If I had a vote for this year’s National League MVP, I would vote for Adrian Beltre of the Dodgers. If I had one for last year, I would have voted for Albert Pujols. Despite the way I would have used those votes, I still believe that Barry Bonds A) had the best seasons in the NL in 2003 and 2004, and B) really is the best, most feared hitter in baseball. How can the fans and the voters reconcile the fact that Bonds is both the best, and yet others, in my opinion, deserve to be named NL MVP?
My basic starting point in arriving at this conclusion is that Bonds’ numbers – at least since 2001 – are quite simply inhuman. Consider his walks totals. Bonds is now the all-time leader in that category. It took Babe Ruth 22 seasons to amass 2,062 free passes. He left the game in 1935, and that record stood until 2001, when Rickey Henderson passed it at the end of his 23rd season. Bonds passed Henderson in the first few weeks of 2004, at the beginning of his 19th season. And really, if Bonds hadn’t missed a few weeks last season dealing with the illness and eventual death of his father, he would have passed Henderson at the end of his 18th season – functionally four seasons faster than Ruth and five faster than Henderson. As for the single season mark, entering this year, Bonds had the two highest totals at 177 (2001) and 198 (2002). Beginning the season, that 2002 total of 198 BB was the record. This year he’s at 224 with a week left to play. His five highest season totals are among the top 15 totals ever. In that same group, only Ted Williams (4) and Babe Ruth (2) appear more than once.
What these walks totals have produced is some ridiculous on base percentage numbers. He is currently #5 on the all-time list for his career at .442. In 2001 he posted a number (.515) that was then the 6th highest (now 9th) total of all time. In 2003 he finished at .529, which is now 6th. In 2002 he broke the old record of .552 set by Ted Williams in 1941 (the year he hit .406), posting an astonishing .582. This year, he’s at .613. That will give four of the highest 10 totals in history, and again, only Williams and Ruth, with 2 apiece, are on the list more than once. His .613 is .146 better than the #2 man for the 2004 season, Todd Helton, whose .467 total is good enough to be the 65th highest total in history. Barry's not-on-base-percentage is .387. That means he's not on base about as much as Vladimir Guerrero is on base.
This has produced fewer plate appearances for Bonds over the past four years, to the point were Bonds regularly draws more walks than hits. Among those with high walks totals in a single season, only Mark McGwire’s 1998 (162 BB/152 hits) and Williams’ 1954 (136 BB/133 hits) have ever done it at all. Plus he almost never strikes out. Ted Williams had the best strikeout to walk ratio among the high walk total seasons at .29 K’s per walk (47/162). Bonds has bettered that twice: 2002 when he struck out only .23 times per walk (47/198), and this year when he is striking out only .17 times per walk (39/224).
This, of course, has led to some remarkable batting averages in the last four years. Since 2001, Bonds has hit .328, .370, .341, and .369. The .370 and .369 were batting title years, and this at age 38 and 40 respectively. Since 2001, he’s hitting .351; in the same period, Ichiro Suzuki is hitting only .339. His OBP in this four-year stretch is .554, which is .02 better than Williams’ old single season record of .552.
Then there’s the home runs. Everybody remembers the 73 he hit in 2001 to break McGwire’s previous mark of 70. Since then he’s hit 46, 45, and currently 45 – good for 2nd, 2nd, and 3rd in baseball in those years. In 2002, Sammy Sosa led baseball with 49 homers. It took him 556 at bats – a rate of one HR every 11.35 AB. That same year Bonds hit one every 8.76 at bats. In 2003, Jim Thome went 47 for 578, a rate of 12.3, while Bonds went deep every 8.67. This year both Albert Pujols and Adrian Beltre have more total home runs, and they have rates of 12.5 and 12.1 respectively. Bonds is at 8.06 this year. McGwire was better in ’98 when he set the record with a rate of one blast for every 7.27 at bats. In Bonds’ record breaking year, he sent one out every 6.52.
Now, one could argue that Bonds' RBI numbers aren’t there, and in truth, they aren’t. But he only gets to swing in three out of every five plate appearances. In addition to that, when was the last time you remember Bonds having great hitters in front of him to be driven in? Furthermore, he’s more likely to get walked when runners are on; you can take it to the bank that he’ll get walked if there’s an open base. As if that's not enough, he’s only had real line up protection in one of the last four years (2001, Jeff Kent). The other guys behind him have been the likes of Benito Santiago, J.T. Snow, and Edgardo Alfonzo – hardly an intimidating group. McGwire had 30+ behind him in ’98 (Ray Lankford) and ’99 (Fernando Tatis). Ruth had Lou Gerhig. Willie Mays had Willie McCovey. Hank Aaron had Eddie Matthews. But Bonds is, and has almost always been, the lone force in the San Francisco line up.
This essay is not meant to be a case for Bonds as the greatest player of all-time, although a case can, and should, be made. This is just to say that for the last four years, Bonds has been so much better than the rest of the league, the fact that he’s the MVP is just a given. He’s won 6 MVP’s so far (2 more than any other player in the game), and he definitely deserved them all. What’s scary is that he deserved at least two more. He was robbed by Atlanta’s Terry Pendleton in 1991, and then by teammate Kent in 2000.
So what’s the solution? This will never happen, but what MLB needs to do is write a letter to Barry that says basically this:
Look, Barry, you’re the best. We know that. Nobody’s even close; your numbers are just insane. We want other players in the league to be recognized, so we’re just going to rename it the Barry Bonds Award and give it to the guy that is closest to being as dominant as you are. You are to the MVP Award far more than Cy Young is to the Cy Young Award. We’ll force the Giants to pay you whatever MVP bonuses are in your contract, but we have to tell the voters to stop considering you as a candidate. You have won this award so many times, and so many times there have been other deserving candidates. Candidates that had career years, led their teams to the playoffs to everyone’s surprise. Look at Luis Gonzalez in 2001. His team won the World Series. He hit .325 with 57 home runs and 142 RBI’s – he didn’t even get a 1st place vote. Look at Adrian Beltre this year. For that matter, how about Albert Pujols the last four years? We’re sorry we have to do this, but you’ve left us with no choice. You couldn’t just fade away like most players your age – you had to be better than almost every player ever. We’re sure you understand, and we continue to wish you the best.
Sincerely,
Alan H. “Bud” Selig
Ichiro in Context
With a week left, Ichiro will almost certainly pass the all-time hit mark of 257 set by George Sisler of the St. Louis Browns in 1920. Obviously, people will, and in fact already have, made the typical 154-game vs. 162-game schedule argument in favor of Sisler. In addition, Sisler hit .407 that year, compared to Ichiro’s current mark of .373. But is that it? Is it cut and dry that Sisler’s 1920 was a better season than Ichiro is having? What about the context of the league?
In 1920, George Sisler’s batting average was 47% better than the league, .407 to .277. Ichiro is 40% better than the league at .373 vs. .267. Sisler was 4.9 % better in average than the next highest hitter in the league (Tris Speaker, .388); Sisler was 13% better than the remainder of the top 10 hitters in the league. Ichiro is 8.7 % better than the next hitter (Todd Helton .343. Bonds is hitting .372, but I don’t believe Bonds should count as “normal league context” any more, I’ll do an essay on this later). Ichiro is 9.7% better than the rest of the top 10. One thing these numbers do tell us, is that it is much harder today to be the most dominant player, that is, the league as a whole is catching up. The gap between the best and worst players is shrinking.
As far as hits go, Sisler was 14.7 % better than #2 (Eddie Collins 224) and 13 % better than the average number of hits by the remainder of the top 10. In the same categories, Ichiro is 21% better than #2 (Michael Young, 208) and 27% better than the pack.
Within the context of the leagues in which Sisler and Ichiro played, the disparity seems to be far less than a comparison of a .407 average and a .373 avergae would indicate. By the way, the numbers used in this analysis are after game # 154 for Ichiro. Sisler played all 154 in 1920.
Mariano Rivera and the Saves Record
I knew he wouldn’t do it.
Inside the New Big Red Machine
I’m not talking about the Reds; I’m talking about the Cardinals. The Cards are 6.5 games better than the Yankees, and 10.5 better than the closest NL team (Atlanta). They’re 103-52 with 7 games left to play. One reason for their dominance is that they’re the best hitting team in baseball.
The team is hitting .278, which is .03 better than the Rockies and Padres, and better than 11 of the 14 AL teams, whose respective batting averages benefit from the DH. They’ve scored the most runs of any team, and hit the most home runs. Their slugging percentage is .04 better than the inflated number posted by the Rockies and a full .22 better than their nearest NL rival (Giants). In addition to that, they trail only the Brewers in total stolen bases, but they have a much better success rate.
As if that’s not enough, they’re pitching pretty well too. They have the best team ERA in baseball at 3.68. They have the fewest runs allowed, and an MLB best 1.24 team WHIP. Not only do they have the fewest walks, they also have the fewest intentional walks, which means they actually pitch to people. They keep the ball in the yard better than any other team - .08 better in ground out to pop out ratio. Only the Detroit Tigers (Ivan Rodriguez) have been more successful in throwing out would-be base stealers. Pudge has thrown out 58%, while Matheny/Molina have thrown out 54%. And even though they are second in that stat, steals have only been attempted against them 50 times, compared to 66 times against the Tigers. They have the lowest opponent batting average, the lowest opponent on base percentage, the most bullpen holds, and the fewest plate appearances allowed.
While their defense is good, they do rank only 11th (4th in the NL) in fielding percentage and total errors committed. This is strange considering they had 4 gold-glovers last year. Even with that one “weakness” they’ve been far and away the best team in baseball for almost the whole year – definitely since mid-June. This is not a prediction, but they have to be considered the team to beat in the post season.
Final Thoughts
I will try to do a few more posts as time allows, and with the end of the season just a week away, I’ll have a few more things to talk about.
Baseball Reference is really a fantastic place for, well, baseball reference. (The only thing I would change is to have it updated daily.) Anyway, They have section on player salaries. They only have data back to 1985, but some of the names on that list are rather surprising. To put in perspective how much things have changed, Dave Winfield was the highest paid AL player in 1985, earning not-quite 1.8 million. A-Rod will make 22 million this year. The most interesting year though, was 1989, when Frank Viola of the Twins was the highest paid player in the AL at $2,766,666. That was second highest in the whole league, as Orel Hershiser was paid $2,766,667.
Another useless, but still interesting, section listed the oldest player in the league for each year. Plenty of players have made it into their late 40's, though it's difficult to know how often they played. Julio Franco (46) is currently the oldest. Phil Neikro (48) was the oldest legitimate Major League contributor in our era. The oddest entry however (aside from the 1980 Minnie Minoso stunt) was Nick Altrock. Altrock was the oldest player in the league 5 times, but never in consecutive years. In fact, it was spread over 14 years. In 1919 he was the oldest at 42; in 1933 he was 56. He did it as a pinch hitter and a pitcher, but mostly just one at bat or one inning. Twice he went 1 for 1 in his only at bat of the year.
I also took a look at the active leaders for various offensive categories and was amazed to find Steve Finley consistently in the top 10 of several categories. he was present in games, at bats, runs, hits, triples (#1), total bases, and stolen bases. I had no idea.
Roger Clemens is now tied for 12th on the wins list at 324. He's tied with Nolan Ryan and Don Sutton. Reaching 330 would move him up 3 more spots to 9th. If he comes back another year and can win 15 or so, he'll get one more spot, but the top 7 are all over 360 so it's unlikely he'll reach that territory.
Rafael Palmeiro's streak of 35+ homers and 100+ RBI's appears to be over. Greg Maddux's streak of consecutive 15+ win seasons is very much intact. He has 13 wins right now, leaving him 2 short of 17 straight years of 15 or more. Cy Young did it 15 straight years.