Crazy Barry Bonds stat

[fuhrdog]

During today's Fangraphs chat with Jeff Sullivan, he responds with his favorite Bond's stat...and it is amazing.

Comment From Kim
Barry Bonds was effing incredible. What’s your favorite stat of his? I can’t decide between 49% of his hits going for extra bases or 120 IBB’s in one year.

10:55
Jeff Sullivan: This one’s mine. There were 415 pitchers against whom Barry Bonds went hitless. Against those pitchers, he posted a .331 OBP.

[Fresno Bob]

Bonds is the greatest hitter of all time

[madducks]

Barry Bonds holds the career record for intentional walks with 668.
Even more impressive is that his total is more than the next two players on the all-time list, Hank Aaron and Albert Pujols (currently tied at 293), combined!

Bonds 43 intentional walks in his final season at age 42 has only been topped by two other players. Willie McCovey (45) and Albert Pujols (44), who did it in their age 31 and 29 seasons!

[cool hand]

49.1% of his hits went for extra bases.

[wannabegriffey]

Bonds is the greatest hitter of all time

I don't know about greatest hitter but I would wager his melon grew the most comparing his rookie size head to his final season size head

[gcstomp]

I put my vote for Bonds as the greatest hitter ever as well, and it was a lone wolf act, unlike Ruth who had decades of an adoring audience loving him from every stadium, Bonds was the visiting beast to be booed and hissed, to have every towns talk show host bash, and to have the very best scouting people study tapes and work to find his weak spots, for naught. It is the nature of sports that athletes evolve, bigger, stronger, faster, better proven techniques, whatever. I recall a Mike Tyson interview, and it is pretty universal that he was the best for a short time, where interviewer asked how he would fare in todays game. Tyson gave credit that his particular skill set and physical tools at his prime were way above and beyond anyone in his particular time period, but if directly teleported to tdays game would not fare as well.

And so would Babe Ruth fall far short if he were poofed from his very best prime years to todays game. Both hold strong arguments in the history books as having solid evidence of being the best of all time so its a fun exercise that can be argued either way. Bonds had plenty left in the tank when the league colluded to blackball him from playing again, while Ruth's final season was pretty dismal.

[chancellor]

You're all wrong. Ted Williams is the greatest hitter who ever lived.

Give Ted Williams the five years in his prime he lost to serving our country, and he matched up with Ruth favorably-against much stronger competition. Give him anabolic steroids and he'd make Bonds look like a sideshow freak.

[TranaGreg]

just a thought ... maybe we should set up some kind of a pool to see who knows more about assessing baseball talent ... not sure how we could do that tho ...

[gcstomp]

I find it somehow refreshing to have a silly baseball comp session and I am not at all charging hard into battle for my dude. But Bonds was a freak, and he was in my lifetime. He was so loathed that he had 4 seasons where he trounced the league MVP winner in WAR but did not win, though he did manage to win 7 of them anyway in other undeniable seasons. T Williams is a decorated war vet, and did compile 2 MVP, maybe he would have won 5 more in the seasons he lost to wartime?

No matter, MVP is usually a pop contest, except when it isnt, as again remember Bonds was loathed and feared as the Kraken. All time single season leader board for Offensive WAR is all about Ruth and Bonds, heck thats just another artificially created stat that maybe does not convey the true value of the players hitting I guess.

Bonds last season, when he lead league in BB and OBP, and hit 28 HR in 340 ab's, he was still just about the baddest mofo on the planet. Batted ball velocity was still lethal, eye still uncanny. I remember when the greatest hitter debate was all about Gwynn vs Boggs, and that is about eye, bat control, hitting philosophy of plate coverage and the beauty of the game and all that tinkerbell dance around the tree talk. But in terms of lethality of walk me or I will murder the ball, Bonds to me is King Kong.

[Pogues]

just a thought ... maybe we should set up some kind of a pool to see who knows more about assessing baseball talent ... not sure how we could do that tho ...

I'll be the judge of the competition.

[madducks]

Barry Bonds lifetime stats against Rick Ankiel: 0-3 with 3 strikeouts! Probably the only pitcher who can say he owned Barry Bonds.

[The Dane]

One of the reasons Babe Ruth so far outstripped his competition is because even if they were contemporaries, he could in his own day never be compared to Barry Bonds because Barry is black.

Take all of the black and latino players out of baseball and say that any of those that are left are truly facing the best of the best. You can't. That's the context of Ruth's numbers.

[The Dane]

I get that, too, but it seems disingenuous to suggest that no one who played prior to 1949 or whenever we feel integration was fully accepted could be the equal of anyone who played after. Again, it's not Ruth's fault that he destroyed the only competition he had - he couldn't have joined the Negro Leagues and crushed them, too. Someday there very well could be full, worldwide participation in baseball (presumably when travel gets faster). Will we then just dismiss Barry Bonds' numbers because he wasn't facing the best of the best in Japan, in Korea, in Cuba, etc.? It's not an easy exercise by any measure, but I still think Ruth's numbers show clearly that he's the greatest hitter of all time by a good margin.

I'm not taking anything away from Ruth. I think there are fine arguments to claim he's the best hitter ever. Bonds is clearly the superior player, once you throw all that Gold Glove defense in there, but then that's not really the discussion.

You set out to assert Ruth's status by demonstrating by how much he shined over his peers. Fair enough. But, there is no argument that Ruth's peers were far inferior to Bonds'. Maybe not enough for you to claim Bonds is the best, that's fine. But if you want to use the context of Ruth's game as a fair measure, you can't leave out the absence of a good deal of the competition. If even given that, you still think Ruth is better, that's cool. You're certainly not the only one.

[The Dane]

Yeah, it's kind of an exercise in futility to compare across generations.


However, you can't just say "Bonds is clearly the superior player" by pointing to his defense. Babe Ruth was an amazing pitcher, having amassed a 122 ERA+ in over 1,200 innings! Ruth wins again!

True. Ruth was also one or the other. He didn't give great pitching at the same time he was giving great hitting. He had essentially two separate careers. Like John Smoltz on a grander scale. He was a great starter and a great closer but never at the same time.

Bonds was a great hitter -on par with Ruth even if he isn't superior- and a great defender at the same time, so his value in each game was probably higher.

Exercise in futility is right...

[madducks]

Bonds also probably lost about 100-150 RBI from his career total by hitting leadoff instead of 3-4-5 during his first four seasons.

Another crazy Bonds stat is 45 homeruns vs only 41 strikeouts in 2004.
Bonds was also a career .300 hitter through his first 20 seasons. His lifetime average dropped to .298 during his last two years.