The Giants have opened up a solid lead in the NL West and have the third best record in the NL. It’s been nearly five full seasons since Barry Bonds, the greatest generator of positive sabermetric statistics since Babe Ruth, was left unsigned by the Giants (or anyone else), after an historic 15-year run in San Francisco. As far as winning games is concerned, the Giants have barely lost a beat since Barry left. Some comparative win-loss numbers and other team stats after the jump.
Over all the games in which Barry played for the Giants, regular season and post-season combined, San Francisco put up a record of 1,076 wins and 927 losses. That’s a win-loss percentage of .537. I did not include any Giants games in which Barry did not play, even if he was on the roster.
Beginning with the 2008 season, the Giants have played entirely without Barry Bonds. Over the period from Opening Day 2008 through yesterday’s games, the Giants have won 415 regular season games and lost 368, and have a post season record of 11 wins and 4 losses. That makes for an overall post-Bonds record of 426 wins and 372 losses — which means a post-Bonds win-loss percentage of .534 compared with that .537 in the games in which Bonds played. That’s a tiny, tiny difference. If the post-Bonds Giants had won at exactly the same rate as they did when they had Barry in the game, they would have won 428 or 429 games over the past five years instead of 426. It is fair to say that the Giants (who of course won the World Series without Barry that they never succeeded in winning with him) have successfully moved on.
It’s true that the Giants have been a very different kind of team without Bonds:
1993-2007
Average NL Scoring per Game: 4.66 runs
Average SF Runs Scored Per Game: 4.82
Average SF Runs Allowed Per Game: 4.62
2008-2012
Average NL Scoring per Game: 4.34 runs
Average SF Runs Scored Per Game: 4.03
Average SF Runs Allowed Per Game: 3.93
But although San Francisco has been a different kind of team since the end of the Bonds era, it has been no less successful at winning games.