganda. This player you don’t desire — he’s capable of many things.

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At the end of last May, Phil Dumatrait announced his retirement from professional baseball. It was an announcement that went largely unnoticed — note the three retweets — and that makes sense, because Dumatrait hadn’t pitched in 2012, and for his career he threw just 151 major-league innings over parts of four seasons. Many of them were not good innings, and while there are the usual qualifiers about how Dumatrait was one of the very best pitchers in the entire world, relative to his big-league peer group, he was lacking a certain something. “Ability to have consistent success,” is what he was lacking.

Dumatrait, like all professional ballplayers, once had a lot of promise. Dumatrait, unlike all professional ballplayers, was selected as early as in the first round in 2000. In fairness, that wasn’t much of a round — the two guys selected before Dumatrait have been worth negative WAR, and the six guys selected after Dumatrait fell short of the bigs — but Dumatrait found his way to prospect lists. According to Baseball America, he was seventh in the Red Sox’s system before 2002. He was fifth in the same system the next year, and the year after that, he was sixth in the Reds’ system, one behind Joey Votto. Phil Dumatrait looked like he could be something, for a while. And, ultimately, he was a big-leaguer, if a relatively unsuccessful one.

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I don’t know what you know about Collin Cowgill — for all I know, you don’t know anything about Collin Cowgill, aside from his name, now. Cowgill is an outfielder, and last year, in the majors, he successfully stole three bases, and was caught trying to steal four times. He finished with 116 plate appearances. Major-league pitchers finished with 5,913 plate appearances. As a group, they successfully stole three bases, and were caught trying to steal four times. This is going to be another article about pitchers not pitching.

It fits a theme of the week. At Baseball Prospectus, Sam Miller wrote about the non-pitching value of pitchers. Here, Jack Moore looked at pitcher hitting in certain detail. Featured below, you will find Cliff Lee, Anthony Bass, and Jake Westbrook. Discussed will not be their arms. Discussed will be their legs, or at least something their legs allowed them to do. Their legs, their heads, and the heads of their opponents.

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It still feels like the holiday season, and the holiday season is a time for sharing. To be honest, every time is a time for sharing, but around the holiday season it seems a lot more important. With friends and family and sometimes perfect strangers, you share gifts and pleasantries and the warmth of your company. Baseball teams, too, can get into the sharing spirit. I don’t know how else to explain what’s been going on with Eli Whiteside, Sandy Rosario, and Scott Cousins.

For these three players, it’s already been an incredibly active offseason, and it’s barely January. For players who are hitting the market, the offseason is a time to find a new home. Whiteside, Rosario, and Cousins have cycled through several potential new homes. In case you haven’t been paying close attention — and I don’t know why you would be — I’ll try to go over the details as quickly as possible.

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Brad Lidge is 36 years old. In December, when he was still 35, he announced his retirement from professional baseball. He hadn’t been much of a factor since 2010, so in that sense it felt inevitable that Lidge would hang them up. In discussing Lidge’s career, Mike Axisa wrote up the memorable moment that was Albert Pujols taking Lidge deep. Below, in the comments section of that post, some Phillies fans chimed in to say they most remember Lidge for completing the 2008 World Series. Me, I find both of those to be memorable moments, and when it comes to most memorable, that’s entirely subjective. But when I think of Brad Lidge, I don’t think first of Albert Pujols, nor do I think first of Eric Hinske. I don’t think of any one particular moment. I think of the whole sequence of moments that was Lidge’s 2004 season with the Astros.

Craig Kimbrel is coming off an impossible season with the Braves, in which he struck out more than half of the batters he faced. Opposing batters made some sort of contact 61% of the time that they swung. Aroldis Chapman, too, was incredible with the Reds, collecting 122 strikeouts. Opposing batters made some sort of contact 62% of the time that they swung. Going further back now, Eric Gagne was downright unfair as a Dodger in 2003. He won the National League Cy Young, and opposing batters made some sort of contact 56% of the time that they swung.

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