The Greatest CF Ever?

The Kid always had that swagger. He had the smile, wore his hat backwards, and had one of the smoothest swings in the history of the game. He defined a generation of ballplayers, often being the yin to Barry Bonds yang, and the end result will be his enshrinement in the Hall of Fame in five years. Of course, I’m talking about Ken Griffey Jr.

My first recollection of Griffey isn’t a homer or a catch to rob one, but going to the local ball card shop with my brother and friend in 1989. My brother and I each bought two Upper Deck Griffey cards, while our buddy bought 20 of them at $2 a piece (no joke). I’ve since lost touch with that friend, but hopefully he hung on to all those cards because he’d have made a pretty penny (at the lower end I think they go for $40-50). Why did my friend grab so many rookies of Griffey? He clearly knew what he was doing – slightly ahead of me and my cheapskate ways at the time (I think I bought two boxes of Score cards instead – and that wasn’t a great choice in retrospect).

However, my greatest memories of Griffey obviously emanate not from losing a small fortune, but from his work on the diamond. You’ll see the numbers listed everywhere you read about Griffey the next few days, so I’ll just list them quickly.

630 homers, 5th all-time
1,836 RBI, 14th all-time
1,662 runs, 31st all-time
1,192 extra base hits, 6th all-time
5,271 total bases, 12th all-time

* He was named to 13 All-Star teams including every year from 1990-2000 – the entire decade.

* He won the MVP award in 1997, unanimously. He was awarded 3.20 Career MVP Shares, 27th best of all-time.

* Here might be the most amazing part of the whole deal; Griffey wasn’t just a hitter, he was a sublime fielder who 10-straight Gold Gloves, one for each year of the decade of the 1990′s. Think about that. He won a Gold Glove ever year of the 90′s. Only Roberto Clemente (12) and Willie Mays (12) won more amongst outfielders.

Injuries curtailed Griffey’s career prematurely, and people who only remember the broken down player of the past few years are doing this man a disservice. Just how great was he during his prime? From 1996-1999, there wasn’t a finer player in the game. In that four year period of time he was the MVP once, finished fourth twice, and was 10th on the other occasion. As for the numbers, he never hit fewer than 48 homers, knocked in fewer than 134 runs, scored fewer than 120 or stole fewer than 15 bases in any of those four years. Griffey is therefore the only man in the history of the game to go 48-134-120-15 in 4-straight seasons – and he also won a Gold Glove every season to boot.

But beyond the greatness of his two-way play, beyond the childlike enthusiasm and beyond the fact that he was never embroiled in any off-field issues of any kind until the recent ludicrous story that he was sleeping during a game, there is one salient fact that sets him apart from everyone else he played against – not once has his name ever been linked to performance enhancing drugs.

Now I have no inside knowledge, I wasn’t in the locker room with any of these guys and I don’t share beers with them on a Friday night, so like the rest of you it’s all rumor and supposition about what went on behind closed doors. But as stated, what we do know is that Griffey’s name was never linked to PED’s. Therefore, he just might be the only slugger of his era whose exploits aren’t thought to have been chemically enhanced. Given that, there is nothing to stop Griffey from entering the Hall of Fame on the first ballot.

So, was Griffey the best center fielder in the history of the game? It’s pretty difficult to think that Griffey was as good an all-around player as Willie Mays, and he clearly lacked the outward passion of Ty Cobb, and it’s not like there aren’t two all-time greats who roamed centerfield for the Yankees in Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle. In the end the question will continue to be debated, but I feel completely comfortable in stating that Ken Griffey Jr. was the greatest all-around center fielder this scribe ever had the privilege of watching play the game of baseball, and while that might not mean a thing to Mr. Griffey, it means the world to me.

By Ray Flowers

Wacky Wednesday

Wednesday is a weird day. It’s the middle of the five day work week for most, but for me its just another day (I can’t remember the last time I actually worked only five days in a week). In fact, I can’t remember the last time that I took a real vacation – it’s been years. That signals a couple of things. (1) I’m the best employee of all-time. (2) I need to get a life. (3) I really need to get a girlfriend so I have a reason to take some time off. With that off my chest – I wonder if that was some Freudian comment related to #3? – let me get to some comments about what is going on across the field of baseball on this day.

* Milton Bradley ahs been activated from the restricted list and is back in the lineup on Wednesday for the Mariners. Hopefully he won’t fall asleep in the dugout between innings with Ken Griffey Jr. I put the over/under at a Bradley outburst or injury at nine days.

* Ike Davis will be the Mets’ cleanup hitter for the foreseeable future according to Adam Rubin of ESPN. Makes total sense doesn’t it? I mean Davis is hitting .241 over his last 16 games, has one homer in his last 11 games and has 17 Ks in his last 54 at-bats. Do the Mets ever do anything that makes sense?

* Am I the only person in America who thinks that Chris Berman of ESPN has an expiration date that we are about eight years past?

* Trevor Hoffman will spend the next few days working on his mechanics to see if he can fix whatever in the hell is causing him to look like the best batting practice pitcher in baseball. Quickly, here is what I see. He has allowed 69 percent of batted balls to go in the air, 20 percent above his career rate. Combine that fact with a 20.0 percent HR/F mark, almost triple his career rate (6.7 percent), and it’s easy to see why he has struggled, that and the fact that he has almost doubled his walk rate. He’s actually throwing his fastball at 85.4 mph, a mere tenth of a mile below his career 85.5 percent mark. While people continue to deride the location of his pitches, it is odd to see that the percentage of pitches he has thrown outside the strike zone that have been hit is 66.7 percent, a massive increase over his career rate of 51.6 percent. You could probably get him for nothing at this point, and that’s something I would do since I don’t think he is done being an effective big league hurler. It wouldn’t hurt to pick up Carlos Villanueva though since he should at least get a shot a few saves in the short-term thanks to his 11.76 K/9 rate and 1.06 WHIP over 19 appearances this season.

* What the hell are the Rockies doing with Chris Iannetta? The Rockies claim they have a plan to get the young bopper back in action with the big club, but at this point I’m wondering if that outfit is being led by Elmer Fudd. I mean really. Iannetta is hitting .375 with five homers, 21 RBI and a 1.205 OPS in 14 games in Triple-A. You think he should be in the majors given those numbers? Morons (and yes I’m upset because I have Iannetta wasting away on one of my rosters).

* Freddy Sanchez has been activated from the DL for the Giants. He’ll likely end up being eased back into action. There is no truth to the rumor that the average age of the Giants’ infield will be high enough to get them a senior citizen discount on the Grand Slam breakfast at Denny’s.

By Ray Flowers

Player Movement Thoughts

Finally, we’ve got some baseball news that doesn’t pertain to the World Series. With organizations analyzing where there team stand and what needs to be done to improve their outlook for 2010, here are some of the stories that are currently making the rounds.

The Royals made the odd decision to bring in Josh Fields in a trade with the White Sox despite the fact that they already have a third basemen in Alex Gordon. Does this move signify that the Royals have given up on their former first round draft pick? Apparently not. The team appears set to open the year with Gordon at third base and Fields possibly in the outfield. For more information on the deal that brought Fields to town, given Kyle Elfrink’s blog Royals with Cheese a read.

Curtis Granderson might be available in a trade according to reports. Curtis struggled to his worst performance in the batting average category at .249 in 2009, largely because of an extreme inability to his left-handed pitching (.183 in 180 ABs). Still, the dude has produced an average of 25 homers, 70 RBI, 108 runs and 19 steals the past three years. If you ask me he is totally miscast as a leadoff man but he would profile as a terrific #5 option. Owed “only” $26 million the next three years, one would think he would bring a lot in a deal if the Tigers do indeed decide to move him.

Ken Griffey Jr. will return for one more year with the Mariners after signing an incentive laden one year deal. Griffey, who turns 40 later this month, is coming off an abysmal season of a .214 average, but he did sock 19 homers in 387 ABs. In addition, after striking out 40 times in 230 ABs in the first half he slumped to 40 in 157 ABs after the All-Star break. I hope that the guy has one final season of productivity in that bat of his, but the data seems to suggest otherwise.

Joe Mauer and the Twins have begun the difficult task of working out a contract extension. Mauer has one year left on a deal that will pay him $12.5 million in 2010. The question with Mauer has nothing to do with his skills but whether or not a small market club like the Twins can afford to pay their catcher more than $15 million a year. In fact, it wouldn’t be shocking if Mauer’s representatives started with something like a 5-year, $100 million deal as a jumping off point. Is a catcher worth that amount of loot?

While the Giants would like to bring back Juan Uribe after he hit .289 with 16 homers for the club in under 400-ABs, he could price himself out of the Giants comfort zone with a desire for a big ticket, multi-year deal. As a result, the Giants are in the market for an infielder with some pop. According to Fox Sports they have been in contact with the Marlins about second baseman Dan Uggla who the Marlins appear desperate to move considering that he is on his way to a big pay day in arbitration (possibly upwards of $8-9 million). The Giants already have Freddy Sanchez at second so if they do acquire Uggla it would appear that the team would potentially move Dan to third base resulting in Pablo Sandoval moving across the diamond to first base (the team could also go with Uggla at first and leave Pablo at third). Uggla is a whiff machine, 150 or more the past three years, but he also has gone deep at least 30-times in each of the past three seasons. Do you know how many second baseman in history have hit at least 30-homers 3-straight years? Uggla is the only one. Moreover, Uggla has hit 27 homers with a least 88 RBI and 84 runs in each of his four big league seasons, and no other second baseman in history has accomplished that feat either. In truth, there were only three third basemen in 2009 that went 27-88-84 and they were Evan Longoria, Mark Reynolds and Ryan Zimmerman.

By Ray Flowers

The Case for Jim Thome

Late last week I touched on how I thought it was time that we gave Ken Griffey Jr. more respect than we have of late given the latest performance enhancing drug scandal surrounding Sammy Sosa (you can read all of my thoughts in Death of the Hero?). In that piece I also mentioned, briefly, the name of today’s discussion and that is Jim Thome, who, remarkably unnoticed, has gone about producing one of the most impressive power hitting careers in the history of baseball.

That last statement isn’t hyperbolic in nature by the way. Consider the following data points with Thome.

(1) In his last 12 seasons of at least 400 at-bats, he had only 193 in an injury plagued 2005 campaign, Thome has hit at least 30 home runs.

(2) In those 12 seasons, Thome has knocked in at least 85 runs, and 11 times he has posted at least 90 RBI.

Let’s put those numbers in context.

Thome has 12 seasons of 30 home runs and 85 RBI. That just so happens to be the third most such seasons in baseball history behind only Hank Aaron (14), Mike Schmidt (13) and Babe Ruth (13). Moreover, his total of twelve 30-HR seasons is tied for the fourth most in history (Aaron leads the way here as well with 15).

(3) Thome has averaged, per 162 games in his career, a .278-40-112-107 line. Think about it this way – do you know how many seasons matching all four of those numbers that Albert Pujols has produced in his astounding career? Four. And remember, that is Thome’s average over his career per 162 games.

(4) Thome has always been a remarkable on base machine with a .406 career OBP. Amongst hitters who have accrued at least 3,000 plate appearances in their career that number places Thome in 46th place all-time. By the by, his OBP has been at least .385 in 12 of the past 14 seasons. Ryan Howard has only two seasons above .360 in his career.

(5) Thome is the proud owner of a .559 SLG in his career. Amongst hitters who have accrued at least 3,000 plate appearances in their career that number places Thome in 19th place all-time. Justin Morneau has only one season that high, and it was exactly .559 in 2006.

(6) Thome’s career OPS is a superlative .965, the 18th best mark in league annals for a batter with at least 3,000 plate appearances. Fellow teammate and slugger Jermaine Dye has only one full season where his mark has bettered that when it was 1.006 in 2006.

So when we add that all up, here is what we come up with.

Thome is eighth on my all-time “clean” home run list (you can find the list at the link at the start of the piece), 46th in OBP, 19th in SLG and 18th in OPS. Toss in his 1,459 runs scored that are 73rd all-time and his 1,527 RBI that are 46th all-time, and this is what we have.

Thome is one of just 11 players in baseball history to hit 400 home runs, knock in 1,500 runs, score 1,400 times and post an OPS of at least .950.

Given all that, does Thome deserve to make the Hall of Fame? Being that his power seems nothing more than corn-fed from growing up in the heartland of American (he was born in Illinois), you seriously have to consider the man for enshrinement in the Hall. The biggest negative is the fact that he has functioned as a DH late in his career though in 2,216 career games he has appeared at first base 1,101 times and third base 492 times, so it’s not like he has been a DH only weapon for the majority of his career (to compare Reggie Jackson, who cannot match Thome’s lifetime numbers, is in the Hall despite 630 games at DH versus Thome’s total of 633). If the voters can look past his merely average batting average of .278, and consider that his name has never been linked to performance enhancing drugs, then I think this lefty swinging slugger has a great shot at having a plaque one day in Cooperstown.

By Ray Flowers

Death of the Hero?

Have all the heroes disappeared in the world of baseball? In case you missed it, and how could you, the New York Times has reported that Sammy Sosa tested positive for performance enhancing drugs in 2003 as one of the 104 major leaguers who failed the “confidential” drug testing that led to Major League Baseball instituting a sport wide steroid testing policy that they continue to follow until this day. Do we have proof that this accusation is true? Of course we don’t since the records that are being reported on are secret and that the “source” for the story is anonymous fearing a potentially stiff legal penalty for divulging privileged information. Much like Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez, Sosa never officially failed a major league drug test (the 2003 tests weren’t “official,” that didn’t happen until the following year of 2004 after a high enough percentage of players failed the first test in 2003 to kick in official sanctions), but that certainly won’t help to remove the tarnish that has set in with regards to their legacy.

This whole performance enhancing mess has been discussed ad nauseam, and I have no intention of repeating what has been said in so many corners. I would however like to pose the following question:

Who is the greatest home run hitter in baseball the past 25 years?

Barry Bonds is widely regarded to have cheated during the second half of his career, so he is out.

Sammy Sosa? From a 175 lbs rookie to the cover of Muscle and Fitness magazine with biceps bigger than my thighs. Shocking that he likely cheated.

Mark McGwire? Next.

Rafael Palmeiro? The biggest hypocrite on Earth? I never liked that guy anyway, especially after he did those Viagra commercials and then claimed he didn’t take the product. Yeah, right.

A-Rod? Please. That guy is so phony that he would stand out in a room of fake money in a Secret Service vault (for those of you that don’t know the Secret Service, those folks that run along next to the presidential motorcade with dark glasses an ear microphones, are the branch of government that investigates phony money).

Manny Ramirez? Thought he apparently made it out of the initial barrage clean, his recent test failure certainly casts a huge pale of suspicion over everything he did previously.

So amongst guys who have played the bulk of their careers since 1980, we are left with two names – Jim Thome and Ken Griffey Jr.

As of this writing Thome has 553 home runs, the 13th best mark in baseball history. As for Griffey, his number is 617, so he becomes the king of the modern day home run hitters. In fact, If not for a series of injury filled campaigns from 2001-04, Griffey likely would be closing in on 700-home runs instead of 620. Think I’m full of it?

Consider that Griffey had hit at least 40-home runs each year from 1996-2000. Even if we posit that he would slow a bit with age, let’s cut that number all the way down to a very conservative 30 a season (after all he hit 35 in 2005 when he returned to health), how many extra home runs would he have hit during his four injury filled seasons? In those four seasons Griffey had 1,027 ABs, an average of 257 a year. Given that he averaged 582 the previous five seasons when he was blasting 40 homer a year, let’s again play it conservative and give him 550 at-bats a season at the rate of 30 homers a year. That equates to one home run per 18.33 ABs. If we add an extra 300 at-bats a season, remember he averaged 257 in that time and we are positing 550 a year, that would given him an extra 16.4 home runs a season. 16.4 times four years equals an additional 66 home runs, which when added to his total of 617 brings The Kid up to 683 in his career. Like I said, within shouting distance of becoming just the fourth man in history to record 700 big flies without the aide of artificial stimulants in his career.

We’ll likely never know the truth of who did what, when, but for my money, and face my opinion is the one that counts given that I’m the one penning this article, here is my top-10 list of home run hitters who have ever played the game.

755 – Hank Aaron
714 – Babe Ruth
660 – Willie Mays
617 – Ken Griffey Jr.
586 – Frank Robinson
573 – Harmon Killebrew
563 – Reggie Jackson
553 – Jim Thome
548 – Mike Schmidt
536 – Mickey Mantle

Long live Ken Griffey Jr., truly one of the most complete players, steroid enhanced or otherwise for that matter, who ever played the game of baseball.

By Ray Flowers

The Chosen One?

Like Roy Hobbs straight out of a scene from The Natural, 16 year old Bryce Harper has burst onto the scene. Certainly those scouts that have followed this kids’ development over the past few years are hardly shocked at the rate at which he continues to dazzle everyone who sees him grace the diamonds in his home state of Nevada, but for those of you unaware of the burgeoning legend, he was recent a cover boy on Sports Illustrated, here are some of the highlights.

1- The kid throws a fastball that has been clocked as high as 96 mph. That’s faster than most of the fastballs from Tim Lincecum (his average fastball is 92.4 mph this season.). Don’t worry though, he doesn’t pitch most of the time, he plays catcher.

2- He once reportedly hit a home run 571 feet. Yes, 571 feet. The longest major league home runs that has officially been verified to my knowledge was a 565 foot bomb hit by Mickey Mantle. Oh yeah, Bryce was 15 years old when he that bomb. Fifteen. He also has the longest home run in Tropicana Field history, you know the park where the Rays play their home games. His blast there was a mere 502 feet, though that was only 502 feet because it smacked into the back wall of the stadium. During the home run derby in which he slugged that Ruthian blast he hit six consecutive home runs that traveled an average distance of 469 feet. Must have been the aluminum bat huh?

3- At 16, he already stands 6’3″ and weighs 205 pounds. And don’t even think of steroids, the kid has never touched the stuff and has no need for it.

4- He played for USA Baseball’s under 16 team at the Pan Am Championships in Mexico facing the best players in the world that are his age. All he did in that tournament was hit .571 with four home runs and six stolen bases in eight games to earn tournament MVP honors.

5- Bryce Harper has decided to skip his junior and senior years of high school and take the GED which he will likely pass with flying colors given his 3.5 GPA. Why? So that he can enter junior college in August of this year, and then become eligible for the major league draft in 2010 in which, conceivably, he could become the number one overall pick in the country.

Is he ready for all of this? We can sit here and debate all day whether or not he can handle the pressure, after all he isn’t even old enough to watch an R-rate movie, to vote, or for that matter he is just barely able to drive a motor vehicle. But in this day and age of 15 year old tennis stars, 14 year old Olympians, and tennie boppers in the entertainment world who aren’t even old enough to watch a PG-13 flick, it’s really a bit of a surprise that it has taken this long for someone to be so good in baseball as to push us all to consider just how young is too young (teams routinely sign foreign players at 16 years of age anyway). As for his skill and the change of him a top-5 pick in the 2010 draft, here is one what National League scouting director had to say about Harper.

“I scouted A-Rod, Chipper Jones, Manny [Ramirez], all those guys in high school. God was very, very good to this kid. He’s stronger than they all were in high school. Never mind next year. If he’d been in the draft this year, he would have gone very, very high.”

Oh, and it appears that Harper will be represented by Scott Boras who almost certainly will look to make the argument that Harper is the greatest athlete since modern man crawled out of the Fertile Crescent in Africa some 100,000 years ago.

It will likely end up being a wild ride for this kid. I can only wish him the best and hope that he turns out to be more Ken Griffey Jr. than Todd Van Poppel.

By Ray Flowers