I’ve been getting a fair share of e-mail asking whether Barry Bonds‘ first few weeks of 2004 have been the hottest start to a
season any player has ever had. I’ve been hesitant to answer, in part because
the sample size was pretty small, and in part because that’s not the easiest
thing to research.
With April all but in the books, however, I think it’s safe to say that Bonds’
.472/.696/1.132 line is historic. 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.
Now, when I make a statement like that, you can be pretty sure it’s been
researched by someone smarter than myself. In this case, Keith Woolner put
together a list of the best months, by OPS, as far back as 1972.
Player Month PA AVG OBP SLG OPS ------------------------------------------------------------- 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 Barry Bonds 4/93 94 .431 .553 .889 1442 Ron Cey 4/77 94 .425 .543 .890 1433 Barry Bonds 4/02 100 .375 .600 .828 1428 Mark McGwire 6/96 113 .329 .513 .915 1428 Barry Bonds 8/01 112 .350 .536 .888 1423 Mark McGwire 5/98 119 .326 .513 .907 1420 Sammy Sosa 8/01 130 .385 .469 .936 1405
Bonds’ 1828 OPS dwarfs Todd Helton‘s May of 2000, heretofore
the best month by a player in the past 32 seasons. Helton had the good fortune
to play 15 of his 23 games that month in Coors Field, and still yields 300
points of OPS to Bonds’ April. Larry Walker‘s April ’97
performance needs no such disclaimer: he played 12 games away from Denver,
just 11 at altitude. (All this stuff courtesy Retrosheet.)
The rest of the names on this list should be reasonably familiar to you, the
peak months of the great hitters of the past decade: Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Frank Thomas.
Ron Cey has the only pre-offensive explosion performance up
there, setting what was then the NL record with 29 RBI in April of 1977.
Chipper Jones‘ month led to an MVP, and Richard Hidalgo‘s led to a huge contract.
Lower the bar to 40 PAs, and the club becomes a lot less exclusive, a lot more
fun:
Player Month PA AVG OBP SLG OPS ------------------------------------------------------------- Barry Bonds 8/03 62 .452 .629 1.024 1653 Jim Dwyer 7/83 48 .474 .574 1.053 1627 John Milner 4/79 42 .469 .571 1.031 1603 Shane Spencer 9/98 42 .421 .476 1.105 1581 Reggie Smith 5/75 41 .412 .512 1.029 1542 Larry Walker 9/99 49 .513 .592 .949 1541 Sean Berry 8/98 49 .524 .551 .976 1527 Fred McGriff 8/94 42 .421 .476 1.026 1503 Ken Singleton 4/81 58 .472 .517 .981 1498 Jim Rice 9/85 66 .525 .545 .951 1496 George Brett 4/83 72 .460 .528 .921 1448 J.D. Drew 9/98 41 .417 .463 .972 1436 Mark McGwire 5/93 54 .395 .519 .907 1425 Ryan Klesko 6/94 61 .421 .459 .965 1424 Glenallen Hill 4/99 47 .463 .511 .902 1413 Alex Rodriguez 5/99 75 .413 .507 .905 1411 Larry Walker 9/98 68 .528 .632 .774 1406
It’s no real surpise to see another Bonds performance atop this list, but
Jim Dwyer and John Milner? Dwyer, a
left-handed hitter who was one of the most extreme platoon players of the
1980s, started just 11 games in July ’83, and played a complete game just four
times that month. Milner made just nine starts in April ’79, and like Dwyer,
was a left-handed hitter platooned or used as a pinch-hitter for most of his
career.
Other notables…Shane Spencer‘s September ’98 was basically
his entire season, a Hurricane Bob Hazle for Generation Y.
Larry Walker played a few extra games at home than on the road in each of his
two big months, but nothing big. Injuries limited his playing time in both
months. Fred McGriff‘s August ’94 was ended by the strike.
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. It’s clear that Bonds will walk 200 times, shattering his
own single-season record. He could very well hit .400. I’ll predict that he
will break his OBP record even if he doesn’t hit .400, and become the first
player to ever post a .600 OBP. His record of 68 intentional walks is also
going down.
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.
—
This column is going up a day late because of some computer problems unrelated
to BP’s server switch this week. I don’t know who decided that a good way to
sell products and services would be to shove unwanted software onto people’s
computers surreptitiously, but on the off chance those people are reading
this, hey, best of luck with that eternal damnation thing…
Thank you for reading
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