Greatest Show on the Diamond. As April rolls in, the majority of us are thinking some of the same things; finals and

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Chad Agostini Professor Petersen 7 th of April, 2016 Tuesday/Thursday Greatest Show on the Diamond As April rolls in, the majority of us are thinking some of the same things; finals and summer

1 Chad Agostini Professor Petersen 7 th of April, 2016 Tuesday/Thursday Greatest Show on the Diamond As April rolls in, the majority of us are thinking some of the same things; finals and summer vacation. I am a little different, April for me, brings something else to mind; baseball season is finally here. There is nothing like baseball season. It all starts from the smell in the air to the trash talk and prediction happy, analytical, friends and family of mine. The comparing of teams, players, who is better, or even who is worse. My arguments always started with Barry Bonds and San Francisco Giants of course because they were my favorite. Truly I did not really have a choice on the matter. I was a fan before I was even out of the womb. Every year during this season nostalgia hits me like a brick wall. Every day after school during elementary and junior high I would go to baseball practice for two hours and afterwards fool around with some of my teammates. Saturday mornings were always the most memorable. I would wake early, get to the diamond an hour early and warm-up then play a double header till about four o clock. Thereafter, my dad and I would go watch the Giants

2 game and wait for a more-than-likely Barry Bonds home-run. Those were some of the most enjoyable and memorable days through my childhood. The only way my friends and family could critique and have player/team arguments is with the help from Al Munro and Walter Elias, founders of the Elias Sports Bureau. Al Munro and Walter Elias were brothers who opened up a little business in 1913 in New York City where they would create and sell, baseball scorecards featuring team and player statistics in saloons and haunts of baseball fans... (jewishsports.net). what they would mostly look at was the players pitching and batting averages for the week and compiles them into a scorecard. Doing these got there foot in the door and in 1919 Al Munro and Walter Elias became the official statistician for the national (Major) League and International (minor) League (jewishsports.net). These brothers started from scratch and now have formed this huge company that is now the world s foremost sports statisticians and historians, providing historical research and statistical services in the field of professional sports (esb.com).

3 Anytime ESPN uses information on teams or specific players it is most likely form The Elias Sports Bureau. With that foundation we can now look at my all-time favorite baseball player growing up; Barry Bonds. Barry Bonds was one of, if not the greatest baseball player to ever play the game. I get it, some of you might be thinking, he took steroids, he does not deserve to be even put on that kind of pedestal! Let s just look at some of the best statistical information about him and then critique. Through his career, Barry reached base 330 times fewer than the alltime leader Pete Rose who, without a Major League Baseball bane for life, would probably be in the Baseball Hall of Fame. With that though, Bonds had 3,284 fewer plate appearances then he did. To put that in perspective, Barry Bonds had a.444 on-base percentage while Pete Rose had a.375 on base percentage. To say that Barry Bonds does not deserve a Hall of Fame call still is baffling to me. Another way to compare Barry Bonds with some of the other great Hall of Famers is to look at his Wins Above Replacement or (WAR). WAR is essentially a way to measure a player s value or efficiency to a team. Using WAR is a useful reference point for comparing players (fangraphs.com). For a position player they are graded on a variety of aspects in there game like base running, hitting, and fielding. There is no specific way of calculating a player s WAR.

4 It is basically like a point system that is then added all up and then divided by another group of specific numbers. To kind of clear this up a little, let s say as an example you get one point for getting a hit, making a catch, throwing a guy out and then get a point for getting a hit and one point for driving someone in to score. Once you get that number you then go into the negatives with strikeouts and dropped balls. With all those numbers you then divide them by how many times you were up to bat and how many times the ball was near you. For example, during a span of seven games, as an outfielder, you caught 21 balls, threw 2 guys out, stole 1 base, and got 6 hits, then you grounded out 4 times, struck out 3 times, and flew out 2 times. That is a total of 21 points but you then divide that number by the amount of times you were up to bat which was 15 times and add that number to how many times the ball was near you which was plus 15 is 45, so 21 divided by 24 equals about.47. With so many other numbers involved other than those it gets a little complicated because some people want different responses. For that reason, some bias can get involved. Some people do not think WAR is an accurate statistic to describe how much a player is valued. Is that a good way to account for a Most Valuable Player Award at the end of the year? Some say yes and some say no.

5 With all that being said to accumulate a lot of points with that format, throughout a career has to be something that is impressive. Barry Bonds has one of the highest Wins Above Replacement in major league history. He has a total of career WAR, which is forth alltime according to (baseballreference.com). That is higher than other Hall of Fame worthy Pete Rose and Nolan Ryan who is in the Hall of Fame already (regressing.deadspin.com). In fact even on Bonds worst WAR seasons he has had, he was still higher than some of the other worthy Hall of Fame players like Chipper Jones and Mel Otts (fivethirtyeight.com). I can go all day, even with speculation of Barry Bonds taking steroids, on why he is still one of the best if not the greatest baseball player in majority of these categories. What he did was the greatest show on the diamond. It was a huge event anytime he stole a base or was up to bat. You knew he was going to put on a show for the viewers and something amazing was going to happen. He was what made baseball so special to me. He brought friends and family together to give their opinion on him. Though controversial, he made baseball fun to watch and got the younger generation to want to play baseball just like it got me to love the game. The giants are my team and they always will be thanks to Barry Bonds.

6 Bibliography Marchman, Tim. Regressing.deadspin.com Barry Bonds was an Alien God Who Destroyed Space-Time to Bring us Joy. 24 th of July, 2014 Paine, Neil. Fivethirty.com, Barry Bonds Wasn t Half Bad, Either. 6 th of January, 2016 Baseball-reference.com Barry Bonds Esb.com About Elias Jewishsports.net International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame Al Munro Elias

Do Clutch Hitters Exist?

Do Clutch Hitters Exist? David Grabiner SABRBoston Presents Sabermetrics May 20, 2006 http://remarque.org/~grabiner/bosclutch.pdf (Includes some slides skipped in the original presentation) 1 Two possible