The Giants Picking Barry Bonds in the 1982 Draft

by arnec on Nov 1, 2009 12:05 PM PST Comment 9 comments

Here's a little tidbit from the What Might Have Been Files, taken from a Glenn Dickey column in the San Francisco Chronicle of July 4, 1988. The headline: "Picture Giants With Bonds And Incaviglia":

ONCE AGAIN this past weekend, with the Pittsburgh Pirates in town, I thought how nice it would be if the Giants had Barry Bonds. The Giants drafted Bonds, remember, in 1982, their second choice in the draft of high school and college players. They couldn’t sign him because Tom Haller, then the general manager, wouldn’t go past $70,000. Bonds, the son of former Giants outfielder Bobby Bonds, wanted $75,000. When he didn’t get it, he went to college instead.

In that same draft, the Giants also selected Pete Incaviglia. He wanted $15,000 to sign. The Giants offered $8,000 and lost him. The Giants’ No. 1 pick that year was Steve Stanicek, who had been a designated hitter in college. They did sign Stanicek, one of only two in the top 10 draftees they signed that year, but he never made it to the majors. Now you know why Giants President Al Rosen emphasizes both good scouting and signing the players the club drafts. You won’t see a repeat of the ‘82 disaster with Rosen in charge.

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hypotheticals

To answer the question Dickey posed, I guess Bonds would have come up with the Giants in 1985 or ‘86, Jeffrey Leonard would have left the Giants to make way for him, so the Hackman show in the ’87 NLCS wouldn’t have happened, and Kevin Mitchell would have probably never become a Giant.

It’s hard to see how the late ‘80s Giants would have been much better than they were with Leonard and Mitchell, but the ’90s would have been a very different story. There’s some other things on Bonds in the really old days: 1986, 1985, and 1974.

by arnec on Nov 1, 2009 12:18 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

same draft

Will Clark was picked by the Royals in the 4th round, immediately after the Braves took a tall left-hander from Livermore HS named Randy Johnson.

Lott's Prayer: Almost as many words as the Lord's Prayer, but the Lord wouldn't recognize any of them.

by Nosetackle Supreme on Nov 1, 2009 3:13 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

HAHA

They used their 1st round pick on a college DH? Holy fuck that’s dumb. There’s probably some context that makes this make more sense, but I’m not interested.

Proud father of Juan Carlos Perez. Think Albert Pujols at a position to be determined.

by marcello on Nov 1, 2009 5:09 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

legend has it that Frank Robinson, the Giants manager at the time, heard that the two sides were only $5,000 apart and offered to throw in the $5,000 out of his own pocket.

by FluLikeSymptoms on Nov 1, 2009 6:48 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

I would imagine. I mean, I know compensation was way different in the eighties, but come on, $5,000 being the difference between signing and not signing your #2 pick? That’s like haggling over $50,000 today, in the era of $5 million bonuses.

by quincy0191 on Nov 1, 2009 11:03 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

I’m glad they didn’t sign him. He played for the Pirates, eventually came here, and became one of the best players in history. Who knows what would have happened if he signed with us out of high school? Maybe he hurts himself and never plays in the majors, maybe he doesn’t develop well and becomes a mediocre platoon player for a few years before quitting. I’m pretty happy with the way things turned out.

by quincy0191 on Nov 1, 2009 11:05 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

Bye Bye Barry

Knowing Barry’s personality, there would certainly have been some sort of discontent brewing in his early years with the Giants, if only over how much they were paying him. You are always guessing if you rewrite history but I would bet any amount of money that he would have left as a free agent for his prime years, probably to the Yankees, and only come back when he was breaking down. It took being in Pittsburgh to make him appreciate home. If he really couldn’t wait to get to SF, he would have caved on the $5000 (which is not to say the Giants weren’t dumb not to offer it).

by NearestNorwich on Nov 3, 2009 8:48 AM PST reply actions 0 recs

That seems about right

My guess is Bonds was too good to not become a superstar, no matter which team drafted him, or whether he started pro ball at 18 or 21, but it’s easy to see him becoming discontent with something on the ’80s Giants and going elsewhere once he became a free agent.

by arnec on Nov 5, 2009 1:39 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

Bigger what ifs

A bigger what if, to me, is what if the Giants had selected Mark McGwire instead of Alan Cockrell AND signed Bonds plus did all the other things that they did in real life:

Will Clark at 1B
Robby Thompson at 2B
Mark McGwire at 3B (A’s had him at 3B to start his MLB career)
Matt Williams at SS (that was his original position when drafted plus played some there)
Kevin Mitchell in LF
Barry Bonds in CF (he was originally a CF)

The timeline don’t quite work as Williams didn’t make the majors until 1990, but if you look at his stats, he would have been offensively ready to take over in 1988. And who knows how long McGwire would have worked at 3B and Williams at SS. But still, that would have been a hell of a lineup.

Still, that doesn’t beat the biggest what if in Giants history: what the Giants had decided to beat out the Braves offer for Hank Aaron and signed him instead? They were in the hunt and backed off at the end and wouldn’t go higher.

Neukom: sign up Sabean for another two years!

Adoptive parental unit of Ehire Adrianza.
Godfather of Travis Ishikawa.

by obsessivegiantscompulsive on Nov 5, 2009 5:46 PM PST reply actions 0 recs