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May 6, 2004

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.

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