On Friday, writer Derek Thompson offered up a great prompt on Twitter: What’s the most incredible, statistical-outlier accomplishment in U.S. major sports history?
I felt it was a good time to remind the world as to absurd and unprecedented Barry Bonds was. I don’t think this is actually the biggest outlier of a statistic, but it’s certainly one that is high up there, and deserves a lot more attention.
Barry Bonds obliterated the MLB record with 232 walks (37.6% of his plate appearances) in 2004. If all of those walks were strikeouts, he would have had a better OPS that season than 9 teams.