Folks, it is Ruth, and it is not close. Statistically... Ruth was incomparable.. http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/ruthba01.shtml. The man had a career OPS of 1.164, with a .690 slg and .474 obp. Not in his best year. read more
I love Ichiro, and 2001 was one of the best couple of years from his Hall of Fame career, but Barry Bonds’ 2001 is one of the top 10 seasons of all time. He batted an insane .328/.515/.863 triple slash line (compared to Ichiro’s .350/.381/.457), and no amount of baserunning or defensive gap between the two could possibly make up for that raw offensive output difference. read more
Edit: Ichiro's lowest OPS in NPB was .926, his lowest batting average was .342. Ichiro's highest OPS in MLB was .869, his highest average was .372 (which whilst impressive for MLB, he has outdone twice in his 7 full years in NPB) To dismiss how NPB would inflate a player's stat would not be wise. read more