Barry Bonds and RBIs - Part 2

by David Fleitz
Home

Comments? Send e-mail to
dlfleitz@wcnet.org

 

 

Barry Bonds hit his 60th home run of the 2001 season on Thursday, and became the fifth man in history to hit 60 or more. It's been done seven times, with Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa doing it twice and Babe Ruth, Roger Maris, and Bonds once each.

However, as I've pointed out before, it seems odd that Bonds has driven in only 115 runs. He's driven himself in 60 times, and driven in his teammates only 55 times. Barry Bonds is the only 50-homer man to drive in his teammates less often than himself. By way of comparison, when Babe Ruth hit 60 homers in 1927, Ruth drove in 164 runs. Ruth drove himself in 60 times and his teammates 104 times, nearly twice as many as Bonds.

It seems to me that Bonds hits a lot of his homers with the bases empty, because whenever I see him hit one on TV there's no one on base. I began to wonder how many of his homers came with the bases empty.

One of our loyal readers suggested to me that Barry Bonds hits a lot of bases-empty homers because anybody who hits a lot of homers will hit a lot with the bases empty. I decided to look at Bonds and the other 60-homer men and find out how many of their home runs have come with none on, 1 on, 2 on, or 3 on base.

Here's what I found:
                     HR    0 on  1 on  2 on  3 on   

        Ruth,1927    60     30    22    6     2 
        Maris,1961   61     31    21    9     0 
        McGwire,1998 70     33    28    7     2 
        Sosa,1998    66     37    19    7     3 
        Bonds,2001   60     35    20    3     2

        
All of these sluggers hit about half of their homers with nobody on. However, Bonds has hit a greater percentage of bases-empty homers than any of the others on this list. Almost 60 percent of Bonds' homers came with the bases empty.

Also, you'll notice that Bonds has hit only five homers with two or three men on. Maris in 1961 didn't hit any grand slams, but he hit nine homers with two on. Ruth hit eight, McGwire nine, and Sosa 10 with two or three on men base.

This suggests to me that the Giants haven't been getting runners on for Bonds to drive in. So, let's see how many RBI for each man came from home runs: 

                              
                   RBI   RBI from HR   RBI not from HR

     Ruth,1927     164       100          64 (39%)
     Maris,1961    142       100          42 (30%)
     McGwire, 1998 147       118          29 (20%)
     Sosa,1998     158       108          50 (32%)
     Bonds,2001    115        92          23 (20%)

   
The real question is: why does Bonds have so few RBI aside from his homers? Almost all his RBI come from his home runs!

Let's look at the two batters ahead of Bonds in the lineup.

The Giants leadoff batter, Calvin Murray, is hitting only .249 with a poor .321 on-base percentage. The second batter, Rich Aurelia, is much better at getting on base, with a .330 batting average and a .380 on-base mark. Aurelia has power, too, with 32 homers and 87 RBI so far, excellent for a Number 2 batter.

If Aurelia didn't have so much power, it would make sense for the Giants to bat him leadoff with Murray second, since Aurelia gets on base much more often. In fact, maybe the Giants should move Aurelia up there anyway. Even if he's slow, he'll get on base more often than Murray. They can then put Murray second to bunt Aurelia over for Bonds to drive in.

Aurelia has hit well, but he also has grounded into 13 double plays this year, removing 13 runners from base before Bonds comes to bat. Also, with 87 RBI of his own, Aurelia is wiping the bases clean before Bonds gets up. The arrangement, as it stands, seems to be an inefficient use of Aurelia's hitting talent.

I think that if the Giants put a halfway-decent leadoff man in their lineup, they'd score a lot more runs and Bonds would have a lot more than 115 RBI. There really isn't any reason why Bonds shouldn't have 130-140 RBI or more.