Bonds. greatest of all time?

[Arpikarhu]

there has been alot of talk in the media lately that barry bonds might be the greatest player of all time. he could very well end his career with not only the single season home run record but with the overall home run record. he could also break career walks total and numerous other records. i am still unsure if he is the greatest of all time, but he is certainly in the top 5.

[Keyser Soze]

Bonds, while being VERY VERY good, great even is not the greatest ever. He did have possibly the greatest single season by any player ever. Babe Ruth was consistantly great, Bonds has been consistantly good with some awesome seasons sprinkled in. Ted Williams, Gehrig, Hank Aaron, Musial, Dimaggio, Cobb, Mays, and many more players come to mind before Bonds. If I had to rank him among the top 100, he would fall in 50-60 range. The other thing is its hard to compare players from different eras. I would say Bonds is one of the best, if not THE best player of his generation.



Edited By Keyser Soze on April 10 2002 at 1:40

[Arpikarhu]

the guy had an onbase % of over .500. 3 mvps. gold gloves out his ass. fuck single season. his overall career stats are awesome!! to say in the 50-60 range is insane. the guys you mentioned have great stats but you really need to compare them. musial, great player, but not even close. compare those players you listed and you might be surprised.

[Galt]

Absofuckinglutely.

Everyone talks about Ruth, Mays, Jackie Robinson, and Cobb but Bonds is head and shoulders above all of them.

With the conditioning, technology to study and improve ones mechanics, his size and strength compared to those guys, and larger pool of players (so the talent is better), if you put him back in the 20s or 60s, he'd have 100 homers every year.

He's the greatest ever for that reason. The guy is 38 and still just head and shoulders above anyone else in the league. He's on a completely different plane.

If you assume that he plays for another 4 years, and even dramatically lowering his stats, he'll end up with around 700 homers, 500 steals, 2000 runs, 2000 RBI, 2000 walks, and over a .300 lifetime average. All of those numbers together simply dwarf anything that any player has put together in the history of baseball.

And oh yeah, he's also won about 10 gold gloves.

BARRY BONDS IS GOD. And he's not a bad guy either no matter what anyone says.

[Keyser Soze]

Lets look at their career averages.

Babe Ruth

AB R HR RBI SB SO BA OBP SLG TB
---+----+---+---+---+---+----+-----+----+----+
544 141 46 143 8 86 .342 .474 .690 375

Barry Bonds

AB R HR RBI SB SO BA OBP SLG TB
---+----+---+---+---+---+----+-----+----+----+
560 121 40 109 34 90 .292 .419 .585 327

Willie Mays

AB R HR RBI SB SO BA OBP SLG TB
---+----+---+---+---+---+----+-----+----+----+
589 112 36 103 18 83 .302 .384 .557 328

Ted Williams

AB R HR RBI SB SO BA OBP SLG TB
---+----+---+---+---+---+----+-----+----+----+
545 127 37 130 2 50 .344 .482 .634 345

Lou Gehrig

AB R HR RBI SB SO BA OBP SLG TB
---+----+---+---+---+---+----+-----+----+----+
599 141 37 149 8 59 .340 .447 .632 379



Ruth destroys Bonds in nearly every offensive category except for stolen bases. Ruth is simply the greatest ever. A case could be made that they played in different eras and they faced different pitching.

Williams is the best pure hitter ever, with a ridiculously low 50 strikeout career average and a career .344 batting average along with an insane .634 slugging percentage.

Gehrig is a little of Ruth and a little of Williams, not as many homers as Ruth but a respectable 37 average along with the .340 batting average and just 59 average career strikeouts. Not to mention the .632 slugging percentage and 379 total bases.

Ok Musial, Mays, you are right, are not as good as Bonds after taking a closer look but I can roll off alot more players who have better career averages than Bonds.

Bonds might be the best power/speed player ever with Ricky Henderson right there with him.



Edited By Keyser Soze on April 10 2002 at 2:23

[Galt]

Bonds will have 400 more homers than Rickey

Ruth was better compared to the rest of the players, but that doesn't mean that he is better than Bonds.

Ruth was simply a fat load. He swung for the fences every play which is why he struck out so much. Pitching was so bad, that they had no movement on their pitches, and they were probably pitching high 80s instead of high 90s

[Arpikarhu]

while i wont bash ruth, i certainly think there is a case to make for bonds in comparison. i must admit i lean towards ruth as the greatest not only for his stats but also because of what he meant to the popularity of the game. when you think baseball, you think ruth.

[The Sleeper]

Ruth was simply a fat load. He swung for the fences every play which is why he struck out so much. Pitching was so bad, that they had no movement on their pitches, and they were probably pitching high 80s instead of high 90s

Actually, he didn't become heavy until the end of his career. He was a great outfielder, pitcher, and all around athlete, certainly not a fat load. And I think its virtually impossible to compare 20s and 30s pitching to todays. The only fair way to compare is using stats, and Ruth is #1 at this point. That being said, if Bonds plays 4 more years, it certainly can be argued he is the greatest. What he is doing right now is astounding. He is at the top of his game and the league when most players retire at his age. And I've always thought his bad image was mostly media propoganda anyway.

[Arpikarhu]

people forget that ruth holds the record for ERA in world series games and that he pitched a no-hitter

[Keyser Soze]

I could care less about Bond's attitude, I think the media demonizes him. Even if he was a total bastard that doesn't make me think he is any less of a monster superstar of an athlete.

[DGW]

You can argue forever over the best. Then you have to talk about who thier competition was, whether you think players nowadays are better overall, and also the juiced ball theory.

I think Ruth is the best, but if Bonds has a couple more years like his previous Ruth will have to step aside.

And here's ARod's career avg.

AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS
639 129 198 39 2 41 124 66 127 26 7 .310 . 377 .570 .947

His OBS is lower then most, but his HR's and RBI's are right up there

[Keyser Soze]

A-Rod certainly has the potential to be the best ever, as does Bonds. Right now Ruth still holds the crown.

[The Sleeper]

ARod needs about 10 more consistent years before he is even mentioned in the same breath as these other players.

[Galt]

Bonds had the majority of his great years prior to the late 90s. Even if he stopped playing in '97, he probably still would have been a hall of famer.

While Arod is simply amazing, his stats are essentially meaningless because of how inflated all offensive stats are in Baseball.

Richie Sexson had 45 homers last year. Ritchie Sexson!!! Luis Gonzalez hit 57. According to those stats, they are better than Mel Ott, Harmon Killebrew, Mike Scmidt, and all but a select few hall of famers. Until the late 90s, there had been one person who hit over 50 homers in like 20 years. Now there are a handful of people who do it ever year.

While Arod is definately a hall of famer, you can't really just compare stats anymore because they are all so inflated that they are meaningless when compared to what others have done. It's just ruined one of baseballs greatest draws which is being able to compared the present players with the past.

[Sir O]

Bonds is not the best ever. I'd say he's the best hitter in the last 25 years, but when you compare stats, you really need to weigh them against what other players were doing in the same era. Babe Ruth was just so much better than anyone else at the time, it's astounding. When Ruth hit 54 home runs in 1920, it was an 84% increase over the previous record, his own 29 in 1919. Compare that to Bonds' 4% increase over McGwire's record. Ruth also played his first 3 1/2 seasons as a pitcher, with a career record of 94-46 and an ERA of 2.28. Had he played every day during those seasons, he'd probably be above 800 career HR's. Add to that a .326 average, 15 HR, 33 RBI, 3-0 record, and 0.87 ERA in postseason play, and Ruth pulls even farther ahead. What has Bonds done in October?

Anyone who doesn't think Babe Ruth is the greatest player ever is insane. Period. Bonds is a top 10 all time hitter, but that's about it.

[Galt]

The fact that Ruth, an overweight, drunken load was so immensely dominating pitching and hitting shows how thin the talent was at that time.

In high school and college, the best athletes are head and shoulders above everyone else. I remember Darren Driefort being like that. He was the best hitter and best pitcher in college. But that was a level below pros. Back in the 20s, the caliber of play was so much less than it is now. There were much few people who played, and an even smaller percentage who made it their livelyhoods and spent their entire lives fine-tuning their craft.

Ruth is definately up there. His career numbers are astounding, and better than Bonds. He was so far ahead of anyone who played with him in the early 20s that it was like an adult on the little league field.

But no matter what numbers anyone throws, or what argument anyone says, I will never sway from my opinion that if you magically whisked Barry Bonds back in time to the 1920s, he would put up numbers that would absolutely dwarf Babe Ruth's in every category.

[Hybrid]

sean connery was the best bond. then peirce brosnan.

[Sir O]

I will never sway from my opinion that if you magically whisked Barry Bonds back in time to the 1920s, he would put up numbers that would absolutely dwarf Babe Ruth's in every category.

That's probaly true, but very unfair. It's like saying that if we put the United States Army of today up against the Revolutionary War Army, today's army would win. Considering the improvements in strength and conditioning, and all that we've learned about the game of baseball and how it's evolved since Ruth's era, it really is a moot point.

Of course, Ruth also played in the deadball era, as opposed to Bonds who put up his numbers in the juiced ball era, and ballparks were much less hitter-friendly than they are today. He played the majority of his home games in the old Yankee Stadium, where the centerfield fence was like 480 feet away from home plate.

Now, let's say we magically whisked Babe Ruth to the present day. He has the benefits of playing in smaller ballparks, greater general knowledge of baseball, batting against expansion pitching, and all around better conditioning and training. What kind of numbers would he put up?



Edited By Sir O on April 10 2002 at 5:26

[Galt]

What, you're stealing my "whisked"s now? I can't say what Ruth's numbers would be. If he got himself in better condition, maybe he'd be great. But remember Cecil Fielder? He was a whale of a man like Ruth who could hit the ball a mile. But his bat speed wasn't the greatest, and pitchers learned to pitch against him, and he was only a good hitter for a couple years. Players are just smarter now because they know more about the game. Ruth didn't have to prepare because no one else did. Maybe he was a dolt, and if people charted pitches against him, it would have been easier to face him.

"Expansion" pitchers are bad. And yes, there are 3 times as many teams so the talent level is less. But how many more people play baseball than back 90 years ago? While there are more players, the pool of available players is much much greater, so the overall quality of pitchers is still better than it was back then.

Finally, Ruth didn't have to worry about facing 3 different pitchers in 4 at bats. He could go against one pitcher, who was tired after being on 3 days rest for one thing, then pitching 100 pitches already by the 8th inning.

Bonds has to worry about a monster like Randy Johnson throwing 100 accross his body, then a cotrol reliever like Brian Anderson, and then adapt to yet another style in Kim.

[Keyser Soze]

I'm guessing either Arpi is really Jason Stark or he happen to have run across this article today...

Time to put Bonds in greatest ever debate