to sign or not to sign... BARRY BONDS

his name has been thrown around for the past week or so... as it was earlier this year. the dbacks were rumored to be interested just by saying that they were not not interested. i've heard the yankees and mets both rumored as well, at least by analysts, if not by team officials. i think this question is one of the more intriguing stories of the year thus far.

who is barry bonds? well, ped (performance enhancing drugs) use aside, he's arguably the greatest baseball player of all-time. he holds records in career homeruns, single season home runs, season on-base percentage, season slugging percentage, is about a career 300 hitter, has close to double digit gold gloves and hundreds of stolen bases, although the gold gloves and stolen bases are a thing of the past.

barry bonds is also a bad teammate, a clubhouse "cancer" and distraction, a widely accepted former steroid and growth hormone user, 43 years old, and incapable of playing defense with his bad knees. he was all of this last year as well, when he had an on-base percentage close to 500 and a slugging percentage close to 600. to put this in perspective, great players like a-rod, pujols, vlad, ortiz, etc. would be mvp candidates in any year where they had an obp of 400 and a slugging of 600.

so what's stopping teams from signing mr. bonds? that should be obvious enough to sports' fans, but are the arguments against bonds really strong enough to stop a gm from taking a chance? personally, i think not. and furthermore, i would love to see bonds play for a contending team... especially my own.

it's really a three-part question: first, is barry bonds able to continue his offensive prowess at the age of 43? second, even if barry bonds continues to be a stellar offensive player, do his defensive liabilities hurt your team more than his offensive power? and third, even if barry bonds is a productive baseball player, are his distractions in the clubhouse with the media worth the risk?

first, i see no reason why his offensive numbers would decline. he's gotten lots of rest and although maybe he's not in game-shape, he's shown to be a player that ages well (even post-steroid use). i would expect an obp of over 400 and a slugging percentage of over 500 at the very least.

second, it's obvious that he's best suited to be a dh for some american league team. playing leftfield lowers his value to a ballclub, not solely cuz of his defensive limitations but also because he probably wouldn't be able to play everyday or at least every inning.

third, this depends on the make-up of your team and also whether you believe that these distractions are really all that important to whether a team wins or loses.

if i were a contending team in the american league with a dh opportunity (rays, a's, possibly the tigers, yanks and sox) i'd jump all over this opportunity. the al is so stacked this year (and most years recently) that any advantage would be huge. you don't have to give up anything to get bonds (except money) and you can slot him in the dh spot without worrying too much about fatigue and dropped fly balls. you can talk as much as you want about distractions, but teams have always signed trouble-makers like sheffield and bradley or drug-users like mota and sosa and none of these players ever had the ability that bonds has.

if i were a team in the national league, i'd be a little more wary. however, i would still probably take a chance. teams are quick to take little risk, but in a sport where only four teams make the playoffs and it's essentially a crap-shoot when you get there, i'd push in my chips for a player like bonds, who could make all the difference. let's see if the mets would be a good fit.

the mets have two corner outfielders, in alou and church, who are both very productive players and who both may not play again this year. so should they sign bonds? well, everyone knows that in new york, this would be a gigantic story. and especially after the debacle that's been their first half, with the firing of willie and the constant criticism of this team, maybe the team would be better suited to avoid such a media blitz. i disagree.

the mets bench includes players like easley, tatis, chavez, anderson and some random guys we brought up from the minors... none of them will ever approach numbers like bonds'. if church and/or alou are out for the rest of the season then our options are either to play chavez/anderson/easley everyday or trade for someone like nady or dunn. well, still none of those players can match bonds' output.

the mets are a good fit for bonds because they don't have to play him all the time. chavez is a great defensive player who can come in for bonds late in games as a defensive sub. if alou and church or either or come back then you can always platoon bonds a little bit to keep him fresh. if the mets ever make it to the world series, bonds can be your dh option.

then what really matters is the issue of distractions. i'm of the opinion that distractions are overrated. the yankees won when they had lots of distractions in the 70s. bonds, himself, was on maybe good teams and made it to the world series with the giants. i'm not going to say that distractions have no influence b/c i'm sure they do, but who's to say what sort of influence they have... maybe certain distractions can be a good thing, like taking the spotlight off other problems and putting them on one player (like in this circumstance).

this is just my opinion of course and it's hard to say either way what would happen. but as it stands today, the mets are just a very good team in a not so good league where it seems that the two best teams, by far, are the cubs and brewers. the mets are no better (or worse) than the phillies, braves, cards, dodgers or any other contending team... esp without church and alou everyday. if the mets want to take the safer route and hope that church/alou come back, i can't fault them for that, but i'm a risk-taker and i think that with bonds, the mets are in a much better position to put themselves into the class of the cubs and brewers in terms of talent. the mets needs to move past last year's disappointment and signing the best player of the last 25 years would be one way of doing just that.