Barry Bonds' Batting by Age

Barry Bonds told the grand jury he unwittingly used Balco's steroids -- Sure, Barry, whatever you say.

Here's Barry's batting performance by age (as of July 1), using the Baseball Reference's single best hitting statistic, Adjusted OPS. The average hitter is a 100. To reach 200 for a single season is out of the reach of most Hall of Famers (Hank Aaron and Willie Mays never did it). As you can see, Barry reached his first peak, achieving 205 and 206, in 1992-93 when he was 27 and 28, which is the typical peak age for a ballplayer. He then declined slowly, as is conventional, to a still outstanding 162 at age 34 in 1999. The next year he bounced back up to 191, which is a little suspicious but hardly impossible for somebody who was already one of the top 20 or so greatest ballplayers of all time, and arguably top 10. Then, from the age of 36 through 39 he went on a four-year tear averaging 257, which is better than Babe Ruth's single best season (1920) of 255, when he was 25. Ted Williams had a 233 when he was 38 but his surrounding seasons weren't too close to that. Bonds' last four seasons include the three best offensive seasons in the history of baseball. That just ain't natural.

age	Avg=100
21	103
22	114
23	147
24	125
25	170
26	161
27	205
28	206
29	182
30	168
31	186
32	170
33	177
34	162
35	191
36	262
37	275
38	231
39	260

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer