re: How Good Was Barry Bonds?

Advance stats says otherwise

Yet every other player in that era played in the same stadiums as Ruth. Why weren’t they able to do what he did????

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How Good Was Barry Bonds?

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Think about the best player you ever saw. No, think about the best player you could ever imagine. Get a real clear picture of that guy, and what he would look like. Got it? Good. Now forget about it. Bonds was better.

Babe Ruth had a slugging % of almost .700

Ted Williams is a distant second at .634.

Barry Bonds is a very very distant 8th at .607.

...and that's ONLY because of 4 ASTRONOMICAL years 2001-2004, the Prime sweet spot of the PED of horse doping years...which dramatically inflates his career average.

During those 4 years he had 4 seasons of a slugging % over .700 (his best, career-wise in those four years BY FAR!)

Babe Ruth had 9. That spanned from 1920 to 1931.

Someone was one thing their entire career, and another manufactured themselves into another thing for part of their career.

Wasn't responding to you per se, just hit reply to recent post. Apologies.

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Babe Ruth had a slugging % of almost .700

Ted Williams is a distant second at .634.

Barry Bonds is a very very distant 8th at .607.

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That’s cute. How many times did those guys face somebody like Randy Johnson? Greg Maddux? Roger Clemens? Well-rested closers like Eric Gagne? Great as they were, those guys were swinging light poles against dudes who worked in coal mines in the off-season. If we’re just talking relatively, they have an argument. If we’re talking time-machine pick guys up and drop them in the others’ eras, I think Ruth and Williams were good enough to play in Bonds’ era. But they wouldn’t be getting those poles around with their long swings on dudes throwing 98 in the 9th. Drop Bonds—any version— in either one of their eras, and he may have doubled their numbers. He had the fastest hands probably in baseball history. Way before steroids.

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and another manufactured themselves into another thing for part of their career.

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The game changed a lot between 1986 and 2000. For a young man who took advantage of his speed (along with his power—he always dropped bombs) when guys like Rickey Henderson, Vince Coleman, and Willie McGee were running wild on the bases to have the ability to change his game as he got older and adapt to the changing game where getting on base and home runs were king, I’d think that was admirable myself. He won 3 MVPS (should have been 4 straight) playing 1 way, and 4 more playing another (15 seasons from his 1st to his last).

At least he gave enough of a shite to put the work in to be out there, unlike Griffey who just turned his hat around backwards and tried to “fun” his way through the 2nd half of his career. And I’d bet everything I own Griffey juiced too. And I don’t think any less of him for it. Everyone did it. The money was just too much. He just didn’t care enough to work as hard. He was “The Natural.” He didn’t need to live in the gym or the cage after he’d established himself.

I will say Griffey was probably the most aesthetically pleasing baseball player I ever saw, but Bonds was still significantly better. Juice or not, he was gonna age better maybe than anybody in the history of the sport, because he was so quick twitch and, like I said, probably had the quickest hands in the history of the sport.

Oh yeah, and then in his 4th year, he figured out the strike zone. That was the 1st season he didn’t strike out more than he walked. He did both the same, 93 times. After 4 full seasons, Barry Bonds had struck out 81 more times in his career than he’d walked. When he retired, he’d walked more times than he struck out. 1,019 more times to be exact. Only player ever to be intentionally walked twice as many times in 1 year as he struck out. And he was 1 strikeout away from it being 3 times (120:41). He went to the plate 617 times that year, but only had 373 official at-bats. Might not have had enough to qualify for the batting title he won, hitting .362, except he probably could have divided the same amount of hits over an added 40+ ABs and still won.

But OB% was all the rage around then, right after Moneyball, amd he got on base…let me figure it up real quick…over 60% of the time for an OBP of .609. Is that good? Also somehow managed—again, in his only 373 official ABs—to hit 45 home runs (101 RBI) and slugged enough for a 1.422 OPS. I’m no expert, but I wanna say that’s kinda good. And no sarcasm here at all, I literally have no idea what OPS+ is or how it’s calculated, but his was 263 that year—his 4th straight of over 200. That seems good. He was also over 200 11 and 12 years prior, in ‘92 and ‘93. And his 22-year average was 182. But again, I honestly don’t know how that’s calculated or what’s good. But I feel like that’s good. That 2004 season may have been the GOAT offensive season. He had a couple higher WAR seasons, but I guess defense and base-running probably factored in. He was 39 in 2004. That’s fricking sick. I didn’t wear a COVID-19 mask—they didn’t do shite. But BONDS-04? I’ve got 2 on right now. My son was born in ‘09–I had 3 N95s waiting for him in the OR that all said BONDS-04. Sick. He was that good.

Speaking of good, I know WAR is good. Not sure how it’s measured, but I know the higher the better. I like these Bonds to Hall of Famer WAR comps. I think JAWS is other Hall of Famers, maybe at the same position. LEFT FIELD—Bonds—#1 all-time at 162.8.(#1 all time for just position players, too. Ruth had a few more because of his pitching). Average LF HOFer? 65.2. Not the lowest LF HOFer, the average of all of them. Bonds is almost 100 WsAR better. 7 year peak? Bonds—72.7 WAR, 117.8 JAWS (still not sure hat that is), but….7 year peak average LF HOFer? 41.6 WAR, 53.4 JAWS, and WAR/162? Bonds—8.8, average LF HOFer 4.8.

Again, I’m not sure how all that’s calculated, but it appears Barry Bonds was more than twice as good as the average LF Hall of Famer. And that’s just a tiny bit of some of the highlights. I’ll link my work. Bit before you click on it, I’d suggest a BONDS-89-04 mask or really, maybe a vaccine. Probably double dose. And a couple of boosters. Cause anybody that sick has to have been contagious.

You serious, Bonds?

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Wasn't responding to you per se, just hit reply to recent post.

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No, you were responding to me. And got thoroughly pw3nd.

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That’s cute. How many times did those guys face somebody like Randy Johnson? Greg Maddux? Roger Clemens? Well-rested closers like Eric Gagne

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You can only play against your peers not against eras. And Bonds had all the advantages those guys he faced did.

But still didn't out distance himself from his competition like Ruth or Ted Williams did even when he was a roided freak with Elephant man head. He tried. How many complete games did he pitch? How close was he to hitting .400?

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You can only play against your peers not against eras. And Bonds had all the advantages those guys he faced did.

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I conceded that, and said “relative” to their peers, Ruth and Williams are right there. But Bonds would be much better against the guys they faced than they would against the guys he did. Significantly. So he was better. Much better. Maybe not relatively, if that’s your argument. But it’s not mine.

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But still didn't out distance himself from his competition like Ruth or Ted Williams

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disagree. But still, I’m saying he was the greatest ever. Because he was. Like Michael Jordan was better than Bill Russell. So was Shaq. We can both be right if we’re comparing them like that.

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when he was a roided freak with Elephant man head.

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How many complete games did he pitch?

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Zero. You’ll get no argument from me that Babe Ruth was the greatest baseball player against his peers. He just wasn’t the greatest ever. It’s somewhat semantic.

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How close was he to hitting .400?

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Pretty fricking close a couple of times. But I thought about 20 years ago, we started valuing OBP over batting average. And though Ted obviously had a high OBP several years, how close was he ever to go over .600?

I’ll also concede Ted got hosed by missing prime seasons fighting in the wars. I love Ted Williams. I don’t want to get into a place where I’m arguing against his greatness. He just wasn’t as good as Barry Bonds. Maybe he would have been if he was born 40 years later. But he wasn’t.

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That’s cute. How many times did those guys face somebody like Randy Johnson? Greg Maddux? Roger Clemens? Well-rested closers like Eric Gagne? Great as they were, those guys were swinging light poles against dudes who worked in coal mines in the off-season. If we’re just talking relatively, they have an argument. If we’re talking time-machine pick guys up and drop them in the others’ eras, I think Ruth and Williams were good enough to play in Bonds’ era. But they wouldn’t be getting those poles around with their long swings on dudes throwing 98 in the 9th.

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A counter to that would be - there were what....only 16 teams in baseball back then? And what - 30 now? So you basically have well over 100 pitchers in baseball now that would have been in the minors back then that you get to hit against.