I recently read the book Cooperstown Confidential by Zev Chafets.
On pages 184-185 it has
"Cole and Stigler (two academics) pointed out that Babe Ruth hit 198 homers in the last six years of his twenty-two year career, 28 percent of his career total of dingers. In the last six years of his career, Barry Bonds hit 195, or 26 percent. "There is no convincing way," the study said, "to demonstrate that Bonds' performance owed to drugs more than Ruth's did to his prodigious use of alcohol and tobacco." Which, of course, was nothing."
In this post I will look at how slugging percentage relative to the league average (Rel SLG) changed as both Ruth and Bonds aged.
The table below shows their Rel SLG for every 4 year period by age, all the way from age 24-39.
|
Ages |
Bonds |
Ruth |
|
24-27 |
1.416 |
1.931 |
|
25-28 |
1.561 |
1.980 |
|
26-29 |
1.583 |
1.914 |
|
27-30 |
1.591 |
1.749 |
|
28-31 |
1.546 |
1.777 |
|
29-32 |
1.472 |
1.783 |
|
30-33 |
1.458 |
1.763 |
|
31-34 |
1.459 |
1.796 |
|
32-35 |
1.482 |
1.797 |
|
33-36 |
1.640 |
1.743 |
|
34-37 |
1.764 |
1.735 |
|
35-38 |
1.840 |
1.690 |
|
36-39 |
1.931 |
1.577 |
For example, from age 36-39, Bonds had an .809 SLG. The NL SLG over those years was .419. Then
.809/.419 = 1.931. Bonds' SLG was 93.1% higher than the league average from age 36-39.
It is clear that Bonds had by far his best years late in his career while Ruth had his best early on. Ruth also slowed down quite a bit in his late 30s, the time when Bonds improved.
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