Barry Bonds: The greatest LF ever?

As odd as it might seem -- thinking back to his historic 2001 campaign, and all of the fanfare that has come with it -- Barry Bonds has been criminally underrated for much of his career. In 1999, when the sportswriters of America named who they thought to be the best player of the past decade, Ken Griffey, Jr. was chosen in spite of not actually being better than Bonds for a day in his life.

Nevertheless, with a week's worth of production under his belt -- and yet another injury to the likes of Junior -- most fans of the National Pastime would probably agree that the tide has turned, and Bonds is finally receiving the recognition that he has been denied for the better part of the past 12 years. With that, much of the conversation regarding Bonds has been quietly shifting to a brand new topic -- Who is the Best Left-Fielder Ever? -- with Bonds' place among such legends as Ted Williams, Stan Musial, and Rickey Henderson quickly becoming the talk of the town.

But is this placement valid? Fans from the current generation seem to think so. Writer Jayson Stark recently printed a column not just touting Bonds as the best player at his position of all-time, but the best player at any position of all-time -- pitting Barry against such historical icons as Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, and Willie Mays. Yet, at the same time, many fans from older generations seemingly want to dismiss the accomplishments of today's athletes, arguing that such comparisons are "unfair" to the heroes of days gone by.

Said Joe Morgan in a recent Chat Wrap on ESPN.com:

"[It's] impossible to compare numbers now to when I played ... The ballparks are smaller. The balls are livelier. The pitching is not as consistent ... I don't think you can compare this era to any other era ..."

Now, whether or not Joe is correct in his assessment is a question for another article. Personally, though, I would argue against him. Players are compared across eras all the time in mainstream analysis -- yet no one has a problem with it when Sandy Koufax is ranked as the best pitcher ever (completely ignoring the fact that he pitched in the most pronounced pitcher's era of all-time, while making half his starts in one of the most pronounced pitcher's parks of all-time).

This is not trying to imply that Sandy Koufax wasn't great, it's merely suggesting that he too had a lot of components working in his favor. Thus, if one truly wants to compare the players of today to the players of the 1960s -- or any generation, for that matter -- it is of chief importance that the given statistics are not taken at face value: adjustments must be made for context, leveling the playing field for everyone involved in the discussion.

With that being said, our original question (and "focus" of this article) still remains: Does Barry Bonds compare well to the great left-fielders of the past -- and if so, where does he rank among them?

Well, to answer this question, first we have to narrow the field. As I mentioned before, Ted Williams, Stan Musial, and Rickey Henderson are often regarded as three of best left-fielders of all-time -- with Williams and Musial consistently ranked as one and two, despite losing a number of "peak" years to WWII.

And Rickey? Well, Rickey Henderson is simply the greatest leadoff hitter in the history of the game -- MLB's all-time leader in (1) walks, (2) runs scored, and (3) third-person references. In fact, according to Bill James' New Historical Baseball Abstract, Williams, Musial, and Henderson rank as the top-three left-fielders in Career Win Shares: with 555, 604, and 519, respectively.

Thus, in the interest of forwarding the discussion of this article, here are the four official contestants, all of whom are vying for the title of "Greatest Left-Fielder of All-Time" ...

           Hits   HR    RBI

Teddy      2654   521   1839

Musial     3630   475   1951

Rickey     3000   290   1094

Bonds*     2313   567   1542



            OBP   SLG   OPS

Teddy      .482  .634   1116 

Musial     .417  .559    976

Rickey     .402  .420    822

Bonds*     .419  .587   1004

*Statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com. Numbers current through the 2001 season.

In terms of traditional Triple Crown statistics, Bonds is clearly the weak link of this group. For as fantastic as he has been these past few years, he leads only in home runs -- and at least some of that can be credited to this offensively-conducive era, as well as his increased weight-training. Now, before you test how much e-mail the Sports-Central server can take, please understand that this is not meant as a knock against Bonds; he is product of his generation.

If players in the 1940s and '50s had found it beneficial to lift weights before and after games, I'm relatively sure that Teddy Ballgame and Stan the Man would have done the same. Nevertheless, such was not a part of their era, and -- like it or not -- weight training is an advantage (however small, given that Bonds was quite productive before he increased his muscle mass) that Barry has been given.

Both Willie Mays and Reggie Jackson were effectively washed up by the time they turned 37, and Mickey Mantle was out of baseball for the better half of his late-30s. Weight training does have something to do with the fact that Bonds posted the highest single-season OPS in major-league history at 36-years of age, and that's perfectly okay. Just be sure to make the proper contextual adjustments.

Now, back to the stats.

According to the chart, Ted Williams is obviously the class of the group -- posting a career on-base percentage of .482, and a slugging percentage of .634 -- with Rickey Henderson rounding out the pack. Granted, much of what has made Rickey valuable over the years (stolen bases and bases-on-balls) is not necessarily included on this chart -- and those elements are important to the game -- but even if you increase his OPS by a full 100 points, the man still falls short by a wide margin. Sorry, Rickey, it's been great having you on the show, but it's time for us to show you the door.

As for the others: though Musial has the best combination of "counting statistics" among the four competitors -- tallying 1317 more hits than Bonds, nearly 1000 more than Williams, and more Runs Scored + RBI than almost anyone else in history -- Stan's "rate-stats" don't quite measure up to Barry or Ted. Yes, his career OPS is only 28 points behind that of Barry Bonds, but when you finally consider Musial's home/road splits, you begin to understand the bias involved.

Musial's home field, you see, was none other than Sportsman's Park. Sportsman's Park, in case you were wondering, regularly posted Park Factors of about 105 in the early-to-mid-1940s, and 110 in the late-1950s. In contrast, Barry Bonds' home park -- for the better part of his 16-year career -- has posted Park Factors in the mid-90s, with the past the three seasons being in the high-80s and low-90s: arguably the best pitching environment in the National League.

Thus, when adjusted for context, that 28-point lead in OPS really isn't a 28-point lead at all. Given that Musial slugged nearly 50 points higher at home than on the road, a more evenhanded assessment would probably widen Bonds' lead to about 50 or 60 points -- not a significant gap, mind you, but a gap, nonetheless.

As a result, because of the fact that Musial (1) trails Bonds by a fair amount in OPS; and (2) played more than 40% of his defensive innings at positions other than left-field, the only logical conclusion -- it seems -- is to rank Barry ahead of Stan: something that few analysts have been willing to do over the past half-decade.

Granted, the difference between Musial and Bonds is much closer than the difference we saw in Example One -- Bonds vs. Rickey Henderson -- but the line must be drawn somewhere, and the evidence suggests that Barry is the best available candidate to move on in these proceedings.

One Last Thing (Long Way Down)

Okay, so here we are: Theodore Samuel Williams versus Barry Lamar Bonds -- the greatest players of their respective generations. Yet, here is another side-by-side comparison of the two final contestants, featuring some numbers we haven't looked at up to this point:

                    Bonds   Williams

MVPs                4        2

Top-10 MVP          11       12

All-Star Games      10       17

Career SB           484      24

Career CS           138      17

Career SB%          77       58

Gold Gloves         8        0

Yrs. Lost to War(s) 0        4+

"Okay," you're asking, "but what does all of this mean?" Well, to be perfectly honest, a lot.

By looking at Figure 1 -- the chart which was featured roughly 800 words ago -- any discriminating baseball fan can tell you that Ted Williams has the distinct advantage over Barry Bonds. Though, at the end of the 2001 season, Bonds and Williams had played in a near-identical number of games, Williams led Bonds in every offensive category except homeruns. Talk about dominance, Teddy Ballgame does it all ... or does he?

By carefully looking at Figure 2 (shown above), such becomes equally clear that Barry Bonds has his share of advantages, as well. Where Ted Williams stole only 24 bases in his entire career, Barry Bonds has stolen near 500. Where Ted Williams was caught stealing almost as many times as he was successful, Bonds has one of the highest success rates in history. Where Ted Williams was an absolutely horrid defender, Barry Bonds has won eight Gold Glove awards -- and is considered by Bill James to be "the best defensive left-fielder" in the history of the game. (NHBA, pg. 653). Where Ted Williams played in a reasonable hitter's park for his entire career, Barry's production has been depressed by about 10% over the past nine years. Bonds, it seems, has his share of pluses, too. And yet, it is still not enough.

You see, while all things seem to be equal now -- looking down at a static group of numbers -- one key point regarding Williams is often ignored when evaluating his career; an aspect so huge that for many other players of his generation, their Hall of Fame case hangs on its relevance. What is this that I'm speaking of, you ask? Oh, it's just a little something called World War II.

In 1941 and '42, Theodore Samuel Williams led the league in On-Base Percentage, Slugging Percentage, and Adjusted OPS -- feats which garnered him a second-place finish in the MVP voting for both years. From there, Williams continued to lead the league in those categories -- dominating the competition for the better part of 1946, 1947, 1948, and 1949. During that four-year span, Williams would finish in the top-three for MVP voting each year, but win the award only twice -- a testament, it is said, to the horrible relationship he had with the press.

"But what," you're probably thinking, "happened from 1943 through 1945?" Well, during that period of time, Ted Williams the ballplayer became Ted Williams the Marine aviator -- flying numerous combat missions, and surviving at least one crash-landing. With that being said, there's little doubt in my mind that had Williams played baseball for that three-year period, he would have led the league in OBP, Slugging, and OPS+ -- and probably won himself another MVP award.

And yet, in 1952 -- with the Korean War already in full swing -- Williams was called by the government once again to fly combat missions; risking his life for the "good" of his country. Because of that, Williams missed most of the 1952 and '53 seasons: appearing in just 43 combined games, and stepping to the plate just 101 times for the Red Sox.

That's roughly four-and-a-half years of missed time, for those of you scoring at home; prime years which would easily have allowed The Splendid Splinter to hit 150 to 170 more homeruns, according to his career path. Thus, instead of a great player, with a career line that ended up like this -- 2654 H, 1839 RBI, 525 HR, and 1798 R -- baseball fans, when referring to Ted Williams, would probably be talking about the man who owned every major offensive record in the books ... with Ty Cobb's hit-record standing as the lone exception.

Now, for as great as Barry Bonds is in this day-in-age, is it reasonable to assume that he has five more peak years left in his body -- years in which he would be forced to match his 1998 or 2000 campaign? Maybe he does. However, until that happens, it would be genuinely unreasonable -- in the long-winded opinion of this writer -- to put him on par with Teddy Ballgame.

Yes, Bonds does have his own set of advantages when compared to Williams, but until that edge in (1) Defense and (2) Stolen Bases can overcome 110 points of OPS -- not to mention lofty career totals -- Barry will just have to settle for second-best ... something, I'm sure, many players wish they had the "frustration" of doing.