This hire would certainly move the needle.
All-time home run leader/baseball pariah Barry Bonds is under consideration to become hitting coach for the Miami Marlins, according to CBS Sports.
Bonds makes his home in the Bay Area, and the report leaves questions as to his willingness to relocate for the job. The 51-year-old coaching neophyte would work in tandem with another hitting coach under new Marlins manager Don Mattingly.
Bonds left the sport in 2007 in PED infamy, owner of seven MVP awards and the lifetime mark of 762 homers. That season, at age 42, he posted an OPS of 1.045, which would have ranked second in MLB in 2015. He spent the following years fighting obstruction of justice charges in federal court and slowly rebuilding his reputation. He has worked as a guest spring training instructor for the Giants.
And there is precedent here: Mark McGwire retired after the 2001 season, similarly decried as a doping cheat, then returned to work in 2010. He has been employed without incident the past six seasons as a hitting coach for the Cardinals and Dodgers, and he will be the Padres bench coach next season.
With the Marlins, Bonds would have the opportunity to tutor Giancarlo Stanton, arguably the greatest slugger of all time — insert your preferred asterisk here, or not — teaching arguably the most fearsome slugger active in MLB.