Thursday, December 16, 2010
Born 15,000 days ago . . .
Posted by Chris JaffeOne of the best players in recent times entered the world 15,000 days ago today. It's a man who played in four decades and with three teams (though one for only a very short time).
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Griffey: now with almost three times as many days alive as total bases bashed out. |
It's Ken Griffey Jr., who is now almost exactly half as old as Whitey Ford. I don't know if younger readers out there in THT-land even know how big he was during his 1990s Mariners heyday, and frankly I'm probably not a good person to tell them. He was a terrific hitter who played great defense in an up-the-middle position, and the media and advertisers loved him. Conventional wisdom regarded him much better than Barry Bonds. That wasn't accurate, but that's life. Griffey was actually a better power hitter in his 20s than Bonds.
Hindered by injures (he ran into too many walls), Griffey became a shell of himself after 2000. Still a heckuva player, but not nearly the force of nature who hit 438 homers with a nearly .300 average before his 31st birthday.
Despite being with Cincinnati for his downward years, he still ranks 34th all-time in Wins Above Replacement (and 19th among position players) for that pre-expansion franchise. He's also No. 1 all-time with the Mariners, narrowly edging out Edgar Martinez: 67.5 to 67.2.
Obviously, it helps to be No. 1 for a franchise if you play on one of the youngest franchises, but Griffey's 67.5 would be the No. 1 WAR in the history of the Dodger franchise (leader: Pee Wee Reese at 66.7). That's not only a pre-expansion franchise, but a pretty good one—even if it is the only pre-expansion team to never have a player top Griffey's 67.5 WAR. (I know WAR isn't perfect, but it is convenient, and it's worth noting that there's no member of Dodger history whose on-field accomplishments with that club were inarguably superior to what Griffey did in Seattle. And, yes, I only threw in the adjective "on-field" to neutralize Jackie Robinson's considerable pioneering credit).
By WAR, here are the best players for each of the expansion franchises, ordered by best to worst WAR (looking only at WAR attained for that club):
KCR 85.0 WAR - George Brett
HOU 79.9 WAR - Jeff Bagwell
MIL 76.9 WAR - Robin Yount
NYM 75.8 WAR - Tom Seaver
SDP 68.4 WAR - Tony Gwynn
SEA 67.5 WAR - Ken Griffey Jr.
COL 57.9 WAR - Todd Helton
TOR 53.6 WAR - Dave Stieb
LAA 49.2 WAR - Chuck Finley
TEX 48.6 WAR - Ivan Rodriguez
ARI 45.1 WAR - Randy Johnson
FLA 29.1 WAR - Hanley Ramirez
TBR 26.1 WAR - Carl Crawford
As long as I'm on WAR-kick, the following would be the all-time WAR team for the Mariners (looking only at their WAR attained while in Seattle):
C Dan Wilson
1B Alvin Davis
2B Bret Boone
SS Alex Rodriguez
3B Adrian Beltre
RF Ichiro Suzuki
CF Ken Griffey Jr.
LF Jay Buhner
DH Edgar Martinez
SP Randy Johnson
SP Jamie Moyer
SP Felix Hernandez
SP Mark Langston
SP Freddy Garcia
RP J. J. Putz
RP Jeff Nelson
RP Bill Swift
RP Arthur Rhodes
RP Michael Jackson
Griffey doesn't make an all-time Reds team, but he arguably belongs on an all-star team of LIVING current/former Reds. Center field belongs to either Griffey Jr. or Eric Davis. Going solely by WAR, here's the all-living Reds:
C Johnny Bench
1B Tony Perez
2B Joe Morgan
SS Barry Larkin
3B Pete Rose
RF Frank Robinson
CF Eric Davis (narrowly tops Ken Griffey Jr at Cincy WAR, 29.4 to 23.7, so Griffey joins Davey Concepcion and Adam Dunn on the bench)
LF George Foster
SP Jim Maloney
SP Jose Rijo
SP Gary Nolan
SP Mario Soto
SP Jim O'Toole
RP John Franco
RP Clay Carroll
RP Rob Dibble
RP Jeff Shaw
RP Scott Williamson
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail. Oh, and now he's on twitter.