What if Bonds Went to Japan?

Bonds' 2001 numbers on HR are so fantastic that the conversion probably overstates it. However, the general principles of the conversion are sound so long as we're not dealing with such an extreme case. With such an extreme case as Bonds in 2001, you have to have some questions about the accuracy of the method (only 12 singles for Bonds that season, and 104 homers??). Anyway, here's what the numbers say:

Barry 	Bonds									
Team  G    AB   H   2B 3B  HR  BB  avg    obp   slg
SF   132  411  145  28	1 104 190 0.352  0.557  1.187
SF   124  348  138  27	1  66 213 0.397  0.625  1.048

Alex	Rodriguez									
Team   G   AB   H   2B 3B  HR  BB   avg	   obp   slg
Tex   140 546  186  30	1  74  80  0.341  0.426 0.807
Tex   140 539  173  24	1  82  93  0.322  0.422 0.823 

These two guys were converted on the theory they would have missed the same percentage of games in Japan as they did in the majors. As always, there are no park adjustments here. I would think A-Rod especially would lose a good bit if we did park-adjust (say 3-5% across the board on the counted stats).

Jim Albright

Let's see... If someone hits a single in every at bat, then his slg is 1.000 right? Assuming the method is correct, Japanese pitchers are seriously better off walking Bonds every single time!

Japanese pitchers are seriously better off walking Bonds every single time!

LOL. Almost. Remember, his OBP would be 1.000 as well, so you'd be looking at a 2.000 OPS versus a 1.744/1.623 OPS.

That's true, but I wonder if OPS is still a good approximation of offensive damage in this extreme case. SLG is basically the expected number of bases you expect a hitter to gain if you pitch to him. If the most likely gain (or loss from for the pitcher's point of view) is more than 1 base, then why not force his damage down to 1 base?

I think it all comes down to this question: Which is more valuable, hitting 2/2 with 2 singles or 1/2 with a double and an out. (I'm excluding walks here because they are basically the same as singles, except not as valueable, and they only contribute to OPS, which is what I'm questioning anyway.) Similarly, 4/4 with 4 singles or 1/4 with a homer, and so on... Has anybody done any stats analysis on this?

Here's an amateur attempt at quantifying hitting. It seems to me that the only thing SLG fails to represent in some way is the number of outs a hitter makes. This information is captured in OBP. (1-OBP) gives the actual outs/(plate appearance). So in order to take outs into account, someone invented OPS = SLG + OBP.

While this is a better indicator then using either one by itself, the reason for the addition isn't really justified. For starters, the range for SLG and OBP are totally different, SLG isn't really a percentage either.

Just out of curiosity, I attempted the following analysis:

Since the question originally arose from wondering whether pitchers should pitch to a particular hitter, let's first look at the case when the pitcher already decided to pitch (and doesn't have any control problems).

Here we know the hitter is expected to produce SLG number of bases per at-bat. He is expected to make 1-(batting avg.) number of outs per at-bat. So the hitter's expected damage to defense is some function of expected bases and expected outs. If we make the assumption that a base is worth the same as an out (which is probably false), then the expected damage is simply expected bases - expected outs. For Bonds in Japan, this number is:

2001 1.187 - (1 - 0.352) = 0.539 (bases - outs)/ab
2002 1.048 - (1 - 0.397) = 0.445 (bases - outs)/ab

for A-Rod:

2001 0.807 - (1 - 0.341) = 0.148 (bases - outs)/ab
2002 0.823 - (1 - 0.322) = 0.145 (bases - outs)/ab

Compared to the second case, nobody ever pitches to him. Replace walks with singles, we have 1.000 - 0 = 1.000. So Bonds will do a damage of 1 (bases - outs)/ab. Clearly, they should still pitch to him.

An obvious problem is that taking bases - outs is probably too simple minded. Perhaps we could take a*bases - b*outs, using a and b as weights corresponding to the importance we place and bases and outs respectively.

Another thing to note is that the above formula does not take a hitter's ability to take a walk into account. It assumes that all walks are caused by pitchers.

Finally, most hitters will produce a negative number. This just means most hitters are expected to produce more outs then bases per at-bat.

First, in response to the below post about translated stats, I somewhat agree in that this is based on average differences between the leagues. In extreme cases (especially Bonds in 2001), the averages probably lead to distortions. However, I believe it is very likely Bonds, A-Rod, et al, would perform even more dominantly in the NPB than they do in the majors.

Second: If a player walked every time, he would have no slugging percentage, because slugging percentage is total bases (walks are not counted) divided by at bats (someone who walked every time up would also have no at bats. Really, OPS isn't very useful in such extreme circumstances.

Perhaps a better measure would be Paul Johnson's runs created, which would say that Bonds walking 601 times is worth 192.3 runs, but an infinite number of runs per game, because he'd never create an out. In the projected stats for 2001, Bonds would create 217.7 runs (about 25 more), but, because he would have created 286 outs, his runs per game "drop" to a merely stratospheric 19.4.

I'd think the thing to do would be that, if you had a player as dominant as the 2001 NPB Bonds projection, you'd almost never pitch to him a) late, b) in a close game, or c) with men on base, though if you had a big lead, you might take the chance in situations a) or c). I think Barry's stats would suffer when subjected to such a strategy, and any manager who wouldn't adopt it probably wouldn't be smart enough to keep his job too long.

Jim Albright

What "translated" stats can't measure are the phychological and emotional impacts on players as well as the adjustment that most players have to make when going to a new league on either side of the Pacific. Other factors include the strategies the opposing pitchers and teams would employ.

Man, just imagine if Sosa, Rodriguez, and Bonds went to the Giants. Look at what their numbers could be. They could each hit 90 and combine for over 325 homeruns and more than 410 RBIs.

If Barry Bonds went to Japan? He would hit so many homeruns. I'm thinking at least 70 easily, but if he hit 80 or 90 I wouldnt be to shocked.

That's impossible because Japanese pitchers would not throw any hittable pitches once Bonds got to 55 HRs. We've seen it before with Bass and Cabrera.

We've seen it before with Bass and Cabrera.

Perhaps you meant Bass and Rhodes. Cabrera was, for the most part, given fair pitches, but just couldn't hit that last HR (see this and other threads for more info).

The way I saw it, there was such a stink when Rhodes couldn't get a decent pitch that in 2002, when it was Cabrera's turn, other teams seemed to go out of their way to be seen not pitching around him. Perhaps that was a sign that the fans won't put up with stuff like that anymore.

Furthermore, Bonds is liked and respected in Japan, having visited here on a number of occasions, and has given the fans what they want every time: lots of HRs. Perhaps, then, if Bonds were ever to sign with a NPB team, people would expect him to beat Oh's record - and beat it by a long way - so there might just be a bit of a brouhaha if pitchers stopped pitching to Bonds when he reached 55 in August.

It is fanciful to throw out astronamical numbers, but realisticly, if Bonds got the "right" pitches, stayed healthy, and maintained a "positive" outlook, he could probably break "55" and hit around 60 to 65 HRs in a NPB season. This would be if the optimum situations were in place.

Bonds would see hittable pitches if Sosa or A-rod were batting behind him. 104 HRs a year. ROTFLMAO Maybe Bonds will go to Tokyo at age 43 when his contract expires.