Bonds and Stats...

The Barry Bonds issue is a complicated one. Many, many baseball fans now feel that his undeniable link to the steroids scandal tarnishes his potentially-amazing legacy. Many of these who feel betrayed, turned-off, duped by Bonds, can't even rationalize their feelings. When asked to discuss the matter some cannot pin down exactly why the feel as they do. In many cases, for better or worse, people's opinions of Bonds are now the stuff of the subconscious. We can't control how we feel about him, we can't rightly describe, in many cases, how we feel about him. We just feel that way.

I for one have been anti-Bonds for some years now, even before the scandal, because of his personality, and the unnatural rise in his production since the 2000 season. But say what you will about chemical enhancements, the guy's record is astounding. As we all know, he is approaching the coveted and hallowed 755 mark. He is light years ahead of the pack, all-time that is, in Walks, Slugging and OPS...in 2004 he posted a ridiculous on-base-percentage of .609...he got on base more than 60% of the times he came to the plate. That same year he had an unbelievable 232 walks, no one would pitch to him. 232 is 62 more than any other player, besides Bonds himself, has ever had in a single season. 62 more. Numbers like these make it hard to argue the fact that steriods or not, like him or not, when compared to his peers, Bonds is the best player of our era, hands down. Better than Clemens, better than A-Rod, better than Maddux, better than, well, everybody....

This being said, in checking out Bonds' fantastic stats I was once again, like I always am, drawn to the one of the greatest players of all-time and maybe my favorite Yankee-I-never-saw-play, Lou Gehrig. Though he was a superb all-around hitter, and is among the All-Time leaders in several major offensive categories....his absolute greatest achievements came with regard to RBI's. The guy was an absolute machine when it came to driving in runs, just the best ever. Tonight I was investigating (purely because I love analyzing Baseball stats) Gehrig's average number of RBI's per year, for his entire career. I knew that he died young, and played only 17 seasons, still his career RBI mark of 1995 is good for 4th all-time.

This makes his average for RBI's in a season an amazing 117...117 per season for 17 seasons....including his rookie year and his final years when the disease that would ultimately bear his name, had already weakened him....117.... pretty fantastic...To put this number in perspective I got some other all-time great run producers season averages....They are:

Gehrig 117
Ruth 100
Aaron 99
BobMeusel (underappreciated Yankee great from the the same teams of the 1920's) 97

in other words, no one came close, especially not when you consider, the number of seasons played...

I then went to the biggest active run producers...

Manny Ramirez in 14 admittedly fantastic seasons....has averaged 108
A-Rod in 13...averaged 103

Both very, very good marks, but still not as many as Gehrig had for his entire 17 season career...

So yeah, I don't know what the point of that was, but I just love talking about the Iron Horse, Lou Gehrig. Bonds' statistics are impressive, in some ways more impressive than anyone's...but there is something to be said for a level of consistency, day in and day out, that produces a 117 RBI average seasons.