The most remarkable aspect of Shohei Ohtani's season isn't just that he's doing it -- the top slugger in the game, one of the best pitchers -- but that he was allowed to attempt it in the first place. Baseball historian Bill James made a point about this recently, writing, "Over time, any closed structure tends to exclude ideas, exclude innovations, exclude minority approaches to a problem. ... It is usually players from outside the system who break through the shibboleths, and demonstrate that these things CAN be done."
True. Except ... two-way players aren't a thing in Japan, either. Ohtani not only challenged the conventional thinking in the majors, he challenged the conventional thinking in Japan: In professional baseball, you're either a position player or a pitcher. Ohtani wanted to do both.
He leads the majors with 41 home runs and is a candidate to lead in other categories -- OPS, slugging percentage, total bases, extra-base hits. As a pitcher, he is sixth in the American League in Baseball-Reference WAR. Among all major leaguers with at least 100 innings, he is seventh in lowest batting average allowed, 11th in strikeout rate and 12th in OPS allowed. Oh, to top it off, he's in the top 10 in the majors in stolen bases.
It feels like it should be impossible to be one of the best hitters in the game and one of the best pitchers. Even Babe Ruth, when he played both ways in 1918 and 1919 against a much different level of competition, didn't dominate like this on both sides of the ball:
Ohtani, 2021: 159 OPS+, 153 ERA+
Ruth, 1918: 192 OPS+, 122 ERA+
Ruth, 1919: 217 OPS+, 102 ERA+
It is a transcendent season, but is Ohtani having the greatest individual season ever? You could answer that in two ways:
1. Just look at estimated value, whether it's WAR or James' win shares system.
2. Consider the iconic status of the season, basically, "Will it be remembered?"
With baseball being a numbers game, we tend to focus on value, but it seems the greatest seasons should be some combination of the two.
Ohtani will fall short in pure value. His Baseball-Reference WAR is 7.8, giving him an outside chance of a 10-WAR season, although he'll need a big September to get there. There have been only four 10-WAR seasons over the past decade -- two by Mike Trout, one by Mookie Betts and one by Aaron Nola -- so that's rare territory, but well behind the all-time leaders. Ohtani is at 32 win shares, so he has a good chance at reaching 40. There have been just four of those seasons in the past decade -- three by Trout and one by Andrew McCutchen. Again, rare territory, but the all-time great seasons reach 50 win shares.
Ohtani's season will certainly be iconic, doing something nobody has done since Ruth (or Bullet Joe Rogan in the Negro Leagues). Is it the greatest season ever? Let's take a trip through MLB history and pick the greatest season of the decade since the 1900s. Then you can decide.
1900s: Honus Wagner, 1908
Stats: .354/.415/.542, 10 HR, 109 RBIs, 53 SB, 11.5 WAR, 59 WS
What they said then: "Wagner raced in like a streak of lightning over half the distance to the plate and scooping it up with his bare hand an inch from the carpet fired to [Harry] Swacina for the grandest double play ever seen in New York." -- E.J. Lanigan, New York Press
Why it's the greatest season ever: To fully appreciate Wagner's dominance in 1908, you have to understand how much better he was than everybody else. He led the league in batting average, OBP, slugging, RBIs, hits, doubles, triples and stolen bases. All that is impressive enough, but it's also the margins by which he led some of those categories. Only four other players hit .300 in a season when the league average was .239. His .957 OPS was 141 points higher than Mike Donlin's .816. He drove in 109 runs when only two others knocked in more than 71. Wagner was the best hitter, the best slugger, the best baserunner and a great defensive shortstop. There was no doubt Wagner was the game's best player, and the newspapers of the day widely acknowledged that as fact -- not opinion. Under James' win shares methodology, Wagner's season is the greatest of modern baseball ...
Why it's not: ... if you want to count 1908 as "modern." Dead ball baseball is so different from the game we watch now that comparisons are silly. Because there was little threat of home runs, pitchers could save their fastest pitches for key moments in the game. Otherwise, they threw 75 mph fastballs most of the time. You simply can't compare a player born in 1874 to today's athletic marvels.
Ohtani comparison: No offense to the Flying Dutchman, but he hit just 10 home runs. Ohtani hit 16 in a 21-game stretch. Like Ohtani, Wagner was the best-conditioned athlete of his time, a blend of power and speed. Wagner lifted weights in the offseason (when few players of his era, if any, did so) and played basketball and other sports to stay in top shape.
1910s: Walter Johnson, 1913
Stats: 36-7, 1.14 ERA, 29 CG, 11 SHO, 346 IP, 243 SO, 16.5 WAR, 54 WS
What they said then: "The very announcement in any city that he is going to pitch means a 100% increase in attendance. Johnson is today the idol of the baseball world. This is demonstrated when the crowds in other cities pull for him to win his games." -- Ed Grillo, Washington Star
Why it's the greatest season ever: That WAR total of 16.5 is not a misprint. It's the highest in major league history, with the exception of pitchers from the 1880s who pitched 500 innings a season. No. 2 on the list: Walter Johnson in 1912 (at 14.3). Johnson began the season allowing a run in the first inning on Opening Day and then pitched 55⅔ consecutive scoreless innings, a feat topped only by Don Drysdale and Orel Hershiser. In September, with the Senators trying to chase down the first-place Athletics, Johnson went 7-0 with a 0.32 ERA over a 25-day stretch. He had the highest strikeout rate in the majors, the second-lowest walk rate (behind Christy Mathewson), pitched the most innings, allowed the fewest hits per nine and won nine more games than anybody else. Johnson's adjusted ERA (ERA+) of 259 ranks fifth best since 1900, so even accounting for the dead ball era, he didn't allow many runs. Did Johnson throw as hard as today's top fireballers? Maybe not, but for several generations, any young hard-throwing pitcher was always compared to Johnson.
Why it's not: Still in the dead ball era? Sure, the Big Train was great, and nobody has won 36 games since, but there were other similar seasons in this era. Pete Alexander won 33 games with a 1.55 ERA (and 16 shutouts) in 1916. In 1912, Smoky Joe Wood -- who might have thrown as hard as Johnson -- won 34 games. In 1908, Ed Walsh won 40 games and Mathewson won 37. You just can't compare a dead ball era pitcher, using dirty, scuffed-up baseballs against batters trying to bunt and slap the ball around, to the powerful sluggers modern pitchers have to face.
Ohtani comparison: Johnson was actually a very good hitter. Of that 16.5 WAR, 1.4 of it came as a batter, as he hit a respectable .261/.293/.433 with two home runs -- a better than league-average OPS. He often was used as a pinch hitter in his career, and in 1925, he hit .433 -- the highest average in a season since 1900 with at least 100 plate appearances.
1920s: Babe Ruth, 1920
Stats: .376/.532/.847, 54 HR, 135 RBIs, 11.9 WAR, 51 WS
What they said then: "This Babe Ruth is a menace. He is responsible to a large degree for the lack of production in these manufacturing towns around the Lakes. Go out to the ball park today and you will see thousands of young men taking the afternoon off just to see Babe Ruth 'bust one.'" -- W.O. McGeehan, New York Tribune
Why it's the greatest season ever: The top three position-player seasons by WAR: Babe Ruth, 1923 (14.2); Babe Ruth, 1921 (12.9); Babe Ruth, 1927 (12.6). Yes, you can argue those seasons were Ruth's best, but the revolution began in 1920. Ruth changed the sport. Power ball was in. As Robert Creamer wrote in his Ruth biography, "Ruth's full free swing was being copied more and more, and so was his type of bat, thinner in the handle and whippier. ... Strategy and tactics changed. A strikeout heretofore had been something of a disgrace -- read 'Casey at the Bat.' ... In Ruth's case, however, a strikeout was only a momentary, if melodramatic, setback. ... The big hit, the big inning, blossomed."
Ruth shattered his own home run record, raising it from 29 to 54. He famously hit more home runs than every other team in the American League. His OPS was 300 points higher than the No. 2 hitter. His .847 slugging percentage reigned as the record until Barry Bonds broke it. Ruth was made for New York, and the Yankees became the first team to draw 1 million fans in a season. If not quite Ruth's best statistical individual season, it's the most important season in major league history, other than when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947.
Why it's not: Glad we mentioned Robinson, because he wouldn't have been allowed to play in the American League in 1920. Ruth's numbers came in a segregated league, in an era when few pitchers threw 90 mph, let alone 100. Ruth struck out 13% of the time, when the league average was just 7.7%. Would he just be Joey Gallo if he played in 2021? Yes, 54 home runs is impressive -- but Ohtani might hit 50 against a much tougher level of pitching.
Ohtani comparison: Just as it took an outsider in Ohtani to challenge the status quo, it took Ruth to change the game. Ruth did what he wanted. "He refused to be ordinary," James once wrote. Nobody was going to tell him how to play. Ohtani's personality couldn't be more different from Ruth's, but he too wanted to play the game his way.
1930s: Lefty Grove, 1931
Stats: 31-4, 2.06 ERA, 27 CG, 4 SHO, 288⅔ IP, 175 SO, 10.4 WAR, 42 WS
What they said then: "Grove today is far more than a pitcher with a fast ball. While he is famous for burning the ball through the slot, he can now pitch for the spot he wants the ball to go. If he wants to pitch a low fast ball to a hitter's weakness, he is able to get the ball there nine times out of ten." -- Connie Mack, Grove's manager, in the Philadelphia Inquirer
Why it's the greatest season ever: Grove dominated in a high-scoring era, winning nine ERA titles. Over the 1930 and 1931 seasons, he went 59-9 with a 2.30 ERA -- with 14 saves thrown in for good measure. Only one other AL pitcher in 1931 had an ERA under 3.00, and Grove won 16 games in a row as the Athletics cruised to their third straight AL pennant. His 42 win shares were the highest of the decade -- pitcher or position player -- and only one other pitcher outside the dead ball era has achieved 40 win shares in a season (we'll get to him later). Grove won MVP honors in the first Baseball Writers' Association of America vote, beating out Lou Gehrig, who drove in 185 runs, so that indicates how impressed the writers were with his performance.
I don't know if Grove was the first "modern" pitcher, but video of his mechanics shows a delivery that looks straight out of 2021, with a big stride and extension toward home plate, without a lot of the excessive motion in the windup that a lot of pitchers of his era used. He threw very hard, and there's little doubt his fastball approached 100 mph, at least until he hurt his arm with the Red Sox in 1934. (Grove returned with a forkball and captured four more ERA crowns.)
Why it's not: The win-loss record is impressive, and only Dizzy Dean in 1934 and Denny McLain in 1968 have won 30 games since Grove. But Grove's ERA+ of 217 isn't quite historic -- tied with Blake Snell in 2018 for just 20th best since 1900, and nobody is calling Snell's season the greatest ever. It might have been the best season of the 1930s, and Grove remains an underrated all-time great, but it just doesn't feel epic enough to win this argument.
Ohtani comparison: Well, they both threw hard. Unlike Ohtani, however, Grove was ornery, known for his temper and outbursts, throwing chairs and stuff like that. When he died in 1975, the headline on Red Smith's column in the New York Times read, "The Terrible Tempered Mr. Grove." Grove's 16-game winning streak in 1931 ended in a 1-0 loss, on a misplay by a backup outfielder, and Grove tore apart the clubhouse. Ohtani would probably instead give the outfielder a hug.
1940s: Ted Williams, 1941
Stats: .406/.553/.735, 37 HR, 120 RBIs, 10.4 WAR, 42 WS
What they said then: "I'll be the happiest fellow in the world if I hit .400. I want to be talked about. I want to be remembered when I leave baseball. Who are the players they talk about and remember? Babe Ruth because he hit 60 home runs. Rogers Hornsby because he hit .424. Hack Wilson because he batted in 190 runs, and [Joe] DiMaggio because he hit in 56 straight games. Those are the best, top performances in baseball. They're what I'm aiming at." -- Williams in early September 1941
Why it's the greatest season ever: Eighty years later and we're still talking about this season, so Williams achieved his aspiration. Even casual fans know "Ted Williams, the last man to hit .400," so perhaps that makes this the iconic individual season in major league history -- and that's as good a reason as any to call it the greatest season ever.
Prior to Williams, the last player to hit .400 had been Bill Terry in 1930, so the mythic status of hitting .400 wasn't quite the same in 1941 as it is now. Still, Williams' pursuit of .400 was a huge story. Life magazine did a cover shoot for its September issue, including a shirtless, frame-by-frame breakdown of his swing. The Boston newspapers had to run house ads imploring readers not to call in to ask how Williams did each day; their switchboards were getting jammed. Yankees fans even gave him a standing ovation during the game he officially qualified for the batting title. And get this: Williams' final-day drama, when he went 6-for-8 in a doubleheader to raise his average from .3995 to .406, wouldn't have been necessary under modern rules. Sacrifice flies weren't tabulated in 1941, otherwise Williams would have finished at .411.
Why it's not: Iconic? Absolutely. But it might not have been Williams' best season of the decade. Williams won Triple Crowns in 1942 and 1947, and he drove in 159 runs and scored 150 in 1949 (nobody has done that since, either). Via both WAR and win shares, Williams' best season was 1946, when he hit .342/.497/.667 in a lower run-scoring environment (4.06 runs per game versus 4.74 in 1941). Then there's this: DiMaggio, who hit in those 56 consecutive games, won the MVP award in 1941. Yes, the Yankees won the pennant, but perhaps the writers were more impressed with DiMaggio's hitting streak and all-around play.
Ohtani comparison: Williams was indifferent about fielding, indifferent about baserunning, perhaps even indifferent about winning games, but he was absolutely fanatical about hitting. He loved to hit, loved to talk about hitting, loved to analyze other hitters. Williams believed he would become the greatest hitter the game had ever seen. Ohtani believed he could play both ways. The difference between the two, however, is there is a complete sense of joy that comes with watching Ohtani play baseball. It's not just his remarkable feats; it's hard to explain. It's everything about him: the swagger without the boast, the swing when he reaches down to a blast a low pitch, the smooth forcefulness as he runs the bases like a big locomotive. Was it the same thing with Williams? I don't get the idea that it was, and Williams famously had a contentious relationship with the Boston fans. He refused to tip his cap to the fans when he hit a home run in the final at-bat of his career. With Ohtani, we all want to tip our caps to him.
1950s: Mickey Mantle, 1956
Stats: .353/.464/.705, 52 HR, 130 RBIs, 11.2 WAR, 49 WS
What they said then: "Twisting his massive torso under the guidance of a magnificently tuned set of reflexes, Mickey Mantle so controlled the exorbitant strength generated by his legs, back, shoulders and arms that he brought his bat through the plane of the flight of the pitch with a precision which propelled the ball immensely high and far toward the right-field roof, so high and far that oldtimers in the crowd -- thinking perhaps of Babe Ruth -- watched in awe and held their breath." -- Robert Creamer, Sports Illustrated
Why it's the greatest season ever: Because any kid who grew up in the 1950s, especially in the greater New York metropolitan area, will fight you to the death if you disagree. Mantle was young (24 years old in 1956) and handsome, hit mammoth home runs from both sides of the plate, could run as fast as anybody and played for the best team in baseball. He won the Triple Crown and then hit three home runs as the Yankees won the World Series. Go to Yankee Stadium now and you still see fans wearing Mantle jerseys. This season happened 65 years ago and Mantle's legacy still looms large, a reminder of younger, more innocent days.
Why it's not: It's a pretty good one. The only other season in the 1950s that compares in value is Mantle's own 1957 season. In terms of all-time single-season WAR, however, his 1957 season (11.3) ranks tied for 14th and 1956 tied for 17th. Iconic for sure, but maybe a breath short on greatness, and as great as he was at the plate, he wasn't as superlative in center field as Willie Mays, his crosstown rival for a few years.
Ohtani comparison: Light-tower power? Check. Speed? Check. Matinee idol? Check. Showmanship? Check. Pitching ability and off-the-field activities? ... Ahh, advantage there to Mr. Ohtani.
1960s: Carl Yastrzemski, 1967
Stats: .326/.418/.622, 44 HR, 121 RBIs, 12.4 WAR, 42 WS
What they said then: "Yastrzemski came up in the ninth with one out and none on. He already had two hits on the night, and was in the home stretch of an extraordinary season at the plate and in the field, which made him the favorite to win the Most Valuable Player award in his league. Boston sportswriters, however, are famously unimpressionable, especially when the Red Sox are behind. 'Go on!' one of them shouted bitterly from the press box at this moment. 'Prove you're the MVP! Prove it to me! Hit a homer!' Yastrzemski hit a homer." -- Roger Angell, The New Yorker
Why it's the greatest season ever: Well, let's start with this: According to Baseball-Reference's WAR metric, Yastrzemski's season is the best by a position player other than Ruth, fourth on the all-time list. Considering Ruth's seasons came in a segregated league, it's certainly reasonable to dock him and move Yastrzemski up to No. 1. You might also be wondering why Yaz's season is valuable. Sure, he won the Triple Crown, but that batting line isn't so different from what Vladimir Guerrero Jr. will put up this year, and Guerrero isn't going to be worth anything close to 12.4 WAR.
It's all about context. The American League in 1967 was a pitching-dominated league, with teams averaging just 3.70 runs per game. That figure is 4.56 in 2021. That makes the runs Yastrzemski created -- and he created 155 of them -- enormously valuable. Only three others in the AL that season were over 100. Besides home runs, batting average and RBIs, Yastrzemski led the league in OBP, slugging, runs, hits and total bases. He missed one game. He gets a lot of value for his defense, which I'll buy. In researching Yaz's season, I came across many references to his defense during the campaign; along with his hitting, that was an ongoing narrative to his season. It clearly impressed the observers of 1967.
Yastrzemski's season, however, goes beyond the numbers. Entering 1967, baseball in Boston felt dead. The Red Sox hadn't been relevant in a decade, hadn't finished closer than 11 games out of first place since 1950. They finished eighth out of 10 teams in attendance in 1966, averaging barely 10,000 fans per game. Nobody expected anything different in 1967. With Yastrzemski leading a young team -- at 27, he was the oldest regular in the lineup -- the Red Sox improbably captured the pennant. He was unstoppable down the stretch. In the midst of a four-team fight for first, he hit .417 in September with 26 RBIs in 27 games. Over the final 15 games, he hit .491. In the final two, with the Red Sox needing to win both, he went 7-for-8 with six RBIs. The Impossible Dream season turned around the franchise.
Why it's not: Umm ... no Mays? No Sandy Koufax? No Henry Aaron? No doubt Yastrzemski was awesome, and he is a Hall of Famer and all that, but doesn't the greatest season of all time have to come from an icon like Mays or Koufax or Aaron? Also, Yastrzemski is getting a lot of credit for his defense, and retroactively crediting him with that much value is guesswork. He also had a huge advantage at hitter-friendly Fenway Park, where he had a 1.106 OPS with 27 home runs as compared to .975 on the road with 17 home runs.
Ohtani comparison: We mentioned Wagner's fitness, and you can bring this up, as well, with Yastrzemski. After the 1966 season, he visited the 1960s version of a personal trainer, who remarked that he couldn't believe Yastrzemski was a professional athlete. Yaz lifted weights, added muscle, worked on his conditioning and improved from 16 home runs to 44. A spring training batting tip from Williams also helped, as Yastrzemski opened up his stance a bit.
1970s: Steve Carlton, 1972
Stats: 27-10, 1.97 ERA, 30 CG, 8 SHO, 346⅓ IP, 310 SO, 12.5 WAR, 40 WS
What they said then: "They came 53,377 strong to see the man they have accepted as their champion on the jousting fields of sport. And they rose and thundered their support for him the moment Steve Carlton stepped onto the field. They came to see Steve Carlton defeat the Cincinnati Reds. And win his 20th game. And win his 15th in succession. And wave the magic left arm that transforms the Phillies from joke to juggernaut." -- Bruce Keidan, Philadelphia Inquirer
Why it's the greatest season ever: To fully appreciate Carlton's season, and why fans flocked to Veterans Stadium that August night to watch a lousy team, you have to understand how bad the 1972 Phillies were. They finished 59-97. They couldn't hit, couldn't field and, when Carlton wasn't on the mound, couldn't pitch. He won 46% of their games. Through June 3, he was 5-6 with a 3.12 ERA. Then came that winning streak. From June 7 to Aug. 17, he went 15-0 in 18 starts with a 1.51 ERA over 155 innings. Ohtani won't come close to 155 innings in six months; Carlton did that in just over two. (The streak finally ended with a 2-1 loss in which Carlton pitched 11 innings.) This is the only 40 win-share season since Grove in 1931. Carlton's pitching accounted for 12.1 of that bWAR, which Baseball-Reference rates as the second-best pitching season of the live ball era (behind the next player on this list), as does FanGraphs (behind a different pitcher who will also appear on this list).
Why it's not: The wins, workload and unhittable slider were amazing, but the ERA? Nothing too historic about a 1.97 ERA, especially since 1972 was a low-run season. (The National League averaged 3.91 runs per game.) Luis Tiant and Gaylord Perry had lower ERAs that season. Wilbur Wood pitched more innings. Maybe we should have gone with Joe Morgan (11.0 WAR in 1975).
Ohtani comparison: Well, they're both listed at 6-foot-4 and 210 pounds. Carlton does have an interesting connection to Japan. He found his slider while playing on an exhibition tour in 1969. Legendary slugger Sadaharu Oh had homered twice off Carlton, so he decided to try a slider he had been tinkering around with and struck out Oh with it.
1980s: Dwight Gooden, 1985
Stats: 24-4, 1.53 ERA, 16 CG, 8 SHO, 276⅔ IP, 268 SO, 13.3 bWAR, 33 WS
What they said then: "Wednesday night meant sellout, and shutout. And magic. The Doctor, Doctor K, was in, and that is the single most electric event right now in your grand old game." -- Mike Lupica, New York Daily News
Why it's the greatest season ever: This wasn't a 1.53 ERA in the dead ball era. Upper 90s heat, then a big ol' Uncle Charlie to break batters' knees. According to Baseball-Reference, Gooden's 12.2 pitching WAR is the best season of the live ball era. (Gooden had another 1.1 WAR with the bat.) Sixteen complete games and eight shutouts at 20 years old? Are you kidding? He saved his best for September. With the Mets battling the Cardinals for the NL East title, Gooden allowed two earned in 53 innings in the month. He started twice against the Cardinals, pitching nine scoreless innings in the first start (only to see the Mets lose 1-0 in 10 innings). In Game 158, he beat the Cards 5-2 with a complete game for his 24th win. It was his 11th double-digit strikeout game; no other pitcher had more than five that year. It was a season for the ages.
Why it's not: Umm ... because he's a pitcher? And don't bring up Willie McGee winning the MVP Award. Although, according to win shares, the voters got it right. FanGraphs also pegs Gooden's pitching value at just 8.9 WAR, so perhaps Baseball-Reference is grossly overestimating Gooden's season.
Ohtani comparison: "Electric" is the right description. That was Gooden in 1985, and that is Ohtani in 2021. The biggest stars create a different buzz in the ballpark when they're starting -- or, in Ohtani's case, when he's pitching and hitting.
1990s: Pedro Martinez, 1999
Stats: 23-4, 2.07 ERA, 5 CG, 1 SHO, 213⅓ IP, 313 SO, 9.8 bWAR, 27 WS
What they said then: "What game were those guys watching?" -- Ted Williams, upon hearing Martinez finished second in the MVP voting
Why it's the greatest season ever: There is always the dilemma on which Martinez season to pick as his best one -- 1999 or 2000, when he went 18-6 with a 1.74 ERA. Baseball-Reference prefers 2000 (11.7 WAR) because of the lower ERA. FanGraphs prefers 1999 (11.6 WAR) thanks to a 1.39 FIP (fielding independent pitching) and calls it the best pitching season of the live ball era. His strikeout rate of 37.5% from 1999 remains second highest of all time, behind only Gerrit Cole in 2019. The difference between Pedro and Cole: The MLB strikeout rate in 1999 was 16.4%; in 2019, it had jumped up to 23.0%. Regardless of the year, every Martinez start was an event, and peak Pedro -- maybe peak anybody -- came late that season when he ran out eight consecutive double-digit strikeout games: 11, 15, 11, 15, 17, 14, 12, 12.
Why it's not: Yes, Martinez was a pitching god, but was it really the best season of the 1990s? It's hard to get past that limited workload. Roger Clemens went 21-7 with a 2.05 ERA in 1997, also allowed just nine home runs and did it while pitching 264 innings. The best season by WAR is Cal Ripken Jr.'s 1991 MVP season -- valued at 11.5 WAR, fourth highest of any position player since integration. The best season of the decade via win shares (47) is Barry Bonds in 1993. It's not clear Martinez should be here.
Ohtani comparison: Upper 90s fastball, unhittable changeup for Martinez. Upper 90s fastball, unhittable splitter for Ohtani -- with 40-something home runs on the side.
2000s: Barry Bonds, 2001
Stats: .328/.515/.863, 73 HR, 137 RBIs, 11.9 WAR, 54 WS
What they said then: "It is a matter of fact, not opinion, that Bonds is better at his game than most people will be at anything, but he understands this as well as you do, probably more so, and that knowledge has been both his blessing and his burden." -- Dan Le Batard, Miami Herald
Why it's the greatest season ever: Most home runs ever, highest slugging percentage ever, second-highest WAR since integration (behind Yastrzemski), third-highest OPS ever (behind only his 2004 and 2002 seasons). I had remembered Bonds' chase for Mark McGwire's record as a slow slog that nobody cared about, at least as compared to the home run chase of 1998; but in researching newspaper articles from 2001, I got a little different impression. During the game Bonds tied McGwire's record in Houston, Astros fans were chanting "Bar-ry! Bar-ry!" Not saying he was beloved or anything like that -- he certainly wasn't -- but it seems fans did respect a player who had taken hitting to new, unseen levels of dominance.
Why it's not: You know why.
Ohtani comparison: Both had powerful left-handed swings and hit baseballs a very long way. Of course, the swings aren't really that similar. Bonds choked up on the bat and was short and quick to the ball. Ohtani starts with his hands much higher and has a longer swing, leading to more strikeouts. I remember Bonds hitting these majestic, towering fly balls, while Ohtani seems to hit more line drives that clear the fence. It would be interesting to see Bonds' average launch angle from 2001, although their ground ball percentages aren't terribly far apart: 39.8% for Bonds; 36.2% for Ohtani.
Mike Trout, 2018
Stats: .312/.460/.628, 39 HR, 79 RBIs, 9.9 bWAR, 39 WS
What they said then: "The game's best player was on pace to produce 14.2 wins above replacement. It's almost unimaginable -- nobody has cracked 12 WAR in a half-century, and no active player has ever WAR'd higher than 2016 Trout's 10.5 -- but it's time to take seriously the possibility that we're watching the greatest season of all time." -- Sam Miller, ESPN.com
Why it's the greatest season ever: Miller wrote that 40 games into the season. Obviously, Trout didn't finish with 14.2 WAR, as he ended up missing 22 games. This might not even be Trout's greatest season, let alone the greatest season. Of course, that's the genius of Trout. Maybe his best season was his rookie year in 2012 (10.5 WAR), when he hit .323 with 30 home runs and 49 steals. Maybe it was 2015 (9.6 WAR), when he hit .299 with 41 home runs and had his best season via win shares (42). Maybe it was 2016 (10.5), when he won his second MVP award. Maybe it was 2019, when he hit 45 home runs with a 1.083 OPS and won his third MVP trophy, although that season clocks in at just 7.8 WAR. It might have been 2017, except he played just 114 games. It could have been 2021, when he was off to a .333/.466/.624 start in 36 games before the calf injury.
Why it's not: Yes, Trout is the player of the decade, but it's OK to acknowledge the greatest season of the 2010s has to be Mookie Betts in 2018: .346/.438/.640, 32 home runs, 94 extra-base hits, 30 steals, Gold Glove, 10.7 WAR. While Trout hasn't quite done everything at his best in the same season, Betts did -- and beat out Trout for MVP honors. Oh, and Betts won a World Series, as well. Only Mantle in 1956 can make that claim on this list. (Grove and Yastrzemski lost in the World Series.)
Ohtani comparison: Trout is the better all-around hitter -- he hits for a higher average, gets on base at a higher clip -- but Ohtani should top Trout's career high of 45 home runs as well as Troy Glaus' club record of 47. Trout's value is less obvious -- he draws a ton of walks! -- while Ohtani's combination of power and power pitching is more in your face, more spectacular. That's an important contrast.