Official argue about all things Barry Bonds GOAT thread

[manbearpig]

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Why did you read anything about Bonds into that?


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Because you had previously asked:

"If Bonds is listed in the Mitchell report, does that change any minds about the probabilites of BB using some sort of PED?"

Naturally, i questioned why the prescence of Bonds name in the report would do anything to change your view of it's credibility.

The credibility of the report should stand on it's own merits...not on whether or not it mentions Bonds.


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I think it could:

1) include Bonds and be credible.
2) include Bonds and not be credible.
3) not include Bonds and be credible.
4) not include Bonds and not be credible.


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Option 3, FTW.

And I'm not guessing. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

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Not guessing? Lets hear the inside info if you have it.

Just to be clear on my position on the Mitchell report. I dont expect that everyone that is in it is 100% a user nor do I expect that 100% of the people not on it are non users.

[manbearpig]

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Right but thats RedBean's point with the graph highlighting expansion. Bonds increases ALSO correspond to rule changes (being liberal with this term, I'm including general things that increased HR across the board like expansion) park effects (smaller parks in general), and luck.

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Agree that that is a part of it. But is it as big of a factor for Bonds as it was for Aaron? I personally think it is not.

In 1998 there were only 2 new expansion teams. In 1969 there were 4.

In 1969 the strike zone was reduced and the mound was lowered. I dont think there are comparables to the late 90's.

There was a bigger change in hr/500ABs in the years closely following 1968 than there was closely following 97.

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Just to follow up on this. RB clearly pointed out that HR/AB's did not really change following the 1969 rule changes. I agree but think some of that has to do with the introduction of 3 new pitcher friendly parks.

The rest still stands and has not been addressed.

I would also like to add to this that Aaron's home HR rate increase was inline with league wide HR rates at FCS:
Aaron- 1.39/1 FCS/road. League 1.35/1 FCS/other.

Bonds is a little different. Bonds .954/1 SBC/other. League .706/1 SBC/other.

[critikal]

If Barry Bonds' name was in the Mitchell Report it would've been leaked by now. They just said on ESPN that 11 free agents are named in the report and they have been notified. Wonder if there's anyone interesting.

[RedBean]

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I guess the graph I pulled the other day is misrepresenting something.


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Thanks, that's what I was saying all along.

Glad you finally came around. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[RedBean]

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Just to be clear on my position on the Mitchell report. I dont expect that everyone that is in it is 100% a user nor do I expect that 100% of the people not on it are non users.

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Nice hedge.

But to give you credit, at least you're doing it advance. Most other folks are waiting to see if Bonds is included or not on whether to assign 100% credibility.

If Bonds is named, it will become their bible.....if not, they will treat it as a farce.

[RedBean]

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RB clearly pointed out that HR/AB's did not really change following the 1969 rule changes. I agree but think some of that has to do with the introduction of 3 new pitcher friendly parks.
I would also like to add to this that Aaron's home HR rate increase was inline with league wide HR rates at FCS:
Aaron- 1.39/1 FCS/road. League 1.35/1 FCS/other.

Bonds is a little different. Bonds .954/1 SBC/other. League .706/1 SBC/other.

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This and the post above put forward a great hypothesis that sounds solid at first, between the additional pither friendly parks in 1969-1971, to the rate increase at FCS as opposed to the league, to the effect of the rules changes and the expansion. The same combination of hypothesis that I've seen over the years ad nauseum, fwiw...

Except...I'd like to point out on little detail than many don't seem to "get".....

Everyone in the league during Aaron's time played by the same rules, they played in the same parks, and they all benefitted from expansion.

Yet...Hank's increase in HR rate relative to the rest of the league increased greatly, despite the rest of the entire league enjoying the same benefits!

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From age 30-34: Hank's rate was 2.5 times the entire league.
From age 35-39: Hank's rate was 3.75 times the entire league.


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Hank's rate increase relative to the league cannot be explained by rules or expansion, as the everyone in the league switched to those rules and benefited from the same expansion.

Over the balance of the league, they were all similarly affected by the new pitcher friendly away parks....and the only real substantial difference betwee Aaron and everyone else in the league is he played all his home games at FCS, and while it was a great advantage, it was not that substantial to account for such a huge increase in rate relative to the entire league.

Just to reiterate, to normalize for outside effects such as rules changes, expansion, pitcher friendly away parks, etc......we can compare their HR rates relative to the league, and then gauge the increase over the given time periods....and here is what we find:


From age 30-34: Hank's rate was 2.5 times the entire league.
From age 35-39: Hank's rate was 3.75 times the entire league.

From age 30-34: Bond's rate was 2.5 times the entire league.
From age 35-39: Bond's rate was 3.75 times the entire league.


Scarily similar....

Have a nice day. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[manbearpig]

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Just to be clear on my position on the Mitchell report. I dont expect that everyone that is in it is 100% a user nor do I expect that 100% of the people not on it are non users.

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Nice hedge.

But to give you credit, at least you're doing it advance. Most other folks are waiting to see if Bonds is included or not on whether to assign 100% credibility.

If Bonds is named, it will become their bible.....if not, they will treat it as a farce.

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Not a hedge. Its the truth. How can you expect a guy with no real power to get to the bottom of anything?

Agree with you on the Bonds angle though.

[manbearpig]

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Just to reiterate, to normalize for outside effects such as rules changes, expansion, pitcher friendly away parks, etc......we can compare their HR rates relative to the league, and then gauge the increase over the given time periods....and here is what we find:


From age 30-34: Hank's rate was 2.5 times the entire league.
From age 35-39: Hank's rate was 3.75 times the entire league.

From age 30-34: Bond's rate was 2.5 times the entire league.
From age 35-39: Bond's rate was 3.75 times the entire league.


Scarily similar....

Have a nice day. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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It is similar. But I dont think that those numbers completely take into account home park specific changes.

Lets take Aaron. His numbers in relation to the league obviously jumped immensely. Can this be attributed only to FCS? No, I dont think anyone thinks that. But the league as a whole hit HR's at nearly a 40% higer there than other parks so I think that has to be a big factor.

The other thing you are missing is that 25% of the NL at the time moved to run depressing parks. So you would expect the overall HR rate to drop, and the AB/HR of the teams who played in those stadiums to really drop.

The point is that the league AB/HR is artificially depressed when compared to Aarons AB/HR. If you could remove those 3 parks from the equation I think you would see that the league wide AB/HR actually increased slightly. So in my estimation, Aaron played 138 games a year in parks that were at least neutral, if not offensively positive, and 24 in depressing environments. That works out to around 15% of his games coming in bad environments for offense, while the league average for AB/HR is figured using 25% of total games coming in offensively bad parks.

Which would overall inflate his numbers relative to the league.

So did his normalized numbers get better as he got older? In my opinion, maybe slightly. But certainly not to the point of going from 2.5x the league rate to 3.75x the league rate based on himself alone. But that certainly sets a precedent for improving as you age.

However, when we do the same calculations for Bonds, we find that him moving from 2.5x the league rate to 3.75x the league rate was done even though he played the majority of his games in a ballpark that severly cut down on HR rates. As I noted before, SBC cuts down HR's by nearly 30% in relation to other parks.

So while I will concede the point that Aaron possibly improved with age, albeit just slightly, the improvement we saw with Bonds is unprecedented. It is a statement of just how great he is, but it is understandably also a red flag when put in context with other things happening in baseball at the time.

[RedBean]

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From age 30-34: Hank's rate was 2.5 times the entire league.
From age 35-39: Hank's rate was 3.75 times the entire league.

From age 30-34: Bond's rate was 2.5 times the entire league.
From age 35-39: Bond's rate was 3.75 times the entire league.


Scarily similar....

Have a nice day. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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It is similar. But I dont think that those numbers completely take into account home park specific changes.


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Of course they don't, but it does take into consideration the expansion, the rules changes, and the other factors aside from the FCS home advantage, as those other effects applied league wide.

Also, keep in mind, Hank played 3 of the 5 seasons from age 30-34 in FCS also, as well as all 5 from age 35-39.

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The other thing you are missing is that 25% of the NL at the time moved to run depressing parks. So you would expect the overall HR rate to drop, and the AB/HR of the teams who played in those stadiums to really drop.


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What you expect is not always what actually happened.

<u>Let's take a look:</u>

Analyzing from 1969-1973, post-expansion and post-rules, in order to isolate the park effects of the three new stadiums:

<u>AB/HR</u>
1969-1970 Crosley Field - 31.02
1970-1973 Riverfront Stadium - 45.18

Big Decrease, as you expected.

<u>AB/HR</u>
1969-1970 Shibe Park - 43.73
1970-1973 Veterans Stadium - 39.50

Oops...INCREASE!

<u>AB/HR</u>
1969-1970 Forbes Field - 77.23
1971-1973 Three Rivers - 52.19

Oops... BIG INCREASE!


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The point is that the league AB/HR is artificially depressed when compared to Aarons AB/HR. If you could remove those 3 parks from the equation I think you would see that the league wide AB/HR actually increased slightly.


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As luck would have it, we can do just that through the magic of math.

<u>AB/HR Rate :</u>
1962-1967 Leaguewide: 45.1
1969-1975 Leaguewide: 46.1
1969-1975 Without the 3 new parks: 46.08

So, like I said, the theory looks nice on paper, but when we set out to prove it using the numbers, we still see that the HR rate from 1969-1975 decreased from the HR rate from 1962-1967, both with and without the new parks included..

Yahtzee!

[RedBean]

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So while I will concede the point that Aaron possibly improved with age, albeit just slightly, the improvement we saw with Bonds is unprecedented.

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It was the same rate of improvement for both, from 2.5x league average, to 3.75x league average.

In the case of Aaron, you call it "slight improvement", yet in the case of Bonds, you call it "unprecedented".

Sheesh...

Not to mention, Hank's improvement came at a time when the league average was trending down from previous years, making his upward trend all that more impressive....while Bonds improvement came as the league average was trending up, making his improvement more inline with the rest of the league, albeit that he outpaced their upward trend, as opposed to Hank bucking that of the league.

If anything, Hank's improvement stands as the most impressive and possibly still to be considered unprecedented, even by what Bonds did.

Either way, I sure as hell wouldn't call it "slight".

Snap...crackle..pop...762 and counting!