The 100 Best Seasons EVER*

*According to this ridiculous system I invented.**
** Oh yeah, not really ever. Only since 1960.

OK, let me say this right up front: This system is badly flawed. I'm telling you now that I don't like it, and I don't agree with many of its conclusions. And so any comments you may make ripping this system, I probably agree with them. However, I worked too hard on all this to just throw it away. OK, that's not actually true ... I didn't work that hard on it. But I did come up with the 100 greatest offensive seasons since 1960 using a spreadsheet, and that's quite a mathematical accomplishment for me. Obviously I'm going to put it on the blog.

The formula I used takes into account the following seven categories:

RCAA: Runs Created Above Average, a Lee Sinins invention which shows how many, er, runs were created above average, I guess.
OPS: On base plus slugging percentage.
OPS+: Baseball Reference's brilliant tool putting OPS into historical and ballpark context.
EQA: Baseball Prospectus' Equivalent Average which measures total offensive output per out -- I don't really understand it. This is because the Baseball Prospectus people are a lot smarter than I am.
WARP3: Another BP invention -- Wins Above Replacement Player. And this ... well, if you care, please go to their site to find out what this does.
Fantasy: To take Winnie Cooper to the playground and ... oh, wait, are we still on the air? I love Winnie Cooper. You know Danica McKellar has a new book coming out called "Math Doesn't Suck," which has an Amazon number about 3,033,489,483,485 places higher than The Soul of Baseball. People, I love Winnie Cooper too. But it's a MATH book.
Sorry. Fantasy is just a fantasy stats compilation -- homers, batting average, RBIs, stolen bases, runs scored.
Secondary Average: A personal favorite stat.

Using all seven of those categories equally (I think -- I wonder if Danica would come over and help me with this), I came up with this formula, and it spit out these as the 100 greatest seasons since 1960 (in order). You will notice one stat that I did NOT use in my formula is Win Shares. This is because I want to compare the results of my formula to Win Shares. As you will see ... it didn't do so good. And as you will also see, I prefer Win Shares. I also use Baseball Prospecuts' Translated Stats a few times; as I understand it, this is an attempt to translate stats into a 1990s context.

So here are the best seasons, the year and in parenthesis what their Win Shares number is for that season. And, of course, comments. I have an announcement about this blog too, but you have to read down to get to it. Nothing is easy here, friends.

1. Barry Bonds, 2004 (48)
2 Barry Bonds, 2001 (54)
3. Barry Bonds, 2002 (49)
4. Barry Bonds, 2003 (39)

Well, OK, that's a bit over the top don't you think? Bonds has the FOUR best seasons since 1960? And don't worry, there is plenty more Bonds coming up. The system scores Bonds 2004 season (.362, 45, 101 with a .609 on-base percentage) as the best season of the last 47 years, with his 73-homer season coming second, his .370, 46, 110 season coming third and his rather blah .341, 41, 90, 231 OPS+ season fourth.

You know, when you look at these ludicrous numbers -- and you realize that baseball teams essentially gave up against him, they just started walking him intentionally again and again -- it does make the steroids issue seem just a little bit superficial. I mean, what, the other guys didn't have steroids too? This guy towered over the game in a way unlike anyone in baseball history, including Babe Ruth.

5. Mark McGwire, 1998 (41)
6. Sammy Sosa, 2001 (42)

Well, the top six seasons all seem to have have strong steroid connections. You know, I was thinking about McGwire in 1998, and in some ways I wonder if he isn't the biggest loser in steroidgate. While everyone focuses their anger directly at Bonds with perhaps a little left over for Bud Selig, McGwire's amazing season has sort of just faded away. I don't get the sense most people are angry at McGwire so much as they want to forget that the "the year the home run saved baseball" season ever happened, sort of the way we might feel about Godfather III or that whole misguided Lucky Town-Human Touch thing. You almost wonder if, when recounting baseball history, people might just skip over 1998, like it was the Dallas dream season or the 13th floor at a hotel.

It's too bad too, because McGwire was a whole show -- he was the opening act (with his mammoth pregame batting practice routine), he was the main event (he was hitting monstrous homers practically every night), he was doing encores (those rather entertainingly awkward, "I'm not comfortable with being America's hero" press conferences). I've often said that Barry Bonds is the best player I've ever seen, and that's true, but I've never been around a baseball phenomenon that quite matched the McGwire summer of 1998.

Sosa's 1998 season is not in the Top 100, which surprised me. He won the MVP award that year over McGwire, though pretty much every statistical analysis I've found shows that McGwire's year wasn't just better ... it was a lot better.

7. Barry Bonds, 1993 (47)
8. Mickey Mantle, 1961 (48)
9. Norm Cash, 1961 (42)

You know, if you had told fans in 1961 that players had started taking performance enhancing drugs -- they probably would have believed you. Look at the crazy seasons. Roger Maris, of course, hit 61 homers. Norm Cash had a world-class season, one of the great season in baseball history, and never came close to matching that again. Mantle had a monster season. Rocky Colavito hit 45 homers. Jim Gentile had by far his best season. Vada Pinson hit .343. Cha Cha Cepeda drove in 142 RBIs. Roberto Clemente, after a relatively slow progression, hit .351 with (to that point) a career high 23 homers. Wally Moon hit .328. George Altman hit 27 homers. JImmy Piersall, who had never hit .300 (and never would again in a full season) hit .322. And so on. And so on.

Now for all I know, players WERE using some sort of performance enhancing drugs -- heck that theme goes back to the ancient Olympics, where naked runners took all sorts of herbs that were supposed to help their athletic performance. But I think it's probably more likely in 1961 that the effects of expansion and other more subtle things allowed some players to have big seasons. It doesn't take a large swing in baseball to create a big effect. So while, I do believe that PEDs and heavy weight lifting did play a role in the recent offensive explosion, I think we're missing the big picture if we don't remember that the smaller strike zone, home run parks, better bats and various other things play their role as well.

10. Barry Bonds, 1992 (41)
11. Barry Bonds, 1996 (39)

One more effect of the big-headed Barry ... nobody seems to remember just how Willie Mays good Bonds was when he was skinny.

12. Jason Giambi, 2001 (38)
13. Frank Thomas, 1994 (25)
14. Jason Giambi, 2000 (38)
15. Jeff Bagwell, 1994 (30)
16. Larry Walker, 1997 (32)
17. Mark McGwire, 1996 (29)
18. Barry Bonds, 2000 (32)

Wow, there was an awful lot of offense between 1994-2000, wasn't there? My system may be skewed that way, though I tried to go with some historically neutral stats. Oh well. You might also want to pay a little extra attention to the two strike seasons -- Bagwell and Thomas. For a little fun, here are Baseball prospectus' translated stats on those seasons:

Bagwell: .369/.463/.812, 40 doubles, 65 homers, 162 RBIs, 146 runs.
Thomas: .377/.510/.803 30 doubles, 61 homers, 135 RBIs, 140 runs.

19. Joe Morgan, 1976 (37)
20. Rickey Henderson, 1990 (39)
21. Willie McCovey, 1969 (39)
22. Joe Morgan, 1975 (44)
23. Gary Sheffield, 1996 (34)
24. Carlos Delgado, 2000 (36)
25. Albert Pujols, 2003 (41)
26. Luis Gonzalez, 2001 (37)
27. Barry Bonds, 1998 (34)
28. Jim Thome, 2002 (33)
29. Barry Bonds, 1997 (36)
30. Albert Pujols, 2006

This might not be the best place to put this, but I think I will be taking a hiatus from this blog. There's a rather large book project that I am in the early stages of researching -- a project that I probably should not yet unveil because, well, who knows, it may not work out ... I'll give you all the details if it becomes official. I'm excited about it, I know that, but it will take up a huge amount of my time and so I feel quite certain that this blog will more or less go dark. I'll still check in now and again (I have to finish that defense series). I will tell you that the upcoming book has something to do with one of the players listed above. And I will tell you that this blog has been a blast.

31. Jeff Bagwell, 1999 (37)
32. Edgar Martinez, 1995 (32)
33. John Olerud, 1993 (37)
34. Derrek Lee, 2005 (33)
35. Mark McGwire, 1999 (30)
36. Carl Yastrzemski, 1967 (42)

One of the disappointments for me, whenever I do one of these big statistical spreadsheets, is that I can never get the numbers to add up to how I feel. To me, Yaz's 1967 is one of the five greatest seasons in baseball history, not just the last 47 years. He won the Triple Crown, he carries his team down the stretch like no one, perhaps, ever, and there was immense pressure on him as Boston's favorite son. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Yaz's season was better than McGwire had in '99 or Lee had in '05 or Olerud had in '93 or Martinez had in '95 -- taking nothing away from those guys. You could keep going all the way up too; for me, Yaz's season should be up at the top with Bonds. Clearly, Bill did a much better job with Win Shares than I did with this system. Of course, Bill took about 10 years to come up with Win Shares while I did mine in an afternoon. Anyway, let me reiterate again that this list not only doesn't represent my own personal opinion, it strongly clashes with my own personal opinion.

37. Alex Rodriguez, 2000 (37)
38. Alex Rodriguez, 2005 (34)
39. Manny Ramirez, 1999 (35)
40. Reggie Jackson, 1969 (41)
41. George Brett, 1980 (36)

My original book idea before The Soul of Baseball was to do a book on Brett's 1980 season. It's fair to say that the excitement in the New York publishing world for that idea was, well, let's call it "muted." I'm still fascinated by that season, though, not only because Brett came REALLY close to hitting .400 (even into the last week he had a semi-realistic chance), but because I think something changed with that chase. Yes, the media hounded Maris, and they hounded Aaron, but Brett's chase had a whole new element. That was the year ESPN came into being. It was still a start-up then, but it definitely changed the landscape. Also, sports talk radio was building up. I would say that was one of the first times when the media not only covered a sporting event but actually affected the outcome of an event -- that is, I think had the media intensity been lighter, Brett might have hit .400. It's just an opinion, though. Anyway, George was really good that year. That season should be much higher on the list, even though he was injured much of the year.

42. Frank Robinson, 1966 (41)
43. Mickey Mantle, 1962 (33)
44. Todd Helton, 2000 (29)
45. Jeff Bagwell, 1996 (41)
46. Albert Belle, 1995 (30)

Robinson's year was the Triple Crown year. Helton had the amazing numbers (.372, 42, 147) but he's the first on the list to have fewer than 30 win shares in a full season. Belle had that amazing 1995 seasons with 50 homers and 50 doubles, though he lost the MVP award to Mo Vaughn. Belle did not have the most Win Shares that season -- Barry Bonds, Greg Maddux and Barry Larkin all had more in the National League, Edgar Martinez more in the AL -- but Win Shares confirms that Mo Vaughn was a lousy choice (Mo had just 24 Win Shares that season).

47. Jeff Bagwell, 1997 (32)
48. Chipper Jones, 1999 (32)
49. Brian Giles, 2002 (31)

Boy, this system sure loves Jeff Bagwell. What is this -- his fourth season on the list? How about Brian Giles? That was one heck of a season -- .450 OBP, .622 SLG, 38 homers, 173 OPS+.

50. Frank Robinson, 1962 (41)
51. Hank Aaron, 1963 (41)
52. Willie McCovey, 1970 (33)

Here are McCovey's home run numbers from 1963 to 1970: 44, 18, 39, 36, 31, 36, 45, 39.
Here are BP's translated home run numbers for same years: 58, 24, 49, 47, 43, 55, 57, 49.

53. Frank Thomas, 1995 (28)
54. Albert Belle, 1994 (24)
55. Rickey Henderson, 1985 (38)
56. Willie Mays, 1965 (43)
57. Kevin Mitchell, 1989 (38)

More BP translated stats: Willie Mays in 1965 hits 64 translated home runs. He also hits 64 the year before.

That Kevin Mitchell 1989 season is one of the great fluke years ever, isn't it? He had never hit more than 22 homers, and in '88 he had a .319 OBP. Then, blammo, in '89 he banged 47 homers in a terrible hitting ballpark (he hit 25 of them on the road) and had a 192 OPS+. Fluke, right?

No. I'll tell you what: I had the pleasure of covering Kevin a few years later in Cincinnati (and it was a pleasure -- the guy was a writer's dream). He was absolutely amazing -- every bit as good as he was in '89. Better even. In 95 games in 1994, he hit .326 with 30 homers and an absurd .681 slugging percentage. He was a hitting machine. In his three years in Cincinnati (that included 225 games interrupted by injury), he hit .332 with 55 homers, 167 RBIs, a .414 OBP and a .631 SLG.

58. Frank Thomas, 1997 (39)
59. Alex Rodriguez, 2001 (37)
60. Mike Piazza, 1997 (39)
61. Ryan Howard, 2006
62. Todd Helton, 2003 (34)
63. Frank Thomas, 1996 (28)

Wow, lots of Frank Thomas too. I wish the system would have put Piazza's season higher. I saw Piazza play last night against the Royals -- he looks so strange in that Oakland uniform. And then the AFLAC trivial question was: Can you name the five players who hit 500 home runs and played for the A's. I got Reggie Jackson and Mark McGwire immediately. Frank Thomas came after a few seconds thought. I then went back to the Philly A's and came up with Jimmie Foxx. So I had four. But for the life of me, I could not come up with the fifth.

And then the answer came up: Willie McCovey. And this was one of those rare trivia questions where my initial reaction wasn't, "Oh, I should have gotten that!" Instead it was "WHAT? Willie McCovey played for Oakland?"

He did. Eleven games. And that got me thinking (as did watching Piazza in that Oakland unform) to come up with the all-time "Boy they don't look right in that uniform" team:

1B: Willie McCovey, Oakland (11 games, 1976).
2B: Ryne Sandberg, Philadelphia (13 games, 1981).
SS: Mark Belanger, Los Angeles (54 games, 1982)
3B: Graig Nettles, Atlanta (112 games, 1987)
LF: Rickey Hendeson, Anaheim (32 games, 1997 -- you can take your pick with Rickey .. he played with like 394 teams, but I REALLY don't remember the Angels time).
CF: Willie Mays, New York Mets (135 games, 1972-73 -- the most famous "He looks all wrong" player-uniform combo ever).
RF: Dwight Evans, Baltimore (101 games, 1991).
C: Gary Carter, San Francisco (92 games, 1990 -- unless you think he looked worse in a Dodgers uni the next year).
DH: Harmon Killebrew, Kansas City (106 games, 1975)
P: Steve Carlton, Cleveland (14 starts, 1987 -- also played for the White Sox, Giants and Twins).
P: Tom Seaver, Boston (16 starts, 1986 -- I forgot about this too).

64. Dick Allen, 1972 (40)
65. Carl Yastrzemski, 1970 (36)
66. Albert Pujols, 2004 (37)
67. Jim Gentile, 1961 (32)
68. George Brett, 1985 (37)

I still think Brett should have won the MVP award in 1985. That was the year Don Mattingly won, even though:

1. Brett had a better average, a much higher on-base percentage, a better slugging percentage and scored more runs. True Mattingly did have more doubles, homers and RBIs -- but this was in large part because he got more than 100 more at-bats than Brett (Mattingly didn't walk much) and played on a much, much, much, much, much, much better offensive team. You can't put the word "much" in there enough. That Yankees team led the league runs. Mattingly had Rickey Henderson, Dave Winfield, Ken Griffey, Willie Randolph, Don Baylor in his lineup. That Royals team finished 13th in runs scored and had Frank White hitting in the cleanup spot during the World Series.

2. Nobody pitched to Brett. He set an American League record with 31 intentional walks -- and why not? Do you know how many Royals on that team had 400-at bats and an OPS+ better than 100? Two. One was George Brett. The other was Steve Balboni, who hit .243.

3. Both players won a Gold Glove, but Brett won it at an obviously more important defensive position.

4. The Royals actually WON the division, while the Yankees did not. True, the Yankees won more games that season, but as George C. Scott said in The Hustler: "This isn't football. You don't count yardage. At the end of the game you count your money, and at the end of the game you count your money. That's how you find out whose best. The only way."

People in the Midwest like to rage a bit about New York media bias. I don't buy it. Yes, there was a Mattingly love affair going on -- still is. And why not? He was a pure ballplayer, I loved him too. But I don't think think Mattingly beat Brett because of New York bias. While there is no doubt in my mind that Brett was more valuable than Mattingly, the guy who really got screwed that year was ... New York's Rickey Henderson. He had more Win Shares than both guys.

69. Barry Bonds, 1990 (37)
70. Albert Belle, 1998 (37)
71. Jim Edmonds, 2004 (33)
72. Harmon Killebrew, 1969 (34)
73. Barry Bonds, 1995 (36)

It's amazing, but Belle may have had his best season -- it IS is highest Win Shares season -- with the White Sox in 1998. That was the year hit .328 with 49 homers and 152 RBIs. He also finished a staggering EIGHTH in the MVP voting. You know, it's amazing, everybody knows that the MVP voting is very much affected by RBIs. And yet, since 1950, there have been six seasons where a player has had more than 150 RBIs. On two of those players won MVPs.

-- Manny Ramirez, 1999, 165 RBIs (finished tied for third with Robbie Alomar, behind Pedro and winner Pudge v.2.0).
-- Sammy Sosa, 2001, 160 RBIs (finished second behind Barry Bonds, who had a pretty good year).
-- Sammy Sosa, 1998, 158 RBIs (Won the MVP).
-- Juan Gonzalez, 1998, 157 RBIs (Won the MVP)
-- Tommy Davis, 1962, 153 RBIs (finished third behind Willie Mays and teammate Maury Wills, who had the 104 steals)
-- Albert Belle, 1998, 152 RBIs (finished eighth, but to be fair, Gonzo won that year for his even more impressive RBI total)

74. Todd Helton, 2001 (26)
75. Todd Helton, 2004 (30)
76. Manny Ramirez, 2000 (28)
77. Alex Rodriguez, 1996 (34)
78. Wade Boggs, 1987 (32)
79. Frank Thomas, 1991 (34)
80. Albert Pujols, 2005 (34)

I should say right here that Jim Rice's 1978 season -- the reason I decided to do this crazy thing in the first place -- scored 36 Win Shares, so according to Bill's system it woul rank higher than most of the seasons around here. Bill also has Rice's 78 season ranked higher than Rocky Colavito's 1961 season (36-33), which was my original comparison:

Baseball Prospectus translates the two seasons like so:

Rice, 78: .300, 63, 141. With 26 doubles, 11 triples, 125 runs, 57 walks, 158 strikeouts, a .362 OBP and a .666 SLG.
Colavito, 61: .283, 48, 128. With 32 doubles, 2 triples, 117 runs, 97 walks, 89 strikeouts, a .389 OBP and a .601 SLG.

Rice seems to have a decent sized ege here, especially with homers and slugging. In Rocky's defense, BP does not view 1961 as his best year. They like 1958 a lot better.

Colavito, 58: .307, 52, 123. With 34 doubles, 2 triples, 90 runs, 84 walks, 117 strikeouts, a .406 OBP and a .686 SLG.

81. Travis Hafner, 2006
82. Ken Griffey Jr., 1997 (36)
83. Willie Mays, 1964 (38)
84. Barry Bonds, 1994 (25)
85. Frank Thomas, 1993 (32)
86. Ken Griffey Jr., 1993 (29)

It's good to see Griffey's name on the list. It's really incredible -- nobody was bigger than Griffey for most of the 1990s. And then, blammo, it was over, and nobody really thought much about him. It's hard to come up with a similar case -- someone that big (I mean we're talking about, perhaps the biggest name in sports) suddenly just becoming another guy. I guess something similar may have happened to Penny Hardaway. He was big too. Remember Lil' Penny?

In case you are counting, this is the 11th Bonds season in the Top 100. It's also the sixth Frank Thomas season on here. That's a whole lotta Frank Thomas.

87. Rod Carew, 1977 (37)
88. Willie Stargell, 1973 (36)
89. Willie Mays, 1962 (41)
90. Jason Giambi, 2002 (34)

That Rod Carew 1977 season really stands out in my mind because I was 10, and as I have mentioned on here before, I believe that's the magical baseball age, that time after realization but before cynicism. I didn't think it was even possible to get Rod Carew out, and it's pretty obvious to see why. He hit .388 that year. But against Cleveland when I would have been paying attention, he hit an even .400. And even more to the point, the games that are clearest in my mind are those late night games in Calfornia. Those are the game I tried to listen to with my pen radio under my pillow. In those games, Carew went 11 for 22 with three homers and five doubles.

Baseball Reference really is the greatest thing to ever happen, isn't it?

91. Jim Thome, 1996 (26)
92. Ken Caminiti, 1996 (38)
93. Fred Lynn, 1979 (34)
94. Jose Canseco, 1988 (39)
95. Gary Sheffield, 2003 (35)
96. Joe Morgan, 1974 (37)
97. Jack Clark, 1987 (33)
98. Gary Sheffield, 2000 (31)
99. David Ortiz, 2006
100. Frank Thomas, 1992 (32)

Sure, why not finish it off with another Frank Thomas season?