Graph of the Day: Babe Ruth vs Barry Bonds

by Jeff Zimmerman on Jun 19, 2009 11:00 AM EDT

I have been doing some work on converting Win Shares to WAR (work to some soon) and was having problems at the extreme values which mainly belong to Barry Bonds and Babe Ruth. Since I had only Win Shares for the two, I did a Win Share comparison instead of a WAR comparison, Their output is similar, but Barry had a longer career and the Babe's 5 to 7 highest seasons were a little better.

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Bonds V. Ruth At End; Ruth's Overall HR Total

I was amazed how well Bonds was able to do in 2001 and 2002 at his age. There’s a ton of suspicion about how he was able to do that. Babe Ruth on the “hot dogs and beer” diet did tail off quite a bit following 1933. I wonder if Ruth had not been a pitcher early in his career, if he could have ended up with over 763 HR’s or not. We’ll never know.

"The big possums walk late." - Harry Caray

by memphiscub on Jun 19, 2009 1:01 PM EDT reply actions

i wonder how many HRs Bonds would have by now if he wasn't blackballed

by superk1ng on Jun 19, 2009 2:37 PM EDT up reply actions

I am one that doesn't feel he was black balled, just no team wanted the circus that came with him for a DH.

Jeff Zimmerman - Protecting the world from RBI's and Wins from my mom's guest house.

by Jeff Zimmerman on Jun 19, 2009 3:51 PM EDT up reply actions

You’re telling me that, in a game where Milton freaking Bradley gets paid to take the field every day, that there was no room for Barry Bonds and a .900 to 1.050-ish OPS?

There is no doubt about it — the owners colluded against Bonds to keep him out of the game.

Crashburn Alley

by Crashburn Alley on Jun 19, 2009 8:39 PM EDT up reply actions

His WAR in 2007 was 3.9 , Mark Ellis level

Taking out that he the entire PED controversy, he would have been 44 and probably almost having to DH or cost the team that signed him a ton of runs if he was on the outfield. He was only hitting.

And then the circus of questions the team would have to answer about him. I just don’t think teams were that disparate to take on the additional weight.

Jeff Zimmerman - Protecting the world from RBI's and Wins from my mom's guest house.

by Jeff Zimmerman on Jun 20, 2009 12:21 AM EDT up reply actions

So you agree...

The owners were worried about public and media outcry, so they decided together nobody would sign him.

by BlackOps on Jun 20, 2009 1:48 AM EDT up reply actions

During 2008, several players played mostly DH and were horrible:

Jose Vidro: -1.3 WAR …why?
Travis Hafner: -0.8 WAR in 234 PAs (benched and DLed mid season and replaced by someone not named Barry Bonds)
Craig Monroe -0.6 WAR in just under 180 PAs (inexplicable started 6 games in center; think Cuddyer is bad?)
Matt Stairs, a few runs below replacement on offense mostly at DH but with a handful of OF starts (also worse than Bonds would have likely been on defense).
Daniel Dellucci: Presumably all or most of the non-Hafner shitty DHing that went on in Cleveland. Half a win below replacement on offense. Still alive to this day.

Bonds would have likely been a better DH than most of the DHes in the league. Hell he would have been better than many of the LFs that started in 2008 (I bet he’d even have given Garret Anderson a run for his money). He was 39 runs above average with the bat in 2007; that was more valuable than any DH except Aubrey Huff in 2008, and that’s because Huff cheated and played decent defense for 30 games at third. His production could have certainly tailed off, but that doesn’t stop Jim Thome (who hasn’t been +39 on offense since 2006; his decline started sooner so he could actually be a worse hitter today than Bonds would be. Today).

I’m not sure if I’d really blame collusion more than I’d blame simple stupidity or cowardice (Mariners could be the one, say… Rays the other, though Floyd was actually okayish that year I doubt anyone would have bet against Bonds in the race to 0.6 WAR).