Milestone Tweeners
As every baseball fan not living under a rock knows, Ken Griffey Jr. hit his 600th home run last night, putting him in a category with just Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, and Sammy Sosa. Griffey is currently being managed by Dusty Baker, who previously managed Bonds and Sosa and played alongside Aaron, which is eerily interesting in its own right.
Griffey did not play in much of the Reds/Phillies four game series last week, while stuck on 599, but between 599 and 600 he remained pretty productive, posting the following milestone tweener numbers:
Griffey Between: 6-14, 3 2B, 9 BB, .429/.652/.643, 1.295 OPS
With that in mind I decided to take a look at how the 600 Club sans-Ruth performed in between certain milestones.
Willie Mays: 599 on 9/15/69, 600 on 9/22/69
Between: 7-21, 2B, 2 RBI, .333/.391/.381
Sammy Sosa: 599 on 6/15/07, 600 on 6/20/07
Between: 0-13, 5 K
Barry Bonds: 599 on 8/6/02, 600 on 8/9/02
Between: 3-8, 2B, 5 BB, .375/.700/.500
Barry Bonds: 659 on 4/5/04, 660 on 4/12/04
Between: 4-17, 2B, RBI, 7 BB, .235/.458/.235
Barry Bonds: 699 on 9/12/04, 700 on 9/17/04
Between: 3-9, 2B, RBI, .333/.571/.444
Barry Bonds: 713 on 5/7/06, 714 on 5/20/06
Between: 4-29, 2B, 2 RBI, .138/.400/.172
Barry Bonds: 754 on 7/27/07, 755 on 8/4/07
Between: 2-18, 10 BB, .111/.444/.111
Barry Bonds: 755 on 8/4/07, 756 on 8/7/07
Between: 2-5, 2B, .400/.571/.600
Griffey’s milestone tweener plate appearances produced the highest OPS of this group. Granted, Babe Ruth’s gamelogs are not easily available, and he may have out-OPSd Griffey between some of his milestones but, as a devout baseball fan, regardless of these numbers, I cannot help but wish some of what Dave discussed this morning actually came true.
Eric is an accountant and statistical analyst from Philadelphia. He also covers the Phillies at Phillies Nation and can be found here on Twitter.
It’s not worth bringing up very often, due to Griffey’s ~normal BABIP this year, but Griffey has been somewhat unlucky in his own right. Felix Pie robbed him of a clear home run earlier this year, and I’m fairly certain he was robbed of another within two weeks of that grab. Since I can’t find the other clip, it is somewhat worth nothing that the one single home run that he didn’t get would have put Griffey’s line (not including today’s game) at .264/.369/.433, good enough for an .802 OPS.
This means nothing, clearly, as I’m sure that many other people have been robbed of home runs this year. But it does illustrate that while his fielding may be abysmal, he still has the potential to make a good DH, especially if his HR/FB rises, which I personally believe it will because the robbed homerun(s) affect the ratio and I don’t believe his power is gone.
An .802 OPS in Cincinnati from a guy who can’t run or field is not the qualifications for a good anything. There are a handful of better players than Griffey in Triple-A who are more qualified to DH for an AL team than Junior is.
…Okay.
“his fielding may be abysmal”
“…especially if his HR/FB rises, which I personally believe it will because the robbed homerun(s) affect the ratio and I don’t believe his power is gone.”
I did not make any blasphemous statements here, I’m not sure why your comment needed to be so terse, especially since you seemed to ignore the above two quotes. You are not moderating 250 comments here, there is no reason to be rude, especially since you could easily not comment at all.
And to respond to your comment:
I’m clearly not saying he can field or run, so I will ignore that part of your post since it is irrelevant. What I’m saying is that an .802 OPS is not awful, and if he had an .802 OPS so far this year, the idea that a HR/FB increase (that I personally think can still happen) would make him a valuable hitter is still possible. Since I think there is a chance that the perception of a loss of power, which is tied into both the robbed home runs and the low OPS, may be incorrect. So if he can bump his HR/FB% to what it was last year, which is still much lower than it used to be, his OPS has the potential to raise to .850+, possibly more, making him a useful DH.
Will it? Probably not. But there are at least a few signs of hope that his days as a useful hitter (~.875 OPS) are not over, even though his days as a useful player – especially in the NL due to his terrible defense and running ability – are long gone.
With the injury risk, the not-so-splendid personality (allegedly) and the rather high price tag, why?
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