No player in Major League Baseball has hit .400 or higher in a season since Ted Williams accomplished the feat by batting .406 in 1941, but Barry Bonds thinks he could have gotten there if he approached the game a bit differently during his prime.
Bonds and Alex Rodriguez discussed hitting during a FaceTime conversation over the weekend, and A-Rod shared the video on YouTube. During their chat, the topic of teams now placing a greater emphasis on home run hitters — even if they strike out more — arose, and that led to a discussion about small ball being less popular. Bonds then made a bold proclamation about his own career.
“My job was to do what I did — drive in runs.” Bonds said, via Michael Rosen of the San Francisco Chronicle. “I didn’t bunt. I could’ve bunted and hit .400.”
Rosen examined the numbers from Baseball Reference, and he found that Bonds went 8-for-14 while bunting for a base hit during his career. From 1991 on, he was 5-for-5. Of course, Bonds is arguably the greatest home run hitter of all time, so there were very few instances where he was called upon to bunt.
Bonds had a career-high batting average of .370 in 2002. His point is likely that he would have had a lot more singles — thus boosting his average — if he dropped bunts down the third base line more often. However, opposing teams would have likely conceded that, as their goal was almost always to prevent Bonds from smashing the ball out of the park. The same could be said for other prolific power hitters like David Ortiz.
