On the Dominance of Barry Bonds

Yesterday, Joe Posnanski wrote a piece looking at the best players in baseball over each 5 year stretch since 1970 using Win Shares. Tom Tango noted on his blog that Win Shares gave a skewed perspective because their baseline (which is zero) is biased, and that Win Shares Above Bench would be better. Curious, I decided to see what rWAR had to say on the subject (which, coincidentally, happens to be just what Larry Granillo had done, albeit with a different process, at wezen-ball a day before Joe published his article).

I found something very interesting:

Most WAR over 5-year span:

From	To	Leader	WAR
1988	1992	Barry Bonds	41.9
1989	1993	Barry Bonds	46.3
1990	1994	Barry Bonds	45
1991	1995	Barry Bonds	42.6
1992	1996	Barry Bonds	45.1
1993	1997	Barry Bonds	43.9
1994	1998	Barry Bonds	42.6
1995	1999	Barry Bonds	40.2
1996	2000	Barry Bonds	41.6
1997	2001	Barry Bonds	43.3
1998	2002	Barry Bonds	46.7
1999	2003	Barry Bonds	47.7
2000	2004	Barry Bonds	56.1
2001	2005	Barry Bonds	47.8

Bonds was the leader in WAR over the previous 5 seasons for 14 straight years. On top of that, he was second in baseball in WAR from 1987-1991 (to Roger Clemens) and from 2002-2006 (to Albert Pujols). It's easy to remember just how good he was in the early part of the 2000s (exemplified here; he managed to keep his 5-year WAR lead in 2005 despite going to the plate only 52 times that season), but it seems like he never gets the credit he deserves for absolutely dominating the '90s. At the time, everyone held Griffey as the decade's dominant player. Frank Thomas was probably his biggest challenger in most people's minds. Mark McGwire was the the favourite of some for a time later in the decade, and Alex Rodriguez had his fair share of proponents. No one seemed to notice that Bonds was better than them all even back then, and it wasn't even close.

As someone who likes to look over the history of the game as a hobby, I'm constantly amazed to find new things that demonstrate just how ridiculously good Bonds was long before anyone started noticing. This was one of those things. If it surprises you, I highly recommend looking at the things Barry did in the earlier part of his career. Look at his batting, his defense, his baserunning, everything. Compare him to the best of his generation and to the best of all time. If you were around back then, you just might find yourself asking, much like I have, what you could have been thinking back then not to notice?

I guess it's better late than never.