Player Records

Ken brought up an interesting point as we were discussing the 2004 draft. More or less, he insisted that Bonds, when it was Barry's team, was significantly more valuable than ARod when it was ARod's team. We talked off the top of our heads and, as in many discussions with Ken, I could not dissuade him.

To try to better examine this topic, I looked through our draft history since 1996. I determined who was the top player on the team by looking at who was taken first, and designated that team to that player. If a player was taken on a swing right after another player, I gave it to both of those players. And in some cases, where maybe the swing was the 9th pick, if the 8th and 11th selection were both offensive players, I again gave the team to both of those players ... figuring, in a case like Larry Walker and Luis Gonzalez for Ken's Zion team in 2002 and others like it, that these guys were probably very similar and it might be wrong to give it to one and not the other. Anyway, I then totalled up the win percentages for the group of players who were the top offensive picks for a team at least 4 times. 

Bonds
96 Keystone       73  71
97 Mountain View  95  67
98 Harrison      100  62
99 Windy City     82  80
01 Bridgeport     75  87
02 Hatfield       71  91
03 Oman           86  76
                 582 534 .522%

ARod
97 Chico          69  93
01 Denali         89  73
02 Fallon         78  84
03 Shady          83  79
                 319 329 .493%

Walker
96 Saskatchewan   58  86
98 Cherokee       71  91
99 Liverpool      96  66
00 Chilliwack     89  73
02 Zion           91  71
03 Honest         63  99
                 468 486 .491%

Griffey
97 Shakopee       68  94
98 Gurnee         77  85
99 Chicago        75  87
00 Ypsilanti      88  74
                 308 340 .475%

Bagwell
97 St. Petersburg 83  79
00 Woollum        75  87
01 Homer          71  91
02 Caledonia      73  89 
                 302 346 .466%

McGwire
97 Shakopee       68  94
98 Cosmo          70  92
99 Hibbing        80  82
00 Corsica        82  80
                 300 348 .463%

Bonds did, in fact, have superlative numbers, not only to ARod, but to everyone else in the list. And in the one season Bonds was not the guy on a team, he made significant contributions to the Austin President's Cup winner. ARod was under .500 as the guy, but he did not merit a mention for being taken two rounds after Larry Walker for the Liverpool President's Cup winner ... if they had been able to share that season, ARod would have been well over .500 and would have been well past Walker in this list. Walker already shared seasons with Edgar in '96, with Jeter in 2000, and with LuGo in 2002. Walker has the ignominity of being on two of history's worst teams among the six teams where he was the guy, yet he was also on three playoff teams. Griffey, McGwire and Bagwell each had poor overall winning percentages as the main man, but McGwire and Griffey's numbers could be a little skewed, as Griffey played half of '98 for the 100 win Harrison club, and Mac played half of '99 on the last place Gilmer team ... and they both earned 68-94 records for being on first year manager Joe's Shakopee team.

I don't know what this all means regarding Ken's comments. I believe Bonds is a great player, but even in years where he put up MVP-caliber seasons, his team struggled. I believe ARod is a great Summer Leaguer, but that is not reflected in the seasons where he was the top offensive player on his team ... yet, his teams were generally better than some of the other top players who were the main guy on a team.

    | << Back | Main 2003 Notes Page |
 
Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

1