Barry Bonds, the Most Underrated Player in Baseball 

I made it 🥲❤️

lifelong Giants fan, 67 yrs and counting, i remember '93 so well, it was heartbreaking! Barry Bonds was truly one of the all time greats, offensively AND defensively, and it is a shame he's not in the HoF, especially since he already had hall-worthy numbers BEFORE late 90's... so many others who juiced ARE in the Hall, and before PEDs there were amphetamines for decades...

He went from the best 5 tool player in baseball To A literal MLB 2K created player with a giant HOT ZONE

The single most intimidating hitter of all time. No one else comes close, he’s the only batter that had an advantage over the pitcher.

There will never be a bigger black eye on the Hall of Fame than Barry not being inducted. A bunch of pencil pushers deciding who's the best baseball players in history are instead of just using your Eyeballs is astounding. Barry was the most feared hitter in baseball even sports writers hated him, then they wondered why he didn't give them the time they wanted.

The fact he won 3 consecutive MVPs and wasn’t even juicing yet I mean…cmon. The fact he isn’t in the hall is hilariously pathetic

Interesting tidbit of info regarding Ellis Burks...For a 4 year span (99-02) after joining SF and then going to CLE, he averaged right around 30 HR a year hitting .301 for that span even hitting .344 one year with an average OBP of .386 with an OPS + of nearly 150 and didn't make one all-star team during that mini run in his career..It just goes to show you how guys were going off at that time, numbers like that slid under the radar. I watched Ellis for a few years when I was a kid when he was with the Sox. He eventually did get his ring in 04 when he came back for his last year before retiring. Ellis was a hell of a player and outfielder with speed defense and pop who was sneaky good

Barry Bonds is not only the best player of my lifetime, he might also be the best player of anyone's lifetime

Young fans don't know how incredible bonds was.

Regardless of the PED speculation, he is the single greatest player I've personally ever seen play.

Every game I went to watch Barry break a milestone record 500, 600, 700, and many others he always delivered usually after getting walked twice in his 2nd and 3rd AB’s. He’d get one pitch a game and would destroy it.

12:05 this section reminds me of something Jon Bois said in his bonds video. “Barry could hit 1.000 for his whole career and never win a game”, baseball is just like that

The greatest hitter that ever lived

Thank you for making this. Barry Bonds is the best baseball player I’ve ever seen in my opinion. Not even Trout or Ohtani is feared to Bonds level.

late career Bonds is an unnatural monster for sure, love it and, wow, what a ride that was!

Bonds was not only the youngest member of the 300-300 club, he is also the only member of the 400-400 club... and the only member of the 500-500 club.

Love the interview with Burks, really cool insight from him.

I really enjoy listening to u guys and thank u so much!! U guys are for real teachers of baseball

Bro, same is prime Jordan fr, criminally underrated 😂

Hey guys. I grew up a Giants fan in south San Francisco so naturally Binds was my favorite player. My first game ever was his first home game as a Giant. I’ve watched every single moment of his amazing career and you guys did a great job of capturing exactly how dominant this man was. It’s hard to explain if you didn’t see him play but the man was different. There’s never been anyone like him or even remotely close (mayyyybbbbeee young Albert Pujols could be compared….maybe). Loved these two videos. Thanks for highlighting what has unfortunately become a part of baseball history that’s been Swept under the rug.

Burks seems like cool dude

The absolute best part of Barry Bonds is that you 2 have spent over an hour talking about a player who otherwise would be a no doubt hall of famer, the best player of the 1990's, and one of the best players who has ever lived, and it ISN'T EVEN THE BEST PART OF HIS CAREER. Bonds is unmatched in his greatness. He is without peer. He is the greatest baseball player to ever live, full stop.

Hand eye coordination is why Barry Bonds is the Best.

Bonds averaged 41 HR and 29 SB for his career (out of 162 games).

Steroids don’t make you a better player; they just speed up your recovery when training so that you can build more lean muscle and do more without fear of injury. I genuinely believe they should be allowed in sports under medical supervision because the short term benefits are just too hard to ignore. But they don’t make you suddenly able to make contact and avoid striking out, they don’t increase plate discipline. If you took away all his home runs in the 2000’s he’s still a HOFer and it’s not even close.

i started collecting cards in 1989 and looking at the stats was about the only way i could judge a player when you dont have cable and only 3 channels basically, that and sports illustrated and the fish wrap were all I had. In 1990 I remember Bonds going from ok player to super star, I was 12 then and comprehending sports better so your analysis of the way things were back then was spot on even though you had yet to be born.

thank you for this discussion,,, can't find the next haha, I know what comes, came, next subscribed and looking for the next chapter :)

Bonds hit 4 HR in the 2002 WS, and was an easy favorite for MVP. His team and manager let him down.

Dude, Ellis Burks still looks like he's in baseball shape

I know that the ‘01 season is memorable for 73 but imo when you look at his best season I couldn’t just pick one. That 01-04 run is the most dominant run any athlete has ever had in any sport… it’s ridiculous

Don't forget...when the Marlins beat the Giants in the playoffs, Jim Leyland was the Marlin manager!!

Imagine 90's Barry Bonds on the Braves with the 90's Braves pitching staff grinding out quality start after quality start. A semi-loaded offense with Bonds at the heart of it would have likely been an elite offense.

Ellis Burks Giants was a good jazz riff for sure, ya man!!!

1993 was so heartbreaking. I remember that speech by Matt Williams after that loss and the pathetic statement made by the Dodgers Tommy Lasorda. After this season MLB felt kind of bad and created the wild card scenario with a central division that would have been great had not the strike happened. And oh the 1994 season was going to be incredible with Matt Williams with 43 homers being protected by Bonds. He had the great chance to do it. Bonds was on the verge of an easy 40/40 season that year, but he would get it two years later. Great times though. One of my fondest memories is when the Giants clintched in 1997 and Bonds stood up on the dugout high fiving and hugging fans in the stands before going into the clubhouse. I don't think I've ever seen a superstar do that.

My first baseball memories are the HR race of Sosa and McGwire and Barry going for the HR record (also Gagne v Bonds)

Best swing of any time. He was feared like no other.

It's fitting the video ended with a video game as Bonds was about to have video game numbers. 1.400 ops season, 73HR, hundreds of intentional walks.

Loved Booing Bonds from the outfield seats at Turner Field. Me and my buddy actually got him to turn around and look at us once. Loved to hate on that guy.

Just wanted to add that teams shifted everyone on the field to the right side for Bonds. This made it even harder for him to get hits since he always pulled everything. It would be interesting to see if Bonds ever hit a homerun to the opposite field.

That Giants team is still one of the greatest Giants teams in my lifetime. We had Swift and Burkett winning 20 games.

I know why bonds had a smaller strike zone. If you look at the placement of the team name on his jersey, its 4 inches lower on his chest than his teammates. Also his pants had a higher belt line. Thus giving the illusion of his knees being higher. Thus making his stoke zone smaller by 6 to 10 inches

He was overlooked during the McGwire and Sosa era if you want to call it that. He took that very personally it seems

Pretty good video, though would have much preferred if this topic (which I find fascinating) had been more of a put-together Sport Storm/SRS type production rather than a conversation/podcast… though 13:50 kind of annoyed me because (and correct me if I’m wrong), but: Shohei would have an extra 1.5 (minimum, and more like 2.5?) WAR per season if he was playing on defense in the outfield (which he currently doesn’t to prevent injury). I only have the most basic/casual knowledge of WAR calculations, so let me know if this is wrong - but to my understanding, WAR can’t even quite calculate Ohtani’s “true” value (and the stat in general is not meant to calculate the value of two-way players in large part, though not exclusively, due to this).

Bonds was also the first member of the 40-40 club to do it clean. (He didn't start juicing until 1999.)

Thats cool af

Ellis Burks is the man! He's an immaculate grid hero.

Worth noting, four players have joined the 300-300 club since Bonds, but he is still the youngest, and is still the ONLY member of the 400-400, AND the 500-500 clubs!!!!!!!!!

I'm loving this series. As a teenager in 98, it was a great baseball summer. Mcgwire and Sosa race was awesome to watch ( didn't really pay attention to the steroid stuff at that time. After the strike in 94 which almost took me out of the game but Ripkens streak brought me back in. So 98 was something else. I'll be honest, I never regarded Bonds as being the great player until looking at his stats as an adult. I liked Puckett, Griffey, and Frank Thomas better. I always saw Bonds as just the guy that yelled at reporters and hit home runs.

bonds is the goat that's it that's all , like it or not

For the record, the reason maddux was on the list of most homered off pitcher was at least as much in regards to home runs off Greg Maddux when he was playing for the Cubs. Bonds, then a Pittsburgh Pirate, used to eat that fastball alive when the wind was blowing out at Wrigley.

I’d take watching bonds getting pitched to over 99.9% of anything that happens in baseball today, maybe even over the 3 World Series the giants won in 10,12,14. It’s a shame that baseball has swept how magical that was under the rug. The greatest time the sport has ever seen, or will see again. I only wish my kids could witness that type of greatness they I did.

I gotta say boys looking at your faces talk instead of highlights or something... soooo boring. But the content and info is great.

“we’d better call bailey” I had the same thought 😂

The greatest of all time. I'm a Dodger fan. I was able to see this guy play amazing. H.O.F in my book

I have a feeling some of these guys that should be in the HOF will be once they are dead, the media don’t want them go on stage and go on a rant against them on why it took so long to do it. Basically what Vince did to the Macho Man and that HOF.

Say whatever, but he was the best hitter I've ever seen and by a much farther margin than MJ being the best hooper I've ever seen. It's not like the pitchers he was rawdogging weren't doing similar supplement regimes. It was pretty common in the 90s to see a pitcher throwing 89-90 one year and magically hitting 95-96 the next year, at age 30 or whatever. *this was average vs. plus fastball at the time, no really. I'm sure those were all the result of simply showing up to spring training in the Best Shape of Their Life™

It's crazy growing up I never heard about Bonds it was Griff Frank Thomas Bo And then like 99 this Bonds guy who's like 5 mvps in already and I just had no clue. I'm talking like when I was 5-11 years old

saw him many times in '93 and a lot of fans booed him at the start. It wasn't Barry, it was the owner. He had spent years threatening to move the team ... to Tampa, to San Jose, hell even to Fremont. He was always crying about losing money and needing a new ballpark. Then he signs Barry to a huge contract and a lot of fans felt betrayed and that the owner had flat-out lied to them about his financial situation. Of course it was a great business move, but the owner was still rightly despised. It was similar to the early '70s A's and Charley O' Finley --- great team, great players, awful owner.

16:01 hey guys… yall know something about a small prospect named Ronald Acuña Jr?

The last time a single player hard carried his team through an entire season was 1884 when Old Hoss Radbourne accrued 19.2 bWAR and 60 wins with a 205 ERA+ and won all 3 playoff games in the proto-World Series with an ERA of 1.00. Suffice it to say baseball has never been a 1 man show even close to that since. And he arguably wasn't even the most dominant pitcher that year considering Pud Galvin had the only 20 bWAR season in MLB history that year.

The only player you will drop whatever you're doing to watch him bat

Matt narrates like his whole family just got slaughtered. Feel bad for the dude.

Maybe I missed it, but aside from being the only member of the 400-400 club, he's the only member of the 500-500 club of course.

Greatest all time no doubt

Who was the first baseball player other than Conseco who made headlines for PED's

Barry Bonds should be in the Hall of Fame!

the pirouette is how a left hander played the left field line so well,,

Respect

The insane thing about bonds is going back and watching that Angels-Giants world series, you can see how high and how far Bonds hit some of his home runs at angels stadium Having been to Angels stadium a few times, its INSANE how far those balls went. Ohtani and Trout, two of the best home run hitters of the last 20 years, dont even get within 200 feet of where Bonds was bombing out balls at angels stadium LMAO Ohtani and Trout can hit the ball 100mph off their bats, how fast was it going off of Bonds bat? 200mph???

Barry Bonds is the GOAT in baseball history

The GOAT

I do love me some SF Giants Ellis Burks!!!!! ya Man!!!

greatest ball player I was ever personally on the field with - its NOT even close!

I don’t know if u guys remember but Sometimes when it’s hard to pick one or the other (shohei or barry), who would get along with teammates lol. Jk. All jokes aside, I would pick ohtani because he isn’t a jerk and easier to get along with by far!!!

"Long ago on the continent, there was a man who was an expert mountaineer. This man had climbed an incredibly tall mountain, but no one had ever heard of, or seen this mountain; so they couldn't comprehend the magnitude of this accomplishment. Reluctantly, the man continued to climb mountains that were said to be even taller. Day after day he climbed, all in order to make people recognize his greatness. In the end, the man stopped trying to convince them, made the mountains his home, and became a demon."

You people go on about how great a hitter he was in the 2000s because of his batting average. Then I bring up that he wasn’t even a career 300 hitter and you people try to make it sound like batting average doesn’t really matter.

I haven't watched the video yet, but Barry Bonds is the greatest player of all time.

Amen to the title

“Came up in the Clubhouse” would be a great name for a book about the children of major leaguers

Which record of his is most unbreakable? I think it’s his intentional walks.

I will say, between Ohtani and Bonds, I can't ignore that Bonds was the way better defender as well. Ohtani is a great pitcher, which is awesome, but Bonds is a far better hitter and fielder, so hard not to pick Bonds for me.

He was a HOFer well before he ever picked up gear. Its a crime to not allow him in.

say it simple, Barry Bonds, never seen more natural great, ever,,, this fan is blessed to have seen

this part of the discussion,,, Bonds was the best I ever saw and could do it all day every day, how to say you saw the Gods play Gods game, baseball

Barry Bonds belongs in the hall of fame Change My Mind

“He was the greatest player ever even before the juice” and still needed those steroids to become an untouchable deity in the eyes of the average baseball fan.

i thought he was ranked #1 overall??? fax!!!

I’m just Glad that Barry @ least made a World Series & Represented in the moments He had the chance to We all Remember that BOMB , with Glaus being a BiG PART of that image It’s really too bad that Griffey Jr. didn’t ever even get the chance to shine in The World Series Stage & it’s really too bad that Trout is looking like He’s going to be The Best Player of His era that doesn’t ever even get that time to shine on The World Stage three Shohei maybe right there with Him on that list 😕

Easily the best hitter ever, at the time it felt like Bonds would get a HR in most AB. Maybe being a Dodger and Angel fan makes me bias. Bonds deserves to be recognized as the best to ever do it, since Ruth faced pitchers with an 80mph fastball and they often would tip what kind of pitch was coming. Bonds faced pitchers taking the same steroids and God knows what kind of sticky substances they were using

there, you said it,, none other peak speed and power

Love Ellis burks

the Commish, the writers all profited huge, aware of what was going on then

freakin Marlins, ya, nuff not said

Intimidation is huge in sports so mike trout has 110 intentional walks in his 11 year career bonds had 120 intentional in 2004 alone come on people

The GOAT. End of story.

If he was never found of doing steroids even with the media disliking him, he would have been considered an all timer.

Alfonso soriano is power speed guy when I think power speed guys

that dude from Milwaukie is in the Hall and writers from those days pretend to be offended,,, eff them all

Greatest player to ever play our game

10:40 Albert pujols?