USA TODAY Sports is counting down the top 24 candidates on the 2018 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot in advance of the Jan. 24 election results. The countdown is based on voting by our power rankings panel, which includes five Hall voters.
No. 1: Barry Bonds
The most decorated candidate on the Hall of Fame ballot is also perhaps the most controversial. Barry Bonds won a record seven MVP awards -- four more than anyone else in baseball history -- during a 22-year career that saw 14 All-Star nods, 12 Silver Slugger Awards, and eight Gold Gloves.
By far the best position player of his generation and arguably the best hitter in baseball history, Bonds stands as the major leagues' all-time leader in home runs, with 762, and walks, with 2,558. He ranks second behind only Pete Rose in times on base, second behind only Hank Aaron in total extra-base hits, and his 1.051 career OPS lands fourth on the all-time list behind Babe Ruth, Ted Williams and Lou Gehrig.
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No. 2: Chipper Jones
No. 3: Roger Clemens
No. 4: Vladimir Guerrero
No. 5: Jim Thome
From No. 24 to No. 1
But Bonds was indicated as a performance-enhancing drug user in the BALCO scandal in 2003. He has never admitted to knowingly taking steroids, and a 2011 conviction for obstruction of justice related to his role in the BALCO trial was overturned in 2015. The jury deadlocked on three counts charging Bonds with making false statements to a grand jury when he denied receiving steroids and human growth hormone from his trainer.
The case for: Too extensive to adequately summarize. A dynamic all-around player in his early years and an astonishingly successful slugger in his later career, Bonds is one of only four players to hit 40 homers and steal 40 bases in the same season, the owner of the single-season record for home runs with 73, and the only player to ever reach base more in more than 60% of his plate appearances in a season. By the park- and league-adjusted stat OPS+, Bonds owns the top three offensive campaigns of all time. As an indication of the respect he commanded in his era, Bonds was intentionally walked 688 times in his career -- more than twice as anyone else, ever.
His 162.4 career WAR is second to only Babe Ruth among position players. By Baseball-Reference's Hall of Fame Monitor, wherein a player with a score of over 100 is a likely Hall of Famer, Bonds is at 340. His JAWS score -- another Hall of Fame comparison tool -- is more than double that of the average Hall of Fame left fielder and more than twenty points higher than the second left fielder on the list, Ted Williams.
The case against: Bonds had a reputation as a selfish teammate. He never won a championship and jokingly nicknamed himself "Mr. July."
But it would be absurd to suggest that any aspect of Bonds' baseball performance fell short of Hall of Fame standards. The entirety of the case against Bonds is the overwhelming circumstantial evidence of his PED use during the era before MLB adopted strict testing. Larry Bigbie never hit 73 homers or maintained a .609 on-base percentage, but many of Bonds' most incredible accomplishments are frequently attributed to PEDs alone.
X-factors: A 2017 letter from Joe Morgan to BBWAA voters, on Hall of Fame letterhead, strongly advised they not consider suspected steroids users for Cooperstown. But Bonds' case has gained steam over the past few years - thanks in part to former Commissioner Bud Selig, who presided over the steroid era, earning induction via committee in 2016 - and will likely continue to do so as more writers who grew up watching him play become eligible to vote.
Consensus: Bonds will likely fall short of induction again in this, his sixth season on the ballot. But early returns suggest Morgan's missive won't have too big an impact on the electorate when it comes to Bonds, and the Hall of Fame risks irrelevancy if it cannot find a place for the greatest player of a generation when its walls are already lined with plenty of racists and drunks and domestic abusers. Bonds should and eventually will make Cooperstown, and if by some chance he doesn't, it is the Hall itself that will be diminished.
