Total Baseball, which also tries to evaluate a player's total offensive
and defensive contributions, gives Barry Bonds a Total Player rating of
9.0 for 1992. Only one other player since Ruth attained that mark: Cal
Ripken for his 1984 season. Rounding out the top five offensive players
in the NL last season: Sheffield, 5.9; Sandberg, 5.8; Van Slyke, 5.3; and
Larkin, 4.7.

The top 5 offensive players in the AL in 1992 were: E. Martinez, 4.8;
Ventura, 4.8; Anderson, 4.5; R. Henderson, 4.4; and Thomas, 4.4

In short, Total Baseball says Bonds enjoyed one of the best seasons
ever in the game's history -- better than any year had by Mantle,
Mays, Williams, etc. (If you disagree, don't flame me; flame the
writers of Total Baseball.) Also, Martinez and Ventura are neck and
neck, so given the shortcomings of any statistical analysis, which one
had the better year can be considered a toss-up. Thus, Total Baseball
supports your choices of Bonds and Ventura as the MVPs of 1992.



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Phil Brown                |
aka pb6755@csc.albany.edu |