Remember when he was the controversial Bonds?

Always liked him as a player. His baseball card was always one of the most coveted on the playground.

Reggie Smith is safely retired and will be eligible in 1988. It seems perfectly reasonable to include him in any argument about Bonds - as well as also including Jimmy Wynn. We've got three outfielders here with power and speed who also drew plenty of walks. Bonds, in particular, was a great leadoff hitter, twice scoring over 130 runs to lead the league - not that his team had the courage to just stick him in that spot and leave him there.

Bonds played 285 games in CF, 1472 in RF and 65 in LF. His career: 1736 games, 8090 PA. (He got a huge number of PA per year - three times over 720 - because he was a leadoff hitter.)

Smith played 808 games in CF, 874 in RF and 3 in LF, along with 21 at 2B/3B and 186 at 1B. His career: 1987 games, 8050 PA.

Wynn played 1181 games in CF, 355 in RF and 298 in LF, along with 23 at SS/3B. His career: 1833 games, 8010 PA.

Now - one of my offensive charts, year by year, best to worst:



Of the three, Smith had the best career after the age of 30. In fact, he's the only one whose career shape seems like a normal decline; Wynn and Bonds both declined more abruptly than you'd expect.

Compared to Wynn, Bonds seems to have a lower peak but a possibly better career. The problem with Bonds as a prime/career candidate is that he would seem to lose out to Smith on that. Bonds played the least CF of these three, and only a tiny bit of that was from being the teammate of Willie Mays.

I'm inclined to start Bonds out behind Wynn - Wynn has the peak seasons (albeit non-consecutive), and Wynn was primarily a CF to Bonds being primarily a RF.

Roided-up mother fu.....

oh, wrong bonds.

:)

Roided-up mother fu.....

oh, wrong bonds.

:)

:-D

He should have his children taken away.

Instances of 120 or more runs being scored in a season, 1963-1993. (Note: 5 in the NL in 1962 and 3 in the AL in 1961 accomplished this; quite a few would project to this if you extrapolated 1994 to 162 games).

NL:
1963 Aaron 121
1964 Allen 125, Mays 121
1965 T. Harper 126
1966 F. Alou 122
1969 Bonds 120, Rose 120
1970 B. Williams 137, Bonds 134, Rose 120
1971 Brock 126
1972 Morgan 122
1973 Bonds 131
1976 Rose 130
1977 G. Foster 124
1982 L. Smith 120
1983 Raines 133, Murphy 131
1987 Raines 123, Coleman 121
1993 Dykstra 143, Ba. Bonds 129
AL:
1965 Versailles 126
1966 Robinson 122
1969 Re. Jackson 123
1970 Yastrzemski 125, C. Tovar 120
1977 Carew 128
1978 Le Flore 126, Rice 121
1979 Baylor 120
1980 Wilson 133, Yount 121
1981 [none, but Henderson extrapolates to 132 for 162 games]
1982 Molitor 136, Yount 129, Dw. Evans 122
1983 Ripken 121
1984 Dw. Evans 121
1985 Henderson 146
1986 Henderson 130
1988 Boggs 128, Canseco 120
1991 Molitor 133
1993 Palmiero 124, Molitor 120

Seriously, what is the best father-son combo, in terms of most Win Shares?

Gotta be Bobby-Barry Bonds; if not, then the Ken Griffeys.

i wouldn't be shocked if the Eddies Collins were up there too....

Bondses are at 693 (thorugh 9/22) and 302 = 995
Griffeys are at 371 (through 9/22) and 259 = 630
Collinses are at 574 and 3 = 577
Roses are at 547 and 0 = 547
Alous are at 270 (thruugh 9/22) and 241 = 511
Alomars are at 376 (R) and 104 = 480
Bells are at 301 (Buddy) and 175 (Gus) = 476
Cruzes are at 129 (through 9/22) and 313 = 441
Boones are at 208 (Bret) and 210 (Bob) = 418
Bells are at 114 (David, through 9/22) and 301 = 415
Gwynns are at 0 (through 9/22) and 398 = 398
Perezes are at 43 (through 9/22) and 349 = 392
Raines are at 0 and 390 = 390
Boones are at 210 (Bob) and 166 (Ray) = 376
Sislers are at 292 and 71 (Dick) = 363
McRaes are at 230 and 132 = 362
Wills are at 94 and 253 = 347
Matthews are at 75 (through 9/22) and 257 = 332
Averills are at 280 and 32 = 312
Bandos are at 27 and 283 = 310
Trouts are at 76 and 228 = 304
Hodges are at 38 and 263 = 301
Walkers are at 278 and 22 = 300

I think that's all the ones that add up to 300 combined WS. Actually it's not. The other Sisler pairing does too, but I think these are all the families that contain a 300 WS father-son pairing.

Yogi Berra has 375 WS by himself so anything that Dale added would have been superfluous.

Ah forgot about him. Well, actually, it was more like I was trying to forget about Dale. Dale had 59 to make 434. I added them to the list. There's a couple other famous father-sons, including the Eds Walsh and Joe/Lance Neikro, plus other iterations of Bells and Boones, the Speiers, and the Mookie/Preston Wilsons. Though to be fair, I think that Mookie and Preston are step-father and step-son so they may not count in our survey without blood. Sean and Jeff Burroughs are also over the two century mark 38/196. The Bagbys are over 200 I think too, plus the other Alomar pairing. And last but not least the Yosts who are barely under 300. Then there's also the Luises Tiant who, in a fairer world, would certainly have been over 300 (with Luis himself at 256), maybe the Bostocks too.

I had always thought that Andujar Cedeno was the son of Cesar, but now that I look at bb-ref, I don't see any evidence that it's true.

Bondses are at 693 (thorugh 9/22) and 302 = 995
Griffeys are at 371 (through 9/22) and 259 = 630
Collinses are at 574 and 3 = 577
Roses are at 547 and 0 = 547
Alous are at 270 (thruugh 9/22) and 241 = 511
Alomars are at 376 (R) and 104 = 480
Bells are at 301 (Buddy) and 175 (Gus) = 476
Cruzes are at 129 (through 9/22) and 313 = 441
Berras are at 59 and 375 = 434
Boones are at 208 (Bret) and 210 (Bob) = 418
Bells are at 114 (David, through 9/22) and 301 = 415
Gwynns are at 0 (through 9/22) and 398 = 398
Perezes are at 43 (through 9/22) and 349 = 392
Raines are at 0 and 390 = 390
Boones are at 210 (Bob) and 166 (Ray) = 376
Sislers are at 292 and 71 (Dick) = 363
McRaes are at 230 and 132 = 362
Willses are at 94 and 253 = 347
Matthewses are at 75 (through 9/22) and 257 = 332
Averills are at 280 and 32 = 312
Bandos are at 27 and 283 = 310
Trouts are at 76 and 228 = 304
Hodgeses are at 38 and 263 = 301
Walkers are at 278 and 22 = 300

Any projections for the Cepedas?

They'd be in the 300+ group of course (since Orlando is at 310). I don't recollect doing projections for Perucho, though. His career is one that I wish we'd been able to get more and better information about. Him and Matlock and Coimbre and...well all of them I guess, but some stick out more than others. As Scully and Mulder (or as Mulder and Scully aka Kelly) might say, "The truth is out there."

hough to be fair, I think that Mookie and Preston are step-father and step-son

And uncle & nephew! Eeeeew!!!

Though to be fair, I think that Mookie and Preston are step-father and step-son

And uncle & nephew! Eeeeew!!!

Nothing wrong with that; freaky-looking family tree, though.

Damn; Barry Bonds alone would top the list.

What about father-son-uncle combos, e.g. Lance, Joe and Phil Niekro? What is the best father-son-uncle combo of all time?

I caught up to the HoM last year with Red Faber. Nice that the HoM caught up to the PHoM with Rube Waddell this year. Alignment increasing. Om.

Tell ya what, the man had the best sperm in major league history.

Alignment increasing. Om.

Or do you mean Oms?

From the good Doctors list:

Bandos are at 27 and 283 = 310

Sal and Chris were brothers actually but their careers hardly overlapped.

As for the Bonds/Wynn/RSmith comparison what does a WS slant have when comparing the three of them? Right now I'm leaning Bonds due to the added SB dimension beyond what the others did.

As for the Bonds/Wynn/RSmith comparison what does a WS slant have when comparing the three of them? Right now I'm leaning Bonds due to the added SB dimension beyond what the others did.

My table in post #2 was based on RC; the SB have already been included in that.

You should take the harmonic mean of the above pairings and see who comes out on top.

Good idea. Just like the Power-Speed number. Ranking them by the lesser of the pair would do something similar. The Bonds have the highest lower number as well as the highest upper number, so I'm certain they'll top the list no matter how you skew it. Griffeys a certain #2, then the Alous.

Don't some MLB-ers have famous NeL fathers? (Tiant?) They deserve a mention.

Thanks, Al!

...take the harmonic mean ... Ranking them by the lesser of the pair would do something similar

Given two positive numbers A and B, the mean of order p is this expression: [(A^p+B^p)/2]^(1/p).

There are three extra cases to be inserted:

For p = +infinity, use max(A,B) (the larger of the two)
For p = 0, use sqrt(A*B) (the geometric mean)
For p = -infinity, use min(A,B) (the smaller of the two)

The p=1 case is the arithmetic mean. The p=-1 case is the harmonic mean. For fixed A and B, the resulting function of p is continuous and strictly increasing on [-infinity,+infinity].

Using the sum, as Dr. Chaleeko did in #10, is the same as using the arithmetic mean. The problem with that is that you wind up with Babe Ruth and his father, which isn't exactly what you meant when you asked the question. You want a real contribution from the lesser member. That points to using some mean with p <= 0, because in all such cases, if either A or B is zero, then the mean is zero. The problem with the minimum (the -infinity mean) is that it doesn't care how good the better member of the pair is - but it is in common use. (e.g., the "40-40" club, where it doesn't count unless both numbers are at least 40). The harmonic mean (p=-1) is a good one, but you might want to experiment with the geometric mean just to see if you like it. Or be an oddball and use p=-1/2 or something like that.

[/math lecture]

Remember when he was the controversial Bonds?

Always liked him as a player. His baseball card was always one of the most coveted on the playground.

John,

Yes, strangely I do (relative to the second portion of this response). Because I remember so much negative talk about his strikeouts as well as sidelong references to the reasons he moved around so much in the late 1970s. But mostly the strikeouts, usually accompanied by what-if scenarios asking what would happen if he could just have cut down the Ks. Well, what would happen is he'dve hit into more 6-3 putouts I'd guess.

Anyway, as to the second item, in my time the most coveted cards were Don Mattingly, Doc Gooden, and Darryl Strawberry because I was in the NYC suburbs during elementary school. Canseco was big among non-NY guys, so were Clemens, Eric Davis, and Puckett. A couple years before it was Dale Murphy. I guess Rickey too. Nolan Ryan didn't get hot until four-five years after, around the time little Griffey got popular.

nice math lecture, OCF.

the geometric mean (as you made reference to) would be th eone I'd rrate as the best for this type of exercise
.......................arith harm geom
bro WS1 WS2 mean mean mean
aaaaa ...2 400 ...201 ...4....28
bbbbb .40 200 ...120 ..7 ...89
ccccc 100 250 ...175 143 .158
ddddd 150 150 ..150 150 .150