Ken Rosenthal just keeps churnin’ ’em out, and I keep passin’ ’em along. This is a good one: the Padres are interested in Barry Bonds for left field. In 493 plate appearances Bonds had the best OBP in baseball this year at .454.
While one might think PETCO could diminish Bonds’s power, Bill James says otherwise in his latest handbook. After bringing in the fences a little bit, PETCO played very differently for left-handed power hitters in 2006. While left-handed HRs were deflated by 38% over 2004-05, they were inflated by 51% in 2006. I think Bonds would do just fine.
