Let the debate continue--Greatest Season Performance

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Posted By: Darren J. Duet

With the debate concerning all-time team, best pitcher, hitter, etc., let's put together a string of outstanding performances for one year, or even more daring 5 consecutive years--that is who is the all time great based on a 5 consecutive season tally?

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Posted By: Chad

He's the obvious answer. After him I'd go with Honus Wagner and then Bonds.

--Chad

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Posted By: warshawlaw

I guess he has to merit consideration somewhere.

Koufax with 3 Cy Youngs in 5 years, or Johnson with 4 in a row would have to merit consideration as pitchers.

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Posted By: Paul

I haven't given this a lot of thought, but I might give both titles to Hornsby. In a single year, he batted over .400 with more than 40 homers. Over a five year stretch, he averaged over .400, with nearly 30 homers per year.

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Posted By: dennis

chuck klein '29-'33,hornsby '21-'25,gehrig '30-'34,mantle '54-58 ruth '27-'31,dimaggio '36-'40

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Posted By: john/z28jd

Albert Spalding going 233-55 over a 5 year stretch where he hit no less than .312 any year and all 5 years was top-10 in rbi's besides the fact he was one of the best fielders of his day also. In 1872 his fielding % was almost 90 points higher than league average and he made 1 more play per game than average pitchers

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Posted By: Greg Ecklund

1. Babe Ruth (1920-24)
2. Lou Gehrig (1930-1934)
3. Rogers Hornsby (1921-1925)
4. Ty Cobb (1909-1913)
5. Willie Mays (1961-1965)

* Barry Bonds (2000-2004)

I consider Bonds a cheater, but he has to be included in the discussion - I don't want to turn into another Bonds thread however. Under normal circumstances, I'd put him 2nd or 3rd.

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Posted By: identify7

Make it bigger. 1920 - 1930 Ruth hit over 500 HRs. In the 1920s Hornsby had over 2000 hits. And Connie Mack's multi-decade performance.

Edited to add: my one season vote I'd select O'Neill's leading the league in hits, doubles, triples, HR, RBIs, BA, runs scored, what else? Can this be true?

More editing: Bonds is hard to ignore for a four season performance, but is it better than Hornsby's - I don't know.

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Posted By: jay behrens

Anyone that can claim that Hornsby's 5 years streatch is not the greatest in the history of the game has no clue what they are talking about. There is nothing else to compare it to. Not even anything Ruth did. Bonds was getting close with his current run. Single season I'd have to go with O'Niell too with Hornsby's 40-.400 second.

Jay

My place is full of valuable, worthless junk.

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

...but the WORST has to be Bill Bergen, from 1906-10.

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Posted By: Chad

I guess I don't know anything about baseball. Time to sell my baseball cards, my glove and my Hank Aaron bobblehead and take up backgammon. What's that one big die for again?

--Chad Johnson

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Posted By: jay behrens

Chad, that big die is for doubling down on the bet. Wanna take that bet that Wagner or Bonds had a better 5 year run than Hornsby? I'll even use the die with with ya

Jay

My place is full of valuable, worthless junk.

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Posted By: Chad

I'll take that bet! Batting average ain't everything. Also, don't forget Honus. Hans was handy as I hope nobody ever was wont to say.

--Chad

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Posted By: Peter_Spaeth

Koufax, 62-66

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Posted By: Glenn

I'm with Chad here. If you just go by the numbers it's not even a contest.

Bonds 2000-2004 AVERAGED a markedly better OBP (.535)* than Hornsby had in his greatest season (.507 in 1924).

He also averaged a markedly better slugging percentage (.782)* than Hornsby had in his best season (.756 in 1925).

Either as a team statistic is a better predictor of run production than is team batting average, and the sum of the two (i.e., OPS) is better still. There are better possible measures of a hitter's prowess, but none as parsimonious as OPS. Bonds and his flaxseed oil had the best five year run.

Interestingly,

Bonds: 615 runs
Hornsby: 615 runs

Bonds also had more stolen bases.

(For the other statisticians, these are unweighted averages, but the weighted ones do not differ by more than .003)

[edited to add a necessary comma]

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Posted By: Julie

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Posted By: jay behrens

Hit .403 slugged .690 had 615 Runs, 1078 hits, 206 2B, 66 3B, 144 HR (this done when almost no other than Ruth was hitting more than 20 HRs a year) 691 RBI, 43 SB. The only catagories Bonds beats Hornsby is OBP, SLG and HR. If you do HRs relative to the league, Hornsby walks away with this. SB are essentially a tie with Bonds having 46.

You can deride BA all you want. I'll be the first to admit it's not a great measure of a player being able to anything outside of hitting the ball, but hitting .400 is still .400. Doing it for a season is a great accomplishment. Doing for 5 years is something even Cobb never did. I really doubt we will see another player give 40-.400 serious run in our lifetime. It's was 80 years before Bonds got even a glimmer of it.

I would put Bonds #2, but you can't compete with hitting .400 and averaging almost 30 HRs a year for 5 years, especially in an era when HRs were still sparse.

Jay

My place is full of valuable, worthless junk.

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Posted By: Glenn

You're trying to categorize a continuous variable. We wouldn't even be having this argument except for the historical fact that humans (most places) use the decimal system. .400 is not qualitatively different from .392 or .323 or .178 for that matter just because it begins with a different digit; it's just a higher number. Any manager in the world would take a lineup full of .350 hitters over one with half of the team batting .400 and half of them at the Mendoza line.

OPS is empirically more important than BA in producing runs (by rather a wide margin in fact).

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Posted By: Anonymous

1998-2002 .306 622 Runs 920 Hits 135 2b 10 3b 292 hr 705 Rbi 34 Sb. not the best but sosa had a very good run, maybe better than Bonds.

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Posted By: Glenn

Bonds: 872 BB, 316 K
Sosa: 461 BB, 807 K

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Posted By: warshawlaw

Until the issue of Bonds-Sosa-McGwire juicing is resolved in their favor, I say no to letting steroid wackadoos be part of our record analysis. Cheaters!

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Posted By: Anson

Jack Chesbro 1904, 41-12, 1.82 ERA, 239 Ks.

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Posted By: Jimi

Just look at Dennis Eckersley's numbers from 1988 - 1992 seasons!

Jimi

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Posted By: identify7

Glenn: I hope I am not alone here, but even if I am, I have no idea what your arguement is.

You talk about humans, the decimal systen, qualitative values? Heck, to me batting average is a quantitative number, isn't it?

And I may be a bit simplistic, but the way I see it is ---> when you come up to bat, if you get a hit, you have been successful, if you don't, then maybe there is an alibi, such as a walk, got hit by the pitch, advanced a runner, or some other excuse, but you are supposed to get a hit.

Now Hornsby did just that for years, and years, and years, etc. Way more than anyone else. Isn't that good?

Well qualitatively, if I am right, you are supposed to do that. And quantitatively he did it more than anybody else. So yes, that is good.

Anybody else ever do that? No. So who is the daddy?

Edited to add: unnecessary commas and an apostrophe'

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Posted By: Glenn

Gil,

I can understand the reason for your sarcasm, but I am trying to make what I consider to be a valid argument here, so I hope this clarifies things.

"Heck, to me batting average is a quantitative number, isn't it?"

This is my point. .400 is only quantitatively different from other batting averages, not qualitatively so.

"And I may be a bit simplistic, but the way I see it is ---> when you come up to bat, if you get a hit, you have been successful, if you don't, then maybe there is an alibi, such as a walk, got hit by the pitch, advanced a runner, or some other excuse, but you are supposed to get a hit."

A hit is great, but a double is better than a single, a triple better than a double, and a home run better than a triple. And getting on base by means other than a hit is better than not getting on base. More to the point, the object is to win games and in terms of offense that means generating runs. Having a high batting average is great; it's just not as beneficial to one's team as having a high OPS. Baseball writers haven't started evaluating players by OPS because they got bored with batting average; they just recognized that it's a better indicator of a player's net offensive output.

Tris Speaker, to take but one example, was a fine player, but he was not better than either Ted Williams or Lou Gehrig. He has a lower OPS than either, but a higher batting average.

"Now Hornsby did just that for years, and years, and years, etc. Way more than anyone else. Isn't that good?"

Yes, it's fantastic, but he didn't generate additional runs quite as well as Bonds did. I can assure you I have greater admiration for Hornsby as a person, but that isn't the issue. Neither am I making the argument in favor of Bonds because I enjoy being attacked by fans of the pre-war game (of which I am one).

"Anybody else ever do that? No. So who is the daddy?"

There are plenty of things that only one player has ever done. Only Ichiro was able to collect over 260 hits. If it's all about hits, he should be considered to have had just about the greatest season in history. At the very least he should have won the AL MVP. But the game is more nuanced than that. The reason we have all these debates is because there is no perfect measure of a player's offensive ability. But some measures are better than others. If "greatest [5] season performance" is taken to mean greatest percentage of at-bats ending in hits then there is no debate. Hornsby was the best at that. But I interpret the title of the thread more broadly, specifically as success in producing runs for one's team, and I'm willing to evaluate whatever evidence you have that Hornsby did this better than Bonds over each man's greatest five-year period, but the higher batting average does not make that point.

Glenn

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Posted By: identify7

Thank you Glenn for your patience in describing your analysis. There are numerous offensive catagories associated with scoring runs, imo. Some are not easy to measure. For example, how much impact is associated with Cobb dancing off first? Second? Third? It may have been better for the opposition if he hit a HR.

Due to the above, and similar considerations, I am a proponent of individual statistics as opposed to those grouped with the intention of improved clarity (OPS, for example). By not generating yet another stat, one is allowed to evaluate each situation and comparison on its own merits.

Whether Bonds multi-year performance is a greater achievement than averaging 60+ HRs/yr. for four consecutive seasons, or a .400+ BA for five, is an assessment which I do not believe lends itself to a distillation by statisticians.

Perhaps there is a bit of baseball romance here. Perhaps a bit of ignorance, stubbornness, fandumb and other factors; but we "know" some things. If McGuire and Sosa can average over 60 HRs for multiple seasons, someone else can too. If Bonds can go on the unbelievable tear that he is on - well maybe someone else can too. But nobody is ever going to average over .400 for five seasons; until someone does. But for sure - it won't be soon, unless it is. Until then Rogers over and out, my choice.

No matter what some (other) pencil necked geek says with his sliderule.

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Posted By: jay behrens

I've been a member of SABR for almost 20 years now. I've always been involved with stats committee and used to love helping out other researchers, etc. I also intially loved what Bill James brought. But now, it has gotten to the point where the statheads have sucked the life and romance out of the game. The only stats that seem to matter to them anymore are OPS, Win Shares and other derivative numbers.

It has gotten to the point where it's impossible to talk about anymore without someone having to say "but his OPS is better than the other guy, so he is obviously better." I'm so tired of that rubbish. As mentioned in the other thread, there are still lots of intangibles in the game that don't get measured that have a significant impact on the game.

I've tried to remind fellow statheads that there is still no perfect stat, so please stop beating people over the head with OPS or whatever else it is that you think is the perfect stat.

Jay

My place is full of valuable, worthless junk.

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

What peevs me most is the people who try to re-write old stats so that they can compare players of the past with modern day players. It's not possible - the balls were different, the mentality of the game was different, the rules, gloves are lack-thereof, etc. How can you possibly compare the stats of a starting pitcher who in the 1800's was expected to go the distance, (like Radbourne), with someone like Pedro Martinez whose outings are based on pitch-counts? Was Radbourne better? I seriously doubt it...but the stats...

My favorite one-year performance was Roger Maris hitting 61 in '61. Second would be Denny McLain winning 31 in '68. To me these feats were especially impressive because these two players managed to go beyond their normal abilities for one season, and didn't even use steroids to do so.

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Posted By: Glenn

Gil and Jay,

Now I agree with most of what you are saying. My problem is that for me, and a few others (none of my statistics students though), there is a romance to statistics as well as to baseball. Please feel free to ignore the remainder of this post if you aren't aroused by thoughts of repeated measures ANOVA, factor extraction with oblimin rotation, multiple regression, or a little old-fashioned semi-parial correlation.

That said, I don't understand why somone would be turned off by a discussion of OPS but not of BA, both of which are derivative of purer statistics that come only in whole numbers, unless it is for the nostalgia of BA. If you want to look at just a single variable not derived from others then you should look at wins for a pitcher (making Cy Young the greatest ever) and hits for a batter (making Pete Rose the greatest ever; one could also make a case for Rickey Henderson with the runs record or Hank Aaron with RBI). But that I think we would agree is absurd, so we combine these numbers with career losses, at-bats, plate appearances, total bases, etc. Each time we add a new variable into the mix the new measure is a little more complicated, but it also does a better job of approximating a true measure of the player's (pitcher's, slugger's, hitter's) quality, or else we dispose of the new statistic, as we would with, e.g., [(HR + 2B - 3B)/AB] which really isn't a good measure of anything useful, not useful to me anyway. The goal is to strike a balance in the tradeoff between the simplicity of the model and its utility at discriminating accurately among players of differing ability. Some may find OPS too unwieldy to be a worthy figure in the debate. I feel otherwise. The only question is, "Does OPS do a better ENOUGH job at discriminating offensive ability to justify the addition of the additional composite variables?"

OPS = [(H + BB + HBP) / (AB + BB + HBP + SF)] + {[1B + 2(2B) + 3(3B) + 4(HR)]/AB}

And it works so well. To me that is beautiful, maybe not as much as a clean 6-4-3 double play on a freshly-manicured infield, but beautiful nonetheless.

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Posted By: john/z28jd

Scotts point about the guys playing without gloves makes me think that Bid McPhee's 1886 season is one of the most impressive ever.He set the still-standing putouts record of 529 which is more than 100 higher than Mazeroski ever recorded.He turned 90 double plays which was a very high total back then(his 2nd highest career)and had a fielding % 31 points higher than league average.His range was well above lg average(17% higher than normal) and his shortstop/double play combo man,Frank Fennelly, committed 117 errors that year! Not exactly the guy you want next to you as youre turning 2.He obviously did all this without a glove.

He also scored 139 runs(2nd in the league) and drove in 70,stole 40 bases and led the league in home runs.Thats a great season when you factor in everything including the more plays you make in the field the worse your hands get when you go to hit.

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Posted By: jay behrens

Glenn, it's not the stats that we abhor. It's the fact that many SABRites and stats heads have distilled baseball analysis to OPS, WinShares or whatever they feel is the "perfect" stats, and then insist on beating us over the head with it.

I know all about proper statisitcal analysis, etc and all this minutia has sucked the joy out of debating who is the best. OPS, Win Shares, RC and everything is just another tool to help your case. It's NOT the definative answer to question as so many seem to think. Until you measure what effect likes of Cobb, Raines, Henderson, etc on the game when they reached base and other intangibles, there will never be a perfect stats, only more ways to look at the same thing without coming up with a definative answer.

Jay

My place is full of valuable, worthless junk.

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Posted By: Glenn

"The reason we have all these debates is because there is no perfect measure of a player's offensive ability. But some measures are better than others."

I'm quoting myself here. If you want to argue that Ruth was the best because of how he changed the game, what he means to it, and the devoted following of legions of fans, that's one thing, but you can't use statistics to bolster your case and then cry "Foul," when your opponent does the same.

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Posted By: Judge Dred

Put the Babe, Rogers and a few others on roids and lets see what happens... this is all kind of fun to read but Bonds numbers have been artificially inflated. The guy is a load of talent, it's just too bad he resorted to such methods.

Bonds before roids: 1HR / 16.1 AB

Bonds after roids: 1HR / 8.48 AB

Does anyone not think that the roids gave Bonds a very very large advantage? No, I'm not trying to turn this into a Bonds bashing thread...

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Posted By: jay behrens

Until it is proven definatively that Bonds did steroids, how about everyone back of the accusation as if it is a certainty. The person that knows for sure is Bonds himself. Until such time that he admits or someone can prove it, jsut drop it. This really gets tiresome. We are all aware of the accusations, and that's all they are until proven otherwise.

Jay

My place is full of valuable, worthless junk.

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

Michael Jackson didn't molest any kids, and OJ didn't kill Nicole. The only thing we ARE certain of is Grandpa Simpson didn't really kidnap the Lindbergh baby, even though he admitted it.

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Posted By: Matthew

Even in Bonds's greatest years, when he was mashing everything, he never approached .400.

If .400 is not statistically significant, then explain how nobody has touched in in 60 years?

And Hornsby didn't just have a Brady Anderson year and hit .400 once and then disappear, he hit .424, .403, .401, .397, .384

Bonds hit .370, .362, .341, .328, .306 in his 5-year dominating stretch.

Hornsby hit 149 homers in that 5-year run while the entire league hit just 2663.

Bonds hit 258 homers in his 5-year span while the league hit 14,106.

Obviously hornsby's 149 is relatively much more impressive.
So just this alone skews the SLG statistic.
It is imperative that SLG% only be compared considering the era which the hitters played in.

And if you would argue that Bonds's OBP is so much better than Hornsby's and Ruth's, maybe a qualitative analysis would make it obvious why.

Bonds's OBP is inflated because of an incredible amount of walks. That is inarguable. How valuable to his team were those walks. The walks were a product of a horribly weak lineup and a fear of Bonds. So, I would rather have my player get a hit than walk. Keep in mind that intentional walks were not typical in the 20's since no one was hitting home runs.

From the 2 above paragraphs, I would conclude that the OPS Statistic is wonderful when comparing players of the same era, but is completely insignificant when comparing players from different eras? The HR #s skew it too greatly for it to be significant.

It must be mentioned that todays HRs and 1922 HRs are not comparable feats. If you consider them equal, then just understand that guys from the past 5 years who would have lead the NL in HRs in the 1920s would include: Mark Bellhorn, Jay Gibbons, Charles Johnson, Jose Valentin, Ellis Burks, and Jay Payton.

So I wish everyone would stop comparing HR totals from the 20s to those of today...unless you wish to insist that Mark Bellhorn's 27 homers in 2002 is a feat equal to Hornsby's 25 homers in 1924...the year he hit .424 by the way...but oh yeah...Batting average is quantitative, and therefore, insignificant.

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Posted By: dennis

http://grove.ufl.edu/~cwarner/century/index.html

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Posted By: Judge Dred

Scott,

How sure are you about grandpa Simpson?

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Posted By: Julie

2) I like this OPS thingy...all-inclusive.

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Posted By: chris cathcart

A lot of this has to be put into some historical perspective. There are certainly lots of legitimate grounds for suspicion that have now deflated folks' perception of Bonds performance in recent years. The problem being that we just don't really know with him whether the numbers were all legit. That's quite unfortunate for Bonds' historical stature and for the fans. Now, also consider these points:

(1) Steroid-enhanced or not, the numbers Bonds put up over the previous 4 years are simply incredible. Far and away so much better than all these other players in the league, ALSO UNDER THE SAME CLOUD OF SUSPICION. It's simply too incredible to believe that steroids alone could account for that much of an improvement in performance.

(2) Give Ruth and Hornsby steroids and see what numbers THEY'd put up? Well, let's again use some historical perspective: Put Bonds back in the days before there were steroids against the caliber of opposition that existed back in Ruth and Hornsby's day (those nostalgic good ol' days, I know, when baseball was such a tougher game than it is today). Of course, that little thought experiment would require that we assume no color barrier in the Major Leagues.

(3) Even before the he-got-big-and-unbelievable years, Bonds put up a whole decade's worth of MVP-caliber performances in the '90s, virtually year in and year out. He was already a 3-time MVP, two of them runaway picks ('92 and '93). He already had the 500 HR / 500 SB accomplishment pretty well locked up. I guess he played the field well enough to win 8 Gold Gloves. He was the most dominant player since Mays/Mantle as it was, a first-ballot, top-tier lock for the HOF. The only player from the past 35+ years that could compare in terms of dominance would be the only other 3-time MVP of that whole period, Mike Schmidt (though Alex Rodriguez appears on his way to joining that class of dominance, even if he falls short of the well-deserved 3-MVP mark). Notice how, unlike the good ol' days, 3-time MVPs have now become few and far between. No big surprise since it becomes harder to win MVPs when there are more players around competing for the MVP.

(4) If no one had noticed, Hornsby hit .400 in the days when doing so seemed actually possible enough for it to be done several times within the space of a few years. How one could compare a player from today with a player back then based on hitting .400, I don't know. No one around today hits .400; the game is too different now. You have to judge player performance by the standards of performance for each era, and compare players across eras by how much they stood above their peers, taking into account, of course, the relative difficulty of standing out, to a given extent, above one's peers. What was the relative difficulty for Nap Lajoie in hitting .426 in '01 compared to other performances?

Anyhow, with Bonds we may never really know for sure where he's supposed to stand amongst the greats. I'd still say Babe Ruth is the greatest, and Bonds has a case for #2. He was already in the top 10 amongst the likes of Ruth, Mays, Aaron, Mantle, Williams, Cobb, Wagner, and, yes, Schmidt. It looks like A-Rod will end up there, too.

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Posted By: Anson

Just food for thought. No player in the history of sports, for ANY sport, has ever had the huge INCREASE in performance that Bonds had in their late 30's-early 40's. NEVER. Not even close.

We can speculate all we want about benefit of the doubt or unfounded accusations but I'm hard pressed to think that Bonds was the ONLY one where this happened.

Like Bonds or not, he was a great player before the "alleged" steroids. But, don't let him fool you. Bonds is a savy business man and is known for having to be in control of everything. He's a lot smarter than "I thought it was flax seed oil."

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Posted By: john/z28jd

The only problem with that arguement IS that no one else has done it.If taking steroids equals putting up the greatest numbers in baseball then why is it a 37-40 year old guy doing it and not someone else in their 20s with much less wear on their body? The fact that he put up those numbers at that age just proves how great he is,doesnt disprove it.If no one else does it then thats to his credit.Anyone that believes steroids made him what he is,is out of their mind because no other major leaguers are doing what he did,yet thousands of baseball players did steroids unproven by tests or not.

No one seems to mention his strike zone is about half the size of most other players and he rarely,bordering on never swings at bad pitches.Unmatched plate discipline combined with all-star skills plus umpires giving him every call has given him a huge advantage.Watered down pitching trying to make perfect pitches equals alot of batting practice type pitches for him.There isnt another player in the majors with as small a strike zone as him and he only swings at good hittable pitches.Thats his biggest advantage

Plenty of bulked up players have struggled one year then toned down the next year.Taking steroids doesnt equal instant stardom,not even close.Its an excuse for haters of Bonds.Too many people hated him years ago for you to get into a legitimate discussion about him now.People say its unproven but name a player who has been proved not to take them which is impossible because testing hasnt been done long enough.Theres no advantage when everyones on the same playing field now.

So you compare people then by how they did against their peers so if Joe Blow from 19xx hits .300 but the league average is .303 then he doesnt compare well to someone who hit .300 in 1968 when the pitchers dominated baseball.You measure players against their league at the time to figure out the best season and as long as their playing field(ie Coors Field,etc) didnt give them a huge advantage you should be able to figure out the greatest season with some research.Triple crown winners is a good place to start but shouldnt be the only criteria when figuring out the best season ever

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Posted By: Anson

Steroids don't make average Joes icons. But, nevertheless you cant discount the reality.

Bonds was a hall of famer before he decided (or allegedy) to use steroids. No doubt about it. Would he be one of the all-time greats either way, absolutely. However, I feel that steroids made the difference in Bonds being considered a top-20 talent and top-5 talent. Steroids help make average players good, good players great, and great players icons.

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

You posted: (4) If no one had noticed, Hornsby hit .400 in the days when doing so seemed actually possible enough for it to be done several times within the space of a few years.

And you are right - it WAS possible for someone to do it...Hornsby.
Following are Hornsby's averages for 1922-25, followed by the NL runner-up. Over in the AL Heilman, Cobb and Sisler each hit over .400 once during the same period.

1922 - Hornsby .401, runner-up .354
1923 - Hornsby .384, runner-up .371
1924 - Hornsby .424, runner-up .375
1925 - Hornsby .403, runner-up .367

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Posted By: dennis

is it safe to say that relief pitching has helped to knock down these lofty averages? and did managers back then play the %'s of lefty/lefty or was that a stengle innovation?

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

"The pursuit of the Home Run"

There giving the tv-viewing public what they demand. Kind of like slam dunks in basketball - it's now all about individual performance.

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Posted By: Glenn

In response to the previous two posts: pursuit of the home run and tougher late-inning pitching both have contributed to lower batting averages. Overlooked, however, and perhaps more important than either of those is the different groundskeeping (flatter infields, shorter grass) which makes the infield single considerably less common than it was in an earlier era.

I'll be discussing statistics below. Feel free to skip the paragraph if you don't care for that part of the debate.

Thanks to Jay for posting the numbers of Hornsby vs. runner-up. Hornsby's average over the four year span was 10.1% better than the runner-up (.404 vs .367). But it isn't really as fair (or nearly as informative) to judge merely against the runner-up as it is to judge against the league average. If we look at that, Hornsby did 40.3% better than the league (.404 vs .288). Taking a four year span instead of a five year span actually strengthens the case for Bonds however. OPS for Bonds over 2001-2004 was 23.2% higher than the runner-up (1.368 vs 1.110) and more importantly, an astonishing 83.4% higher than the league average (1.368 vs. 746). Granted, the standard deviation in OPS is higher than in batting average, but even if one converted these to standardized scores the Bonds OPS is more impressive than the Hornsby BA. This is compared to either the runner-up (which, other things being equal, would be predicted to favor Hornsby because of a smaller number of players in the league, and is a less valid indicator of excellence anyway) or vs. the league average. Mind you, I'm not conceding that BA is as important as OPS. (I believe that is not only falsifiable but has in fact been falsified.) I am merely pointing out that even if BA in the 1920's were as important as OPS in the 2000's, unless it was vastly MORE important, then Bonds's 4-year run is more impressive than Hornsby's upon comparing each man to his peers.

Hornsby BA 1922-1925: .404
League average 1922-1925: .288
difference: 40.3%

Bonds OPS 2001-2004: 1.368
League OPS 2001-2004: 0.746
difference: 83.4%

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Posted By: Anson

Not to keep slamming Bonds but it is relative to the post.

The timeframe in question with the Bonds allegations IS 2001-2004

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Posted By: Glenn

A perfectly valid point, and one of which I am aware. The debate was originally the best season. I didn't step in until it was best five-year run. I was just going along with the recent switch to four-year run for my new caluclations.

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

BTW - Hornsby also led the league all 5 years in OBP, Slugging, and OPS as well, usually by significant margins over the runner-up. His numbers were both impressive and consistent over the 1921-25 period.

Bonds led the league in batting in 2002 and 2004, was 3rd in 2003, not in the top 5 in 2000 or 2001. Helton led the league in OBP, SLG and OPS in 2000, with Bonds 2nd. Bonds took these three categories in 2001-2004.

Here's Hornsby's avg with 1921 included.

1921 - Hornsby .397, runner-up .352
1922 - Hornsby .401, runner-up .354
1923 - Hornsby .384, runner-up .371
1924 - Hornsby .424, runner-up .375
1925 - Hornsby .403, runner-up .367