Breaking The Mental Curve. Joe Sheehan of Baseball Prospectus looks at Barry Bonds's April (.472/.696/1.132) and declares: "It's not only the best start anyone has had in the past 30 years, it's the best month any player has had in that time." BP includes the top 17; here are the top 10:

Player              Month     PA    AVG    OBP    SLG     OPS

-------------------------------------------------------------

Barry Bonds          4/04     92   .472   .696  1.132    1828

Todd Helton          5/00    102   .512   .588  1.000    1588

Barry Bonds          5/01    117   .369   .547  1.036    1583

Frank Thomas         5/94    118   .452   .593   .988    1581

Barry Bonds          8/02    116   .447   .621   .961    1581

Barry Bonds          7/03     93   .415   .581  1.000    1581

Barry Bonds          9/01     92   .365   .565  1.000    1565

Richard Hidalgo      9/00    120   .476   .533   .971    1504

Chipper Jones        7/99    113   .413   .558   .913    1470

Larry Walker         4/97    106   .456   .538   .911    1449

Sheehan: "Bonds' start is the best that we have record of. It might be the best ever, although it's possible Ted Williams or Babe Ruth had a run like this. A .700 OBP over a full month is breaking the mental curve. ... Unless there's a sea change in Bonds' performance, he's going to put up a season that, while it might not be the greatest ever, is certainly going to be the freakiest."

Sheehan also notes that Helton played 15 of his 23 games in May 2000 in Coors Field and still yielded 300 points of OPS to Bonds. ... Bonds played 15 of his 24 games in his home park -- which is more favorable to pitchers. You'd hardly know it, but it's possible that Bonds's performances over the past 3 years have been hindered by the fact that he plays half his games in San Francisco.

             AVG   OBP   SLG    OPS

01-03 Home  .351  .549  .829  1.378

      Road  .340  .535  .789  1.324

  

2002 Home   .351  .564  .750  1.314

     Road   .386  .596  .842  1.438

 

2003 Home   .369  .569  .805  1.374

     Road   .313  .485  .692  1.177

 

2004 Home   .533  .767 1.500  2.267

     Road   .375  .605  .625  1.230

Ha! Look at those home numbers for this season so far. Bonds is 16-for-30, with 9 HR, 30 BB and only 4 K. ... While marveling at Bonds, I've wondered if baseball fans in 1920 felt the same way watching Babe Ruth in his first year as a Yankee. Ruth's slugging percentage was off the charts and he outhomered all but two major league teams.

                    HR

Babe Ruth           54

St. Louis Browns    50

New York Giants     46

Philadelphia A's    44

Chicago White Sox   37

Washington Senators 36

Cleveland Indians   35

Chicago Cubs        34

St. Louis Cardinals 32

Detroit Tigers      30

Brooklyn Dodgers    28

Boston Braves       23

Boston Red Sox      22

Cincinnati Reds     18

Pittsburgh Pirates  16

Only the Phillies (64) and the rest of the Yankees (61) had more HR than Babe. In 1920, Ruth outslugged his nearest competitor .847 to .632. In 1921, the margin was even larger: .846 to .606. Those two seasons were the gold standard for slugging until Bonds's mark of .863 in 2001.

Watching Bonds since 2001 is like experiencing Pedro in 1999-2000 or Ruth in 1920-21. These are unprecedented performances by athletes performing at a level far beyond that of their peers. Millions and millions of baseball fans followed the game for decades and never got to see anything like this. When we are old, young fans will be in awe that we watched guys like Bonds and Martinez every day. We are privileged.