[Lordstan]

I've been watching this debate from the sidelines and have decided to chime in.

Let's compare Bonds to Ruth, since that is the example used before.

Comparison from start of career to age 32. This is approximately the year before Bonds started using steroids.
Player From To Yrs WAR G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG SB CS OPS+
Ruth 1914-27 14 127.3 1501 4959 1283 1731 341 98 416 1265 1221 832 .349 .480 .709 92 85 214
Bonds 1986-97 12 94.1 1742 6069 1244 1750 359 56 374 1094 1227 958 .288 .408 .551 417 118 162

Comparison from age 33 to the end of their careers
Player From To Yrs WAR G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG SB CS OPS+
Ruth 1928-35 8 62.7 1002 3440 891 1142 165 38 298 948 841 498 .332 .465 .662 31 32 195
Bonds 1998-07 10 77.7 1244 3778 983 1185 242 21 388 902 1331 581 .314 .496 .697 97 23 209


Totals
Player From To Yrs WAR G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG SB CS OPS+
Ruth 1914-35 22 190.0 2503 8399 2174 2873 506 136 714 2213 2062 1330 .342 .474 .690 123 117 206
Bonds 1986-07 22 171.8 2986 9847 2227 2935 601 77 762 1996 2558 1539 .298 .444 .607 514 141 181

When you look at the splits, it certainly appears that the steroids increased things more than a little bit for Bonds. In 2 less years he hit 14 more HRs, BA went up 26 points, OBP went up 90points(mostly due to walks as people wouldn't pitch to him with all the HRs he was hitting), and slugging went up 147 points. This discrepancy is even more exaggered when you realize he only played 14g in 2005, so all of these stats were done in 9, not 10, seasons
It's seems hard to say that the steroids only helped him a couple of BA points and 30- 35 total HR. He was getting better when 99% of MLers get slower and less productive.

Here is a list of other notables WAR scores from age 32 and up. The last column is their total WAR before age 32.

Player From To Yrs 33up <32

Babe Ruth 1928-1935 8 62.7 127.3
Barry Bonds 1998-2007 10 77.7 94.1
Ted Williams 1952-1960 9 39.1 86.2
Lou Gehrig 1936-1939 4 22.3 96.1
Jimmie Foxx 1941-1945 4 5.2 90
Willie Mays 1964-1973 10 57.6 97.1
Hank Aaron 1967-1976 10 44.3 97.3
Mel Ott 1942-1947 6 18.0 91.3
Frank Robinson 1969-1976 8 27.5 79.9
Ken Griffey 2003-2010 8 3.1 75.5
Ty Cobb 1920-1928 9 40.8 118.7
Tris Speaker 1921-1928 8 41.2 91.7
Cap Anson 1885-1897 13 54.8 44.5
Honus Wagner 1907-1917 11 63.0 71.5
Pete Rose 1974-1986 13 23.3 52.0
Paul Waner 1936-1945 10 19.0 54.8
Stan Musial 1954-1963 10 38.2 89.6
Paul Molitor 1990-1998 9 29.7 45.1
Nap Lajoie 1908-1916 9 33.7 70.5
Sam Crawford 1913-1917 5 15.6 61.0
George Brett 1986-1993 8 17.1 67.9
Only three players had their WAR drop by less than half, Cap Anson( who went up for some reason), Honus Wagner, and Bonds.
All these other great players had their WAR pretty low after age 32. Only Wagner and Ruth are close, and his dropped from 127, less than half of what it was the first half of his career. This probably would've been an even bigger difference if Ruth'sfirst 4yrs weren't pitching. Bonds' dropped less than 20pts.

A few more interesting items.
Bonds won no gold gloves after he started taking steroids.
Bonds stole over 400bases before roids and only 97 after.
Also interesting to note is that's Ruth's overall WAR is first (Bonds is second) despite the first 4yrs of his career being a pitcher.

Even if the contention that Bonds didn't get better with the roids is true, I think it's certainly clear that he was able to maintain his peak productivity for a number of years longer that would be expected. This certainly inflated his overall numbers. i don't think he would've gotten anywhere close to 700HR without them.

Lastly, we can debate back and forth forever about who was better, but we'll never be able to compare them directly because Bonds CHEATED. It doesn't matter why. He used steroids. It also doesn't matter that others did it as well. I don't excuse bad behavior by pointing to other bad behavior. How many less of this, or more of that, he would've had is purely speculation.
Bonds can never be the greatest in my mind, no matter what the numbers are, because he cheated. Game. Set. Match!