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Greatest hitters of the twenty first century

March 25, 2022

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Barry Bonds established himself as the most effective baseball gamers on the planet within the Nineteen Nineties. He received the Most Helpful Participant Awards for 1990, 1992, and 1993 — the primary two in Pittsburgh, the latter in San Francisco — and he completed among the many Nationwide League’s prime 5 MVP candidates 4 different occasions within the decade.

Then the calendar flipped to a brand new century, and Bonds someway received even higher. He went on an unprecedented tear, taking second place in 2000’s balloting earlier than profitable the Most Helpful Participant trophy in every of the subsequent 4 seasons.

Listed here are the collective stats for Bonds’s 2001-2004 MVP reign with the Giants: 209 residence runs, 438 runs batted in, and a batting common of .349. It’s tough, if not not possible, to think about any future batter reaching related numbers over such a prolonged stretch.

Reporters naturally questioned about Bonds’s sudden shift into this superhuman gear of excellence. “Some issues I can’t perceive proper now,” Bonds informed them. “The balls I used to line off the wall, I’m lining out (of the park). I can’t let you know why. Name God. Ask Him.”

Cynics steered {that a} name to his pharmacist — or maybe his steroids lab — would have been extra acceptable.

Bonds blasted a career-high 73 residence runs in 2001, adopted by his peak batting common of .370 a season later. He capped his streak with a pair of 45-homer performances in 2003 and 2004, drawing an otherworldly complete of 232 walks the latter 12 months.

The magic didn’t final. Bonds left the majors in 2007, hounded by widespread rumors of steroid abuse which have stored him out of the Corridor of Fame. However his statistics, regardless of the trigger, stay the century’s greatest, far forward of every other batter who made no less than 2,500 plate appearances between 2000 and 2021.

I analyzed the data of 568 contenders, rating them in line with bases per out (BPO). I started by tabulating the variety of bases every batter reached (by hits, walks, hit batsmen, stolen bases, and sacrifices), then I divided the ensuing complete by the variety of outs he made.

A BPO better than 1.000 signifies excellent manufacturing by a batter. Bonds soared all the way in which to 1.647, reaching 3,333 bases between 2000 and 2007, whereas making simply 2,024 outs.

The runner-up in my twenty first century rankings, Mike Trout (himself a three-time MVP), completed a jaw-dropping 488 factors behind Bonds. Trout’s BPO of 1.159 could be thought of magnificent underneath every other circumstances, but it surely will get him solely second place right here.

Ten batters posted BPOs above 1.000 in the course of the 2000-2021 span, and also you’ll discover their numerical profiles under, together with such different stats as video games, batting common, and residential runs. Following the highest 10 is a fast rundown of the century’s subsequent 15.

A number of well-known gamers additionally carried out solidly in the course of the previous 22 seasons, but fell in need of my checklist of 25 elite hitters. Amongst them: Albert Pujols (.922 BPO for this century), Miguel Cabrera (.920), Kris Bryant (.917), Freddie Freeman (.912), and Ryan Braun (.900).