A Hypothetical Question about Barry Bonds

NOTE: This is not a blog post in any traditional sense of the word. This is just a way to post a long question that would otherwise require an obnoxious number of tweets.

Let's say that Bud Selig, about to end his tenure as MLB commissioner and ravaged by guilt, makes a bombshell confession: A conspiracy to prevent Barry Bonds from breaking Hank Aaron's all-time home run record which in turn is now keeping Barry Bonds from reaching the Hall of Fame.

Bud Selig is the former owner of the Milwaukee Brewers and is known to have a close relationship with Hank Aaron, the great Milwaukee baseball icon. Under this hypothetical, which I cannot stress enough has no basis in reality, Bud Selig became alarmed that the great record of the terrific baseball ambassador Hank Aaron would be threatened by Barry Bonds, a frigid and generally unlikable personality. And as such, around the time of Ken Caminiti and Jose Canseco making their confessions of steroid use, Selig and MLB planted evidence that Barry Bonds used steroids--connections to BALCO, whispers of improprieties, etc. Mind you that MLB is not creating or in any way affecting Barry Bonds's on-field performance--he is still putting up his 762 career home runs and absurd walk rates and what have you. The purpose of the conspiracy was to force Barry Bonds to wilt under pressure while chasing 755 and it did not, though the cloud of steroid suspicion remains to this day.

Now, to recap, we now know that the evidence surrounding Barry Bonds was cooked--the only reason we now have to suspect Barry Bonds did steroids is that he hit a bunch of home runs and he physically grew. But nothing tangibly connecting him to PEDs in any way exists. He has the exact same statistics that he has now and he was still playing in an era in which PEDs were rampant--we just don't have any strong reason to believe that he was one of the people doing PEDs.

What percentage of votes does Barry Bonds get for the Hall of Fame in 2015? Does this percentage change if we can somehow amend the story to include evidence that somehow proves a negative and that Barry Bonds definitively did NOT do steroids?

Audio Johnapedia 41--John and Gabe revisit their stupid preseason MLB picks

Eh, just follow the link. This is mostly just for accounting purposes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_t8MQC0fjE

John's 2014 MLB All-Stars

By request, I created my own MLB All-Star teams. I was asked to judge from a "reward the best first half" perspective--I have no particular ideological bias towards this or towards the "pick who you think is the best player" school of thought. This isn't an explainer--if anybody has anything specifically to ask or just comment upon, I welcome it. I just don't feel like saying "he's good" in 68 different ways. With the bench and non-starting pitchers, I listed alphabetically because I didn't spend a ton of time differentiating guys unless they were on the bubble.

American League

Starting Lineup:

RF Jose Bautista

CF Mike Trout

2B Ian Kinsler

1B Edwin Encarnacion

DH Victor Martinez

LF Alex Gordon

3B Josh Donaldson

C Salvador Perez

SS Erick Aybar

SP Felix Hernandez

Bench:

C: Yan Gomes, Derek Norris

1B: Jose Abreu, Miguel Cabrera

2B: Jose Altuve, Robinson Cano

SS: Ben Zobrist (on the ballot as 2B but is a capable SS)

3B: Adrian Beltre, Lonnie Chisenhall, Kyle Seager

OF: Adam Jones, Brandon Moss

SP: Yu Darvish, Corey Kluber, Jon Lester, David Price, Max Scherzer, Masahiro Tanaka

RP: Dellin Betances, Sean Doolittle, Greg Holland, Andrew Miller, Glen Perkins, Koji Uehara

National League

Starting Lineup:

LF Andrew McCutchen

SS Troy Tulowitzki

1B Paul Goldschmidt

RF Giancarlo Stanton

C Jonathan Lucroy

DH Yasiel Puig

CF Carlos Gomez

3B Todd Frazier

2B Dee Gordon

SP Clayton Kershaw

Bench:

C: Evan Gattis, Devin Mesoraco

1B: Freddie Freeman, Anthony Rizzo

2B: Daniel Murphy, Chase Utley

SS: Jhonny Peralta, Hanley Ramirez

3B: Matt Carpenter, Anthony Rendon

OF: Billy Hamilton, Hunter Pence

SP: Johnny Cueto, Zack Greinke, Ian Kennedy, Stephen Strasburg, Julio Teheran, Adam Wainwright

RP: Aroldis Chapman, Steve Cishek, Zach Duke, Kenley Jansen, Craig Kimbrel, Pat Neshek