The Joy of Six

By David Marasco

Barry Bonds collected his sixth MVP award on Tuesday. After a four-year run at the beginning of the nineties that saw three firsts and a second, the aging left fielder has started the new millenium with another three-firsts-and-a-second showing.

Did he deserve number six? The stats folks will roll their eyes at this question. They'll whip out his .529 OBP .749 SLG and 1.278 OPS. That ranks well ahead of the second-place finishers (Helton .458, Pujols .667 and Pujols 1.106). In fact, to be properly understood, they need to be seen in a historical context:

OBP:

1	Bonds	2002	.582
2	Williams	1941	.553
3	Ruth	1923	.545
4	Ruth	1920	.532
5	Bonds	2003	.529
6	Williams	1957	.523
7	Ruth	1926	.516
8	Bonds	2001	.515
9	Ruth	1924	.513
10	Ruth	1921	.512

That's right, Bonds just posted the fifth best OBP season in the modern era. Another thing to observe is that the top ten in this stat consists of three men: Ruth, Bonds and Williams.

Slugging:

1	Bonds	2002	.864
2	Ruth	1920	.847
3	Ruth	1921	.846
4	Bonds	2002	.799
5	Ruth	1927	.772
6	Gehrig	1927	.765
7	Ruth	1923	.764
8	Hornsby	1925	.756
9	McGwire	1998	.753
10	Bagwell	1994	.750
11	Bonds	2003	.749
	Foxx	1932	.749

In combination we get:

OPS

1	Bonds	2002	1.380
2	Ruth	1920	1.379
3	Bonds	2001	1.379
4	Ruth	1921	1.359
5	Ruth	1923	1.309
6	Williams	1941	1.287
7	Bonds	2003	1.278
8	Ruth	1927	1.258
9	Williams	1957	1.257
10	Ruth	1926	1.253

A seventh place finish, but another list with only three names.

This would have been a lot closer had Albert Pujols taken the triple crown. Instead the young St. Louis slugger only captured the batting title, and did that when Rod Beck intentionally walked Todd Helton on his last plate appearance of the year. A triple crown could have tossed a big monkey wrench in Bonds' MVP campaign. Another big stop sign could have been Bonds' 90 RBI, not that many for an MVP. In the end the voters decided to discount this data point. For one thing, although Pujols (whose arguments were based on counting stats) had a good amount more playing time than Bonds, in effect this would have been penalizing Bonds for taking time off to deal with the death of his father, something no writer would be willing to do. Bonds' miracle home runs and game-winning hits in the days before and after his father's death have already entered the canon of great baseball moments. Also, writers understand that opposing managers simply aren't willing to pitch to Bonds in RBI situations. Barry had more walks than Pujols and Sosa combined (148 vs 79+62=141).

We could look at where six MVPs places Bonds all time, and while it is double anybody else, that's not a fair comparison. In the old days one win disqualified you from future wins. Who knows how many MVPs players like Ruth and Cobb could have won under the modern rule set? Instead, it is just as interesting to look at the hardware that some great players didn't win.

For example, in a few years Gwynn and McGwire will go into the Hall of Fame as part of the same class. We're talking about one of the greatest "pure" hitters and one of the greatest sluggers of all time. How many top-fives did these men collect? Gwynn had a #3 in 1984. McGwire did a little better. A #4 in 1992, a #2 in 1998 and a #5 in 1999. You can throw away Bonds' six MVP awards. Bonds still clocks in with two #2's, a #4 and two #5's. So ignoring Bonds' off years, he still beats two of the best hitters we've ever seen.

Let's print one more chart:

Name	1	2	3	4	5	Comments
Bonds	6	2	0	1	2
Gwynn	0	0	1	0	0	Too many bad Padres teams
McGwire	0	1	0	1	1	Writers gave his MVP to Sammy
Sosa	1	1	0	0	0	Might catch Barry in homers, no chance in MVPs
Griffey	1	1	0	2	1	Used to be a good argument - "Junior vs. Barry"
A-Rod	1	2	1	0	0	Finally!
Thomas	2	1	2	0	0	Easy to forget how good Frank once was
Pete Rose	1	1	0	2	1	We might be hearing a lot from him in the near future