LF of the Decade
Let me first say one thing.
Forget about steroids.
Forget about the cream, the clear, HGH, andro. Brother, you’ll drive yourself crazy if you let these things weigh on your mind as a fan. Why put yourself through the aggravation?
I’ll try not to soapbox for too long here, but why would you place any credence on the arbitrary line in the sand drawn by the federal government or MLB, a line separating “good” training methods from “bad” training methods? Because Americans have no sense of moderation, the feds make it illegal to purchase certain things, thereby creating crime and black markets (and I’m not just talking about steroids). But, that’s a chicken/egg sort of argument, isn’t it? Maybe we have no sense of moderation because this shit is illegal, and most people can’t consult a legitimate provider or expert before using them?
As a fan, don’t allow Bud Selig or the FDA tell you what to think about subjects like this. Just watch the games, and enjoy.
Now, let’s get to the subject at hand. The reason for the above tangent is that both of the contenders for LF of the Decade have, obviously, ingested substances that are frowned upon by MLB. Both guys have also hit a ton of home runs, a fact that some people may believe correlates to their substances of choice. I want to factor this out right away, for a variety of reasons, the least of which is that we have no idea which players did not use these substances.
I’ll be using pure Runs Created here (RC), assuming that both guys were butchers in the field, a factor greatly overshadowed by what they did at the plate.
| Barry Bonds | Manny Ramirez | |
| 2000 | 155 | 144 |
| 2001 | 230 | 132 |
| 2002 | 208 | 127 |
| 2003 | 166 | 141 |
| 2004 | 203 | 136 |
| 2005 | 12 | 126 |
| 2006 | 98 | 126 |
| 2007 | 99 | 91 |
| 2008 | - | 145 |
| 2009 | - | 81 |
Manny will always be one of my favorite players of all time. I don’t think I’d be making a huge leap to suggest that he was the guy most responsible for those two recent World Series championships won by the Red Sox.
However, what Barry Bonds did during the first 5 years of the decade is just downright inhuman. His statistics page looks like it’s rife with typos, like someone mistakenly typed a bunch of 2’s where 1’s should be. As likeable as Manny was and as dislikeable as Bonds may have been, this type of performance simply cannot be objectively ignored.
