Bizarre Stat Use of the Day

Why should anyone take something on MLB.com seriously enough to write about it or even research it? No reason. I just did.

The site's frontpage promo for tonight's Diamondbacks-Giants game reads "Bonds faces one of his favorite opponents: Of his 749 career homers, Barry Bonds has hit 38 against the Diamondbacks." 38 out of 749 hardly seems impressive for a team in the Giants' division, but then again the D'backs were an expansion team, so maybe it's more significant than I thought. Here are Bonds career numbers against Arizona compared to everyone else:

Opponent        Avg  OBP  SLG  HR/AB  HR/(PA-IBB)
Arizona        .311 .493 .689 .100   .081
Everyone else  .298 .442 .605 .763   .063

Ahh, maybe MLB.com is onto something. Except that, you know, Bonds has been a much more productive hitter since Arizona entered the league. While only 40.3% of Bonds' PA have come since the D'backs entered the league in 1998, the majority of his home runs (375) have come during this period. Here's how Bonds' performance against the Arizona squadron stacks up against everybody else since 1998:

Opponent        Avg  OBP  SLG  HR/AB  HR/(PA-IBB)
Arizona        .311 .493 .689 .100   .081
Everyone else  .317 .498 .705 .103   .082

So if Arizona is in fact Bonds' favorite opponent, it is not because he has had more success against them; indeed, he has had less success against Arizona.