Trace Woods: Is Barry Bonds for Real?
Trace Woods does a lot of legwork, ostensibly trying to determine whether Barry’s two year jag in his late thirties has any precedent, and whether it is caused by his use of performance enhancing drugs.
He makes two errors, I think.
Bonds hasn’t missed more games the last two years than he did in the years before that. Looking at plate appearances rather than Games Played makes that clear.
He should have used SLG to show how much better Bonds has been the last two years, rather than OPS, if the bulk of the performance enhancing drugs argument hinges on strength. Bonds’ OBP has gone up just as much these two years as his SLG has.
These weaknesses notwithstanding, Trace makes the case in a way that forces one to confront the issue. Alas, he doesn’t clean up the mess that confrontation creates, but maybe he’ll do that another time.