August 06, 2007

Barry Bonds by the Numbers: Looking at how Barry Bonds home runs compare to his National League contemporaries over the course of his career.

Many people would like to dismiss Barry Bonds' home run record because of his alleged use of steroids, but I don't believe his career statistics support that claim. If Barry Bond's home run performance is due to his use of steroids, I would expect a change in his home run production and a change in how he compared to his peers after he supposedly started dosing.

I looked at Baseball Almanac's lists of the top 25 home run hitters in the National League for each year in Bonds' career. Here are the National League home run leaders each year, how many home runs they hit, how many home runs Bonds hit, the average number of home runs for the top 25 National League home run hitters, and the number of National League players who hit 40 or more home runs each season.

Year	NL Home Run Leader	Leader HRs	Bonds HRs	Top 25 Avg. HRs	Players w/40+ HRs
1986	Mike Schmidt	37	16	22.84	0
1987	Andre Dawson	49	25	29.44	2
1988	Darryl Strawberry	39	24	22.80	0
1989	Kevin Mitchell	47	19	23.48	1
1990	Ryne Sandberg	40	33	26.52	1
1991	Howard Johnson	38	25	24.48	0
1992	Fred McGriff	35	34	20.84	0
1993	Barry Bonds	46	46	28.00	2
1994	Matt Williams	43	37	23.84	1
1995	Dante Bichette	40	33	27.40	1
1996	Andres Galarraga	47	42	34.08	8
1997	Larry Walker	49	40	31.44	6
1998	Mark McGwire	70	37	36.12	5
1999	Mark McGwire	65	34	38.00	7
2000	Sammy Sosa	50	49	36.84	9
2001	Barry Bonds	73	73	40.04	7
2002	Sammy Sosa	49	46	33.04	4
2003	Jim Thome	47	45	34.16	6
2004	Adrian Beltre	48	45	35.64	6
2005	Andruw Jones	51	5 [injured]	32.36	4
2006	Ryan Howard	58	26	34.64	7

Looking at the National League home run leaders on August 6, 2007, Bonds is #9, with 21 home runs. Prince Fielder is currently leading, with 32 home runs.

Some observations:

Bonds hits more home runs per year than he used to. So does everyone else. There was a dramatic change in National League home run production in the 1996 season. A total of eight NL players hit 40 or more home runs from 1986 through 1995, and no one hit 40 home runs during four of those seasons. Eight NL players hit 40-plus home runs in 1996 alone, and at least four NL players have hit 40 home runs or more every season since. During 1986-1995 the average number of home runs by the top 25 NL hitters was between 20.84 and 29.44; during 1996-2006 it was between 31.44 and 40.04. In 1995 the top 25 players hit 685 home runs combined; in 1996 they hit 852. (At the extremes, the top 25 NL home run hitters hit 521 home runs combined in 1992 and hit 1001 in 2001.)

Bonds is consistently one of the best home run hitters in the National League. He's been one of the top 25 National League home run hitters in every season of his career except for 2005, when he missed most of the season with injuries. Bonds hit more home runs than the average NL top 25 every year during 1990-1998, and every year during 2000-2004.

Bonds' presence at or near the top of the list of NL home run hitters is nothing new. He was #2 in 1992, #1 in 1993, #3 in 1994, #4 in 1995, #2 in 1996, #4 in 1997, #9 in 1998, #13 in 1999, #2 in 2001, #1 in 2001, #2 in 2002, #2 in 2003, and #4 in 2004.

So, well before and after he allegedly starting using steroids, Barry Bonds was consistently one of the top home run hitters in the National League.

posted by kirkaracha to commentary at 07:09 PM - 0 comments