A little (but tedious) baseball analysis...soon to be buried after the thread becomes locked
So what's different about Barry Bonds' hitting this season that distinguishes it not only from his other seasons but also from Mark McGwire's 70-HR season?
GroundBall-to-FlyBall ratio and conversion rate of Fly-balls-to-Home-Runs (last column under "Miscellaneous Statistics":
Barry Bonds*
Mark McGwire
*Bonds, over the past 8 games, has seen his GB/FB ratio increase from .39 to .45...in other words, he may be in a "flyball slump"...hurting his HR chances...at least temporarily.
(Prior to this past week Bonds had been converting about 39%(!!!) of the balls he puts into-the-air into HRs...After the past 8 games, it's down to 36%. These stats weren't kept during the time of Babe Ruth and Ted Williams. A GB/FB ratio difference of .4 to .7 for a season is a difference of about 60 Fly Balls over a season, which -- at a HR-conversion-rate of 39% -- translates into 23+ more Home runs per season. Bonds' previous best HR season was 49 in 2000, when his all-time best GB/FB ratio was
.57 and his HR/FB-conversion-rate was a "mere"
23% (49 HRs off 214 FlyBalls). Mark McGwire's HR/FB-conversion rate in 1998 was "Ruthian" 39.5%...when he hit 70 HRs off of 177 FlyBalls. Bonds has 107 FlyBalls half-way thru this season, on a pace to hit the same amount as last year...but now his HR-conversion-rate is 36% instead of 23%...which, if his flyballs total 214 this year, would translate into 77 home runs. Problem for Bonds: Base-on-Balls coming more frequently, and he may not have the opportunity to put an additional 107 balls into the air during the 2nd-half of this season.** Solution: Jeff Kent has to heat up, like the MVP he was in 2000.)
**Re Base-On-Balls: Bonds Last-14-game (06/14-07/01) OnBasePercentage: (OBP~=(Hits+
BaseOnBalls)/Plate-Appearances = 12Hits+
23BB / 42AB+
23BB =
.538...
Compare to Historical All-Time Best-Career OBPs and these Season-Best-Ever OBPs: Ted Williams-
.551-1941, John McGraw-
.547-1899, Babe Ruth-
.545-1923.
(Bonds' 2001 Game Log: 2001 Stats, Game-by-Game)
(Babe Ruth Career Log: Stats Year-by-Year)
(Ted Williams Career Log: Stats Year-by-Year)
(John McGraw Career Log: Stats Year-by-Year)
Single-Season Best-Ever OBPs
In his offseason conditioning, Bonds concentrated on flexibility rather than strength, as per his father's (Bobby Bonds') advice. The strike zone was "raised" this year also. For a pictorial of year-to-year changes in the distribution of HRs by Barry Bonds from 1987 to 2001:
Leave "Against"=ALL and "Count"=ALL but change "Result"=Home Run...then successively and quickly reset "When"=1987...=1988...=1989...=1990...etc...=2001...like "flipping" cards to make a movie
Leonard Koppett: I think he'd appreciate this info...although I'm sure he could develop it more extensively.
Oh, forgot to add: Barry Bonds' best HR months historically are August and September. His worst month is June: Bonds'
combined-HR-total for June '98, '99 & '00 was...13! Bonds hit
11 HRs in June 2001.