you made your mind up about bonds a LONG time ago. you don't like him, and that colors your opinions about his present abilities. the reason bonds hasn't been signed has nothing to do with the level of talent he has, today (imo, of course).

...then you are 100% into a rebuilding mode. He also signed bargain basement place fillers like Brown and Sweeney. That tells me that part of his rebuilding strategy is saving money for the future, when they genuinely are contending.

Beane isn't the kind of GM who would trade away his best players in Swisher and Haren for prospects and then change course in midseason by spending a lot of money on a one-year guy like Bonds.

Clearly 30 MLB teams are not.

No. The only thing that's clear is that 30 teams have passed on signing him to date.

You've said you think the reason for this is because they don't value him enough to justify the cost, mainly because you find the possible alternate reasons less likely. You've enumerated the alternates as follows: 1) observance of a moral stance and 2) some form of collusion.

This is false reasoning. There are other possible reasons, and I think that none of the ones you've enumerated is especially likely. I'll follow up with 390 later on when I get a chance.

Our debates on this site tend to be more about a lively exchange of ideas than about changing each other's minds.

I was going to reply above but the indenting was getting severe. Here are my thoughts about Bonds' status.

I don’t think you have to look very far for reasons why Bonds isn’t signed, because the same two reasons that sway these organizations in most of their other decisions are sufficient to explain this outcome as well: 1) they are risk-averse and 2) they compete only for resources that are perceived to be scarce.

1) Contracts for management positions are relatively short, the people who fill those positions are typically scapegoated when things go wrong, and performance on the field can fall short of expectations for a wide variety of reasons beyond management's control, in spite of best intentions, solid planning, and good execution on the part of the front office. Result: anyone in a position of responsibility is naturally reluctant to do anything that's widely perceived as risky. Dayton Moore has been unusual in this regard, but he has been operating in an environment of lower expectations, and perhaps even he might become more risk-averse after experiencing a period of improved performance.

Regarding Bonds, it's "common knowledge" that Bonds is a cancer, so much so that the number of folks who subscribe to the position that the Giants will play better without him this year are legion -- even my mailman says so, and he's otherwise a pretty reasonable guy. (Also he's the only other Royals and Giants fan I know personally.) If a team signs Bonds and falls short of expectations, regardless of the actual causes, the Guy Who Signs Bonds will be scapegoated for bringing all that negative energy into the room. Even if it's total hogwash, as most people will assume it isn't.

In sum: even a GM who knows that Bonds can help his team (and I think that this is most of them) also knows that signing Bonds 1) doesn't guarantee success and 2) opens the door to very undesirable fallout in the event of failure. The risk, very simply, outweighs the reward.

At least it has from the time he filed for free agency last fall through opening day, and it will continue to do so right up until a team gets finds itself in a position in which goals that seemed obtainable during the offseason start to seem elusive, because of unanticipated injury or other shortfalls in performance. At that point the assumption of risk will become acceptable, even laudable.

This is the same reason that prospects that teams refuse to part with in the offseason become movable quantities in the heat of a pennant race. If you make a failed trade when your team isn't in peril, you're an idiot. But if you make the same failed trade when it restores hope of a flag, you made a laudable effort. (Of course you'd better make some good trades eventually or you'll lose your job anyway.)

2) Given the risk-aversion noted above, why make a move today when you think you'll still be able to make the same move tomorrow? In other words, if every GM thinks every other GM will hold off on Bonds (as every team's situation, still early in the year, is far from dire anyway), there's very little incentive for them to get something done.

That's it. Those are the two reasons I think he's unsigned.

In the end, I wouldn't be the least surprised if Team A in a good situation in June, say, signs him as soon as Team B that's performing below expectations falls significantly behind, because GM A will start to perceive Bonds as a desirable commodity to Team B. In that scenario, the reward of blocking Team B's recovery plan might be perceived as outweighing the risk.