Official argue about all things Barry Bonds GOAT thread

[manbearpig]

Lets get back on track. The following are two quotes from you:

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Here, lemme help....and as you would have guessed (ahem....as you already knew), there *IS* a discrepancy in the number of at-bats between the two samples....which is why your use of raw HR totals was used to argue your point, yet the HR Rate shows that it isn't the case.

Ages 32-35: 74HR in 1219 AB = 16.47 AB/HR
Ages 36-39: 62HR in 928 AB = 14.97 AB/HR

And oddly enough, while I'd love to believe you weren't trying to be dishonest with you sudden use of raw numbers...(HA HA 74 IS MORE THAN 62!!).....I found it odd that you did so after insisting previously on using rates instead of raw numbers.

Funny how it works, huh?

[/ QUOTE ]
Ages 32-35 cover the years 1966-1969, including 1968. Ages 36-39 cover the years 1970-1973.


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

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Because 1968 itself, much like 1987, was an aberration, and by comparing an aberration in a vaccum to the year following it is disingenous...although you may not have been aware of it.

Take a look at these league AB/HR ratios:

Pre expansion, pre-rules change:
1962-1967: 43.2

the 1968 season: 61.6

Post expansion, post rules change:
1969-1973: 43.99

The 5 years after expansion were a <u>decrease</u> in HR rate as compared to the 5 years prior to expansion, when accounting for the 1968 aberration.

Instead of relying on the one year aberration as the meat of your argument....

Granted, I am limited in my interest to be objective and factual, a constraint that doesn't seem to hinder most (hey samsonh!)....but the same exact argument you are making for a dramatic statistical increase from 1968 to 1969 could be made for a dramatic decrease from 1967 to 1968.....as the 1968 season was an aberration.

Only, there were no significant changes from 1967 to 1968....and your drawing conclusions only from viewing 1968 to 1969 in a vaccum without taking it into context may be a clear cut fallacy of "correlation_does_not_imply_causation".

But then again, if your just here to argue for the sake of arguing with me, like you've said, then you don't really care much about any of this....

[/ QUOTE ]
But in this one, you pull 1968 out as an aberration.


So lets look at some different numbers.

From 1966-69, excluding 1968, Aarons road ab/hr was 13.77. Including 1968 bumps that number down to 16.47.

The NL over those same period, excluding 1968, went 44.6 ab/hr. Including 1968 moves that number to 47.7.

Lets now look at 1970-73.

Aaron- 14.97 ab/hr on the road.
NL- 43.8 ab/hr

So depending on whether we include 1968 or not we can come to some very different conclusions.

Leaving 1968 out of both data sets we see that the NL went from 44.6 ab/hr (66,67,69) to 43.8 ab/hr (70,71,72,73). A small increase. Aaron over the same period went from 13.77 ab/hr (66,67,69) to 14.97 ab/hr (70,71,72,73). A slight decrease.

This should put to bed the argument that Aarons road ab/hr rate improved as he aged.

[manbearpig]

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Bonds vs. SBC

Read it, but here are a couple of snippets:

All you have to do is look at these numbers. From 2000-2003:
The Giants hit 361 homers at home (104 by Bonds)
The Giants hit 478 homers on the road (109 by Bonds)
Giants pitchers gave up 213 homers at home
Giants pitchers gave up 335 homers on the road.

So here’s what it means: in those four years, Bonds hit 213 of the 1387 home runs, which is 15.3 percent. If you put that into the 240 more homers that would have been hit if the Giants played in a neutral park (the 239 plus the extra one in the game that got canceled at Shea due to the blackout), that's 37 more home runs (or 9.25 a season).

[/ QUOTE ]

I concede all of this completely unrelated point about Bonds hitting more homeruns at home than on the road, and have never debated it as being any different.

But it does nothing to address our discussion of Hank Aaron seeing a similar late career power surge on the road, nor how you can explain his performance increase in road games based on where he played his home games.

Let's stay on point, and then we can move along to the discussion of why Barry Bonds hits more homeruns than his teammates at home.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a very important point when comparing Aaron's late career "surge" and Bonds late career surge. Do you not agree?

[manbearpig]

Lets bring these numbers back to the forefront:

From ages 32-35, Aaron hit a HR every 13.8 at bats at home.
From ages 36-39, Aaron hit a HR every 9.5 at bats at home.

[RedBean]

[ QUOTE ]

This should put to bed the argument that Aarons road ab/hr rate improved as he aged.

[/ QUOTE ]

Considering that you cherry-picked road homerun rate specifically and only from ages 32, 33, and 35...as compared to ages 36-39....it doesn't surprise me that you can find some combination of datasets that support your overall assertion.

I mean, seriously.

When we look at ages 30-34 compared to 35-39, we see an improvement.

When you take out age 30, 31, and 34....and conviently move age 35 to the "before" group....then sure, you can have the stats match up to your point.

I mean.... you took the original basis, and arbitrarily removed the years Hank hit 24, 32, and 29 homeruns from the "before group"....keeping the seasons he hit 44 and 39, and you moved his age 35 season where he hit 44 from the "after" to the "before" group.....

....and you're surprised that it suddenly now conforms to your assertion?

Confirmation bias says Hello!

Of course, if I wanted to be similarly disingenuous, I could arbitrarily move the comparision ages to 34-36 and 37-39

AB/HR rate:
Bonds age 34-36: 8.40
Bonds age 37-39: 8.57

OMG...look at that DECREASE when I arbitrarily cherry-pick my own dataset!....Bonds HR rate decreased from age 37-39 when compared to 34-36.

And what about Hank?

AB/HR rate:
Hank age 34-36: 15.03
Hank age 37-39: 11.04

OMFG...Hank INCREASE from age 37-39 over age 34-36....a time when most ballplayers decrease, and even Barry Bonds decreased.

&lt;/sarcasm&gt;


See how easy that was?

But, instead I chose to be objective in comparing 30-34 and 35-39 to remain consistent to the original premise.

But don't let that get in <u>your</u> way.

****

And going back to the main point, as to whether or not it is "natural" for a player to see a late career power surge from age 35-39 as compared to age 30-34....it isn't just Barry and Hank.

In fact, let's look at the research that Sean Forman from Baseball Reference did as a <u>paid consultant to the authors of Game of Shadows</u> during the research for their book.....of which curiously, didn't make it into the book, as it would have shown how just how "rare" it really is:

[ QUOTE ]
Forman writes:
So then the question is whether Barry's improvement from 30-34 to 35-39 was unique. Here are players who did much better from age 35-39 than from 30-34. Barry is at or near the top of all of these.

The first column is the stat from 30 to 34, and second is the stat from 35-39 and then the ratio of one to the other followed by the respective number of PA's over those time periods. These require 1000PA's in each period to appear. I sorted based on ratio and then presented the top 20


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Are we going to cherry-pick different years here too, and argue about each individual players park effects?

Oops...

[manbearpig]

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This should put to bed the argument that Aarons road ab/hr rate improved as he aged.

[/ QUOTE ]

Considering that you cherry-picked road homerun rate specifically and only from ages 32, 33, and 35...as compared to ages 36-39....it doesn't surprise me that you can find some combination of datasets that support your overall assertion.

I mean, seriously.



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All I did was use the years you had used.

From you:

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Ages 32-35: 74HR in 1219 AB = 16.47 AB/HR
Ages 36-39: 62HR in 928 AB = 14.97 AB/HR

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Also from you:

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Pre expansion, pre-rules change:
1962-1967: 43.2

the 1968 season: 61.6

Post expansion, post rules change:
1969-1973: 43.99

[/ QUOTE ]

When calculating Aaron's road rate you included 1968. When calculating the league rate, you excluded it. All I did was give you the numbers when 1968 was either included or excluded in both sets of data. No cherry picking.

It just happens that his ab/hr in 1968 was 20.8. And the league rate was 61.6 that year. When you include Aaron's 1968 numbers his ab/hr gets higher. And excluding the league number slows that rate up. Convenient for someone whose intention is to show that Aaron improved relative to the league.

[RedBean]

[ QUOTE ]
Lets bring these numbers back to the forefront:

From ages 32-35, Aaron hit a HR every 13.8 at bats at home.
From ages 36-39, Aaron hit a HR every 9.5 at bats at home.

[/ QUOTE ]

Let's look at Hank's HR rate at FCS, compared to the league, without including the 1968 aberration.

<u>AB/HR rate at Fulton County Stadium:</u>

Hank Aaron at FCS, 1966-1969: 12.97
Hank Aaron at FCS, 1970-1974: 10.08

INCREASE!

Entire League at FCS, 1966-1969: 31.22
Entire League at FCS, 1970-1974: 31.42

DECREASE!!

Boom, headshot!!!

When we remove the league-wide 1968 aberration...we see that Hank after age 35 <u>increased</u> his HR rate at Fulton County Stadium....while the entire league's HR rate <u>decreased</u> over the same time period.

[Pudge714]

Not sure if this has been posted yet, but
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/es...7BCA7DFC6E77%7D

[RedBean]

[ QUOTE ]


All I did was use the years you had used.

From you:

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Ages 32-35: 74HR in 1219 AB = 16.47 AB/HR
Ages 36-39: 62HR in 928 AB = 14.97 AB/HR

[/ QUOTE ]


[/ QUOTE ]

Man, could you be anymore disingenuos?

I've always used ages 30-34 and 35-39 as a basis, and that particular reply you are quoting was in reply to the FIRST time you tried to shift the age range to suit your needs.

I mean, seriously.

Let's look at the part you quoted in context of my entire post.

[ QUOTE ]
<font color="red">Redbean posted 7 days ago:</font>

I used the HR Rate from the 5 seasons beginning at age 30....(comparing ages 30-34 and 35-39.)

And now, since they don't line up with your preconceptions....you suddenly want to change the criteria to a start at a different age (32), and suddenly want to shift back to absolute HR totals, rather than using the rate.


HR Rate using your "cherry picked" time periods.

AB/HR on the ROAD:
Ages 32-35: 16.47
Ages 36-39: 14.97

Despite your attempts at cherry picking....it's still an increase in HR Rate on the road.


[/ QUOTE ]

I mean, Jesus Christ dude...if you have to resort to being intellectually dishonest and outright disingenous just to feed your hate for the Big Man...I just don't know what to say...I had enjoyed debating this with you up to now as you seemed at least somewhat bound to being genuine, if not totally objective...but now you're getting just as silly as BSF with his "I HATES THE BONDS!" spiel.

You chose age 32-35 and 36-39 because it suits your needs, and despite me calling you out on it a week ago, you are now insisting that *I* picked those time frames.

I mean...c'mon.

[RedBean]

Now you're just being flat out disingenuos in taking my quotes out of context.

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When calculating Aaron's road rate you included 1968.

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In reply to *your* cherry picked age ranges that also included 1968.

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When calculating the league rate, you excluded it.

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In a seperate discussion, much later, on the effect of the 1968 aberration.

Naturally, in highlighting 1968 as an aberration, I isolated it to demonstrate that.

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All I did was give you the numbers when 1968 was either included or excluded in both sets of data. No cherry picking.


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You've arbitrarily included or excluded it when it suits your needs, which is why I pointed out in the first place that it was an aberration.

Oops...

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An excluding the league number slows that rate up. Convenient for someone whose intention is to show that Aaron improved relative to the league.

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Actually, very early on I showed Hank's rate improved relative to the league both with and without the 1968 season.

From age 30-34: Hank's rate was 2.665 times the entire league.
From age 35-39: Hank's rate was 3.721 times the entire league.

<u>Removing 1968:</u>

From age 30-33: Hank's rate was 2.617 times the entire league.
From age 35-39: Hank's rate was 3.721 times the entire league.

Like I said, with or without....he increased relative to the league.

Yahtzee!

[manbearpig]

NL AB/HR 1964-1968

275,985/5900= 46.7 ab/hr

NL AB/HR 1969-1973

327,322/7441= 43.9 ab/hr


An increase, right? Do you agree with this or not? This obviously includes 1968, but if we are going to use Aaron's 1968 numbers we have to use the leagues.

Edit: Lets take 1968 out again and just use 64-67 and 70-73.

If were going to standardize our years lets do this one too.

1964-1967: 44.13
1968: 61.6
1969-1973: 43.9

A small increase league wide.