Today, or tomorrow, or the next day -- sometime soon -- Barry Bonds will hit a
baseball over a distant wall, thus becoming only 17th player in the game's
long history to slug 500 home runs in a major-league career.
That's not the story, though. The real story is that Barry Bonds is only 36
years old, and doesn't look anywhere near ready to start slowing down. After
500, what lies beyond for Bonds?
To this point, 16 players have totaled 500 or more home runs, but among
those 16 players, only Mark McGwire is still adding to his total (and he's
doing it only semi-regularly these days). Harmon Killebrew, for example, hit
573 homers, but the last of them came when he was 39 (a very old 39, as
Killebrew was pretty much washed up at 37). Frank Robinson hit 586 homers,
but the last of them came when he was 40.
Meanwhile, Bonds is still going strong. Last year he set a career high with
49 homers, despite playing half his games in a ballpark that's apparently
tough on left-handed-hitting power hitters. According to Bill James' Career
Assessments method, Bonds now has an 89 percent chance of hitting 600 home
runs -- something only three men have ever done. He also has a 21 percent
chance of hitting 700 home runs, and -- get this -- a six percent chance of
breaking Henry Aaron's record.
Of course, a lot of guys have a shot at topping Aaron, with Ken Griffey (36
percent), Sammy Sosa (35 percent) and McGwire (23 percent) leading the
way. But given McGwire's injury woes, it's quite possible that if Bonds
does manage to reach 756 home runs, he'll be the first.
And a decade ago, who'd have guessed it? The career of Barry Bonds stands as
a wonderful object lesson in the unpredictability of athletic performance.
After his fourth major-league season, Bonds was 25 years old and his career
totals looked like this:
Bonds, 1986-1989
Games Runs RBI HR Avg OBP Slug
566 364 223 84 .256 .347 .458
Good numbers, no doubt (remember, this was the 1980s). But he'd never played
in an All-Star Game, never led the National League in any statistical
category. Now, compare those first four seasons to the 11-plus since:
Games Runs RBI HR Avg OBP Slug
1986-1989 566 364 223 84 .256 .347 .458
1990-2001 1588 1227 1191 415 .302 .434 .610
Did anyone know, in 1990, that Barry Bonds would eventually become
perhaps the greatest left fielder in the history of the game?
Finally, Neyer writes something controversial ... What's his e-mail
address again?
The e-mail address is at the bottom of the column. And yes, I believe that
Barry Bonds should eventually be recognized as baseball's greatest left
fielder. Assuming, of course, that he's not already there.
Quick and dirty, let's compare some statistics for the three
contenders:
Teddy Ballgame Stan the Man Barry Bonds
Runs 1798 1949 1584
RBI 1839 1951 1405
OBP .482 .417 .411
Slug .634 .559 .567
OPS 1116 976 978
OPS+ 186 157 167
That last row describes the OPS for each player, with an adjustment for
league and ballpark. Ted Williams' 186 means that after making those
adjustments, his career OPS was 86 percent better than his league. As you
can see, Bonds has been better relative to his league than Stan Musial.
And while Musial was regarded as a pretty good outfielder and a fine
baserunner, it would be pretty hard to defend the notion that he was the
match of Bonds in either department. What's more, two of Musial's biggest
years, 1943 and '44, came during World War II, when a great majority of the
National League's best pitchers were either Musial's teammates, or wearing
green uniforms in the service of their country.
Ah, the war. Or rather, the wars. Williams spent nearly five full seasons in
the service, three during World War II and nearly two more during the Korean
War. Had he not missed those nearly-five seasons, Williams might well be the
all-time leader in both runs and RBI. And if he were, would we even consider
anyone else as the all-time greatest left fielder? Perhaps not.
Still, Williams did spend his entire career in a great hitter's park. And he
was exceedingly fragile for the last seven years of his career. A pretty
good all-around player for the first half of his career, Williams didn't
give the Red Sox much in the field or on the bases for second half of his
career.
Perhaps it's too early to put Barry Bonds in Ted Williams' class. But Bonds
has certainly wedged his way into the argument. And in two or three years,
it just might be Williams' fans who have to do the heavy lifting.
Rob Neyer is a Senior Writer for ESPN.com. His column runs Monday through Thursday. You can e-mail Rob at rob.neyer@dig.com.
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