Non-Sox: Barry Bonds

Steroid-aided or not, it will never cease to amazine me how fantastic Barry Bonds' 2001-2004 seasons were.

Consider:
2001: 73 HR (1st all-time), 92 SO, 177 BB (3rd). .515 OBA (11th), .863 SLG (1st).

138 BRAR, or you know, nearly 14 WINS above average with his bat. And that's adjusted for all-time, so he's compared to the relative offensive levels of 2001 (which you may recall were pretty high).

2002: 198 BB (2nd) vs. 47 SO (huh?). .582 OBA (2nd), .799 SLG (Only 5th).

135 BRAR.

In 2004 He just didn't swing and miss. He was intentionally walked 120 times. That's more than everyone else's TOTAL walks except for three players, Bobby Abreu, Todd Helton, and Lance Berkman, who each had 127 BB.

Bonds struck out 41 times and walked 232 times. He posted an OBP of .609. Cartoonish. Simply cartoonish.

While I'm of the opinion that Bonds gets more flak than he deserves, I can certainly see how someone who cared about the "integrity" of the game could be bothered by these numbers. But in the end, they're just numbers. And the integrity of the game isn't much anymore.

Bonds was only in one World Series during this time. It's a crying shame that Brian Sabean couldn't assemble a halfway-decent supporting cast when given the biggest advantage a GM has ever had.