Marlins reportedly want Barry Bonds to be hitting coach

Barry Bonds, baseball's home run king and one of the game's most polarizing figures, might soon be the Miami Marlins' hitting coach.

CBS Sports reported Monday that the team was considering hiring Bonds, while ESPN citing a source saying the sides were attempting to finalize a contract.

According to ESPN, Bonds would work alongside incumbent Marlins hitting coach Frank Menechino.

The two men were nearly polar opposites in their playing careers. Menechino was a light-hitting utility infielder who amassed 36 home runs in seven major league seasons. Bonds was a seven-time Most Valuable Player and an eight-time Gold Glove winner whose 762 home runs and 2,558 walks are the sport's all-time standards.

Bonds, 51, last played in the majors in 2007, unable to find a team to sign him due to a cloud of reports regarding his longtime use of performance-enhancing drugs.

The San Francisco Giants, for whom he played the final 15 years of his 22-season career, brought him back to serve as a spring training instructor in 2014 and 2015. Aside from those stints, he largely has been outside of the game while fighting to clear his name from legal charges stemming from his ties to the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative.

Initially convicted of obstruction of justice in 2011, Bonds had the conviction overturned earlier this year.

The PED charges are a major reason why Bonds has not come close to election to the Baseball Hall of Fame in three years on the ballot.