Chicago Cubs: Cooperstown will eventually welcome Sammy Sosa

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SCOTTSDALE, AZ – FEBRUARY 27: Barry Bonds #25 of the San Francisco Giants talks with Sammy Sosa #21 of the Chicago Cubs before a spring training game on February 27, 2003 in Scottsdale, Arizona. The game was rained out. (Photo by Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images) /

Sosa was, simply, one of the best-ever

This wasn’t a flash-in-the-pan power performance. From 1998 to 2002, a five-year span, Sosa averaged 58 home runs and 141 runs batted in to go along with a .306/.397/.649 slash-line.

During that stretch, he finished in the top 10 in National League MVP voting each year – and with good reason. Just once (2002), his OPS fell under 1.000 in a single year. But what made Sosa even more remarkable is the fact he averaged 157 games per year over this stretch. It wasn’t just that he was dominating the game – but he did so on a daily basis.

But a lot of people don’t remember this stretch. Why? Barry Bonds. And, if you put these two side-by-side, it doesn’t make sense. I guess that’s why they say hindsight is 20-20.

Sosa (98-02) – .306/.397.649 – 292 HR – 705 RBI – 461 BB – 807 K
Bonds (98-02) – .314/.478/.714 – 239 HR – 558 RBI – 695 BB – 371 K

It’s not as if one of these men is leaps and bounds ahead of the other. Sosa has Bonds in both home runs and runs batted in. But, as we all know, Bonds drew more walks than any other player in baseball history. He controlled the zone – and ruthlessly punished mistakes left in the zone.

Sosa was a free-swinger. I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. While he did, indeed, rack up the strikeouts, he still put up a near-.400 OBP. I’ll take that with 60 homers a year any day of the week.

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