If you hadn’t noticed, Barry Bonds has just completed one of the best months of hitting in the history of Major League Baseball.
In April, Bonds’ had an incredible .472 batting average, an equally impressive .696 on base average, an astronomical 1.132 slugging percentage, and an historic 1828 OPS (on base average + slugging percentage).
Joe Sheehan and Keith Woolner over at Baseball Prospectus did some research and determined that Bonds’ April was the best month of hitting in the past 30 years (see chart below). In fact, Bonds’ 1848 OPS during April dwarfs Todd Helton’s May of 2000, which had been the best month by a player in the past 32 seasons. Moreover, Helton played 15 of his 23 games that month in the hitting haven of Coors Field, and Bonds’ April OPS still beats him by over 300 points!
The first chart is interesting also because each player listed is a great player with the exception of Ron Cey (good, but not great) and Richard Hidalgo (good, but not great at this point in his career). Given the large number of games played in baseball, this reflects that it is risky to draw dispositive conclusions based on a player’s anecdotal performance in a limited sample of games. This is the most common error that casual fans of baseball make in evaluating players.
The second chart below reflects the research of the Wall Street Journal’s ($) Allen St. John in this piece in which he suggests that Bonds’ hitting has been helped significantly by playing in the new National League ballparks that have been built over the past decade. As Mr. St. John notes:

SBC isn’t the only retrostyle new park that suits Mr. Bonds. From 2000 through 2003, he played 105 games at the NL parks built since 1995: Coors Field in Colorado, Bank One Ballpark in Arizona, Houston’s Minute Maid Park (previously Enron Field), PNC Park in Pittsburgh, Alanta’s Turner Field, Miller Park in Milwaukee, and Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park. In those games he hit .372 and slugged .868. Plus, he hit 46 homers, for an average of 75.6 round trippers per 162 games, above his single-season record pace of 2001.

Hitter-friendly ballparks and steroids aside, Bonds is providing us with a once in a lifetime performance over the past decade. Bonds is simply the best hitter in Major League Baseball since Ted Williams and one of the three or four best of all-time. Sit back and enjoy it, because we are unlikely to see it again in our lives.