The Sports Stats Guy

Barry Bonds may be the most controversial player in the history of baseball. Considering that nearly 20,000 individuals have played in the majors since 1871, it's quite the distinction, though perhaps not the most coveted one. His legacy will always be steroids, first and foremost. It's what everyone thinks of when the name comes up, an image of a hulking figure striding up to the batter's box, knocking home runs into McCovey Cove. That Bonds took steroids is not up for discussion: he himself admitted as much , although he claimed he didn't know what he was taking, just consuming what his trainer gave him. Such claims of ignorance, whether feigned or legitimate, have not been enough to convince the gatekeepers of the HOF to elect him, as he has never been able to crack the 75% threshold necessary for induction. It's sad, truthfully, because even before he had taken steroids, Bonds was one of the best players the game had ever seen, and arguably one of the ten ...

  Category BA+ OBP+ SLG+ OPS+ Mod. wOBA+ Mod. wRC+ oWAR/650 PAs Rbat/650 PAs Value 110.5 111.5 135.2 146.7 121.5 147.1 6.0 33.4 Has any player in baseball history had a smoother, more beautiful swing than Ken Griffey Jr .? It's tough to rank anyone ahead of Ted Williams, but if there's any hitter who can best the Splendid Splinter in that category, it would have to be The Kid. When he came into the league in 1989, a fresh-faced 19 year-old prodigy, he was under the more pressure than perhaps any other rookie in baseball history (save for the possible exception of Mickey Mantle), saddled with monumental expectations and pressure. Amazingly, he exceeded them, and in the process, established himself as perhaps the most universally beloved ballplayer since Babe Ruth or Willie Mays. No one ever played the game with greater joy and exuberance, and his mind for baseball wa...

Category BA+ OBP+ SLG+ OPS+ Mod. wOBA+ Mod. wRC+ oWAR/650 PAs Rbat/650 PAs Value 106.1 117.5 131.3 144.7 124.0 148.6 6.3 34.2 Eddie Mathews has as good a claim as any for the title of most underrated 500 home run hitter in MLB history (though it's not exactly the most luminous of distinctions). Year after year, he was a lock for at least 30 round-trippers, stringing together a total of nine straight from 1953-1961, and adding on a tenth in 1965. During those thirteen years, he amassed a total of 452 long balls, a historic amount. In addition, he had a .385 OBP, .528 SLG (good for a .913 OPS), and a 150 OPS+, good for third during that timeframe, coming in behind his teammate Hank Aaron (158 OPS+), and NL rival Willie Mays (167 OPS+). Additionally, Mathews also amassed the second-highest Offense WAR and home runs during that period (with 85.8 and 452, respectively), again finis...