The Burab

Deep breaths…  It’s been a busy day.  No time to take from the real job to crank out some more numbers for you….  You??  You???  I’ve always said that I should keep a journal.  This blog is essentially that right now since I am getting no traffic — and making no attempts.  Whomever finds this baby can consider themselves “underground cool.”

Barry Bonds won’t be participating in Major League Baseball’s steroids investigation.  There’s a shocker.  What’s worse is that Bonds and his attorney Michael Rains don’t even make an attempt to come up with a bona fide legal excuse that would both provide an out as well as keep him looking semi-not guilty. 

“I told them that I would like to have Barry give an interview to Mitchell and his people, but I am not going to do it, Mr. Ryan, unless you tell me you’re done with it. And if you won’t even tell me one way or the other, then you leave me no alternative,” Rains told ESPN.com.

The reason?  The information he provides could put his client in further danger of being indicted. He said it.  I’m not making it up.

That’s a brilliant move on the part of Bonds’ attorney.  Refuse to participate in a steroids probe because — assuming Bonds tells the truth in this probe — it would reveal the fact that he indeed lied in his grand jury testimony about unknowingly taking steroids. 

The arrogance is incredible.  Bonds and his attorney aren’t even trying to cover this up and put on a good face anymore.  Yes, he did it.  Just don’t lock him up.  Please, have mercy.  No apologies from us, but we are going to do all that we can to avoid the law.

So done with it.  Look, I don’t want to be a reactionary and say that I want Bonds’ head, that he should go to jail for taking stroids — or even for his testimony.  There are bigger criminals to worry about.  But I’d be lying if I said it wouldn’t provide some joy — even a little — to see him pulled away in an orange jumpsuit prior to breaking 755. 

Look, this doesn’t fix the ills of the steroids era.  Not even close.  But, it at least temporarily preserves a record from the past.  It’s painful to look at the single season home run records and see Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, McGwire, Sosa, Sosa at the top ahead of Maris and Ruth, considering those numbers stood for 37 and 71 years respectively.  I have no personal connection to those two players, but I have a connection to the game and its history.  I am proud of the game, and the steroids era is an embarrassment.

Just a preview of what is to come.  Following are the Dominance scores for our biggest home run seasons — focusing strictly on the dominance in that category:

Mark McGwire (1998) – .94
Barry Bonds (2001)  – .94
Roger Maris (1961) – .93
Babe Ruth (1927) – .97
Babe Ruth (1920) – .98

Important to point out the meaning of this.  I was surprised to find McGwire, Bonds and Maris close to Ruth’s numbers, given that Ruth hit more home runs than some teams.  The absolute most a player could get is a 1.00, but that’s only if the player in question was the only one in the league to hit a home run. 

It’s important to remember that Bonds and McGwire surpassed Ruth by 13 and 10 home runs respectively in their big years (13 is 22% of 60, so this is a significant number), yet The Babe still has the highest scores.

As I go year by year, I also found it interesting that there is little difference in scores between Barry Bonds’ supposed juiced and clean years.

1990 – 3.44
1991 – 2.96
1992 – 3.63
1993 – 3.76
1994 – 3.07
1995 – 3.19
1996 – 3.64
1997 – 3.25
1998 – 3.09
2001 – 3.62
2002 – 3.30
2003 – 3.12
2004 – 3.29

Simple explanation.  Barry Bonds undoubtedly was on the juice.  So was everyone else, which increased the league averages, keeping his dominance in reference to the rest of the player pool steady.

Hours of number crunching and spreadsheet building are behind me, and I have some early results.  As anyone who has handled a mass of data in Excel spreadsheets can attest, further formula checking will need to be conducted to verify the validity of these results. However, so far there are some interesting surprises.

 First, you won’t find Barry Bonds’ 2001 season anywhere in the top 40 overall from 1900-2006.  No 1998 McGwire or Sosa either.  Let me reiterate:  This is not the measurement of the best overall stats.  It is the measurement of a player’s dominance for that particular season.  A player benefits greatly for playing in an era in which he is the only one — or one of a very select few — to accomplish certain milestones.  Although Bonds, McGwire and Sosa all broke records, they played during eras in which it seemed everyone was hitting 20+ homers.  Therefore, their “dominance” was not off the charts. 

You’ll be quick to notice that Ty Cobb’s 1909 season is number one on this list.  Let’s take a quick look at his statistics from that season:

Cobb had a .431 OBP with nine homers, 107 RBI, 116 runs and 76 stolen bases.

Hmmmmm…  Something has to be wrong, right?  Good season, but best ever?  And this is the runaway winner. 

Let’s look closer.  Again, we’re looking at dominance during that season.  Cobb was insanely dominant that season.  In 1909, Ty Cobb led the AL in batting average, OBP, slugging percentage, OPS, runs, hits, total bases, home runs (yes, even with nine), RBI, stolen bases, and singles.  Most importantly, he led the AL in all five stats that we were measuring here.   

Compared to the entire pool of players, including the NL (which is how we compare everyone else), let’s take a look at how he stacked up.

OBP – .431 (first; second was .420, and only one more player surpassed .400)
HR – 9 (first; next most was 7)
R – 116 (second)
RBI – 107 (first; next most was 100)
SB – 76 (first; next most was 67)

Ok, I’m impressed.  Here is a snippet of today’s results.  Much more to come in the next few days and weeks.

Baseball people throughout the years get clumsy when attempting to compare players of today to players of yesterday.  You have two separate camps.  One that takes the oversimplified approach by only comparing stats.  For example, Barry Bonds is a better home run hitter than was Babe Ruth because Bonds hit more home runs than Ruth.  On the other hand, you have a group that refuses to compare based on the significant differences from era to era.  Number of teams, with and without minorities, fence distances, depth of talent pool, height of mound, advancement of pitching, weight training and nutrition (even steroids), and on and on.  It’s an easy cop-out not to compare.

You can compare, and I am determined to do so successfully.  You can’t compare Bonds to Ruth in a vaccuum, but you can compare the dominance of Bonds to the dominance of Ruth.  What I am going to do is take a simple formula the finds the value of a player in relation to the league average and league maximum in five offensive categories: On Base Percentage, Home Runs, Runs Batted In, Runs, and Stolen Bases.  For pitchers, I will analyze Earned Run Average, WHIP ([Walks + Hits]/Innings Pitched), Strikeouts, Wins, and Saves. 

The formula is not perfect, but it will shed light on this subject and provide better fodder for argument.  How impressive was Bonds’ 73 home runs?  Was it more impressive than Ruth’s 60 in 1927?  My guess is that the answer to this is no given the high number of home runs hit in 1998 and the lack thereof in 1927.

I am looking forward to not only comparing dominance in individual categories, but to find out who the most dominant player across five categories was in a single season.  Moreover, I will take career stats to determine the most productive careers and will even apply to Hall of Fame arguments.

Early returns are very interesting.  Between 1951 and 2006, the most dominant season is held by Hank Aaron in 1963 with a 4.17 score.  That year, Aaron had a .391 OBP, 44 HR, 130 RBI, 121 runs, and 31 stolen bases.  I haven’t dug too deeply yet, but I’ve got to think that the key here is Aaron’s 31 stolen bases.  Aaron was second in OBP, first in runs (by six), tied for first in home runs (ahead of the next player by six), first in RBI (by an astounding 19), and second to only Maury Wills in stolen bases.  Only when you look at these numbers more closely do you see just how dominant that season was.  Compare the statistics individually to players of other seasons, and it was a very good year.  Dig deeper, it is historically dominant.  The ironic part is that Aaron finished third in the MVP voting that season.

The rest of the top 10 season leaders from 1951 to 2006 are:

1. Hank Aaron (1963) – 4.17
2. Willie Mays (1955) – 4.12
3. Joe Morgan (1976) – 3.89
4. Mickey Mantle (1956) – 3.85
5. Carl Yastrzemski (1967) – 3.79
6. Larry Walker (1997) – 3.79
7. Duke Snider (1953) – 3.77
8. Barry Bonds (1993) – 3.76
9. Willie Mays (1958) – 3.72
10. Mike Schmidt (1981) – 3.69

I have to stress that these are season leaders.  There may be multiple players from the same season with high scores, but I have not yet sorted those out.  To be honest, I find it unlikely that two would crack the top 10 given that the whole thought behind this is dominance.  If there are two players with great stats, that would alter the player pool and increase the league average, making the player less dominant.  I guess we’ll see.

Sammy Sosa is back, so they say.

Do you care?  I don’t.  Although, I guess that could be argued since I clearly cared enough to write a post about him.  Quite simply, I hate what Sammy Sosa stands for.  He stands for the era of home run greed.  The players got greedy.  The agents got greedy.  The ownership got greedy.  Everyone got rich.

I love the game of baseball.  I hate what it has become.  They say that no matter what the era, things seemed simpler when you were younger.  Things seemed better.  Perception wasn’t always reality.  I remember a different game during the 1980s.  I remember a game dominated by little men like Vince Coleman and Ricky Hendrson (although, he was far from the stereotypical little man).  The entire goal was to get one of these men on the bases.  It’s an automatic double and possible triple.  I miss the day of the bunt.  Hitting behind the runner.  Choking up.  Putting the bat on the ball.  Keeping it in play. 

The home run was something to behold.  It may not have been a rarity, but it was appreciated when it happened.  It wasn’t expected.  You didn’t wait for it.  You didn’t rely on your middle-of-the-lineup hitters to hit one out.  The focus was on fundamentals.  On contact.  On strategy.  On defense.  Now — or so it seems — the focus is on sitting back and letting your juiced up, overpaid clean-up hitter smack one out.  You know — all eight of them in your lineup.

 I remember the days when the minimum salary was $52,000.  That wasn’t all that long ago.  I remember the days when Bobby Bonilla’s $3 Million salary was ground breaking.  When the Brewers couldn’t sign Paul Molitor because he wanted to play in Bobby Bo’s neighborhood.  That was the start of something bad for the game.  Production meant money — both for the player and the team.  More players were being scouted from impoverished Latin countries.  Getting that payday was becoming a bigger and bigger deal.  Making the team was important. 

Then the strike of ‘94 happened.  Fans left.  We had had enough.  Tired of the greed on both sides.  Shut up and play.  I’m going home and never coming back.

The true fans never left.  Sammy and Mark McGwire brought the casual fans back.  These fans needed instant gratification.  They needed runs.  They couldn’t appreciate the bunt.  They didn’t notice the strategy.  They preferred the three-run home run to the two-run triple.  The game was dumbed down, and it profited from it.  People came in droves, and everyone wanted to see the next home run.

The teams sold out stadiums.  The players demanded more money.  Everyone became rich.  The snowball followed.  Player A became rich, so I need to get mine, too.  Team A has a 250-home run lineup, so Team B needs one, too.  Everyone forgot.

The casualties of greed.  Roger Maris.  Hank Aaron.  Willie Mays.  Babe Ruth.  The 80s Cardinals.  The light-hitting, sure-handed utility man.  The true game as it was meant to be played.

This has been coming.  We introduced free agency.  We started building new stadiums to accomodate more fans.  We started moving fences in to encourage home runs and draw more fans.  We looked the other way when our hitters started looking less like Bruce Banner and more like Lou Ferrigno.

There really is no going back.  We can’t right the wrongs.  We can test for steroids, but there will always be a new way around the system.  We can’t move back the fences in every park.  We can’t alter the new game that it has become.

Instead, we have to welcome Sammy Sosa back.  Not the Bruce Banner, but the Lou Ferrigno.  He is a reminder of what we’ve created.  Unless we accept the new game, we will always be reminiscing like 80-year-old grumpy old men.