ZiPS Time Warp: Ken Griffey Jr.

Ken Griffey Jr. is not a typical candidate for a ZiPS Time Warp. Over his 22 years in the majors, from his time as a rookie phenom in 1989 to his sleepy denouement in his return to Seattle, we accumulated as many memories of Griffey as he did accolades. And unlike Eric Davis and possibly Joe Mauer, the earlier subjects of this series, Griffey’s injury struggles in his 30s did not rob him of a spot in Cooperstown; he was elected easily on his first ballot with 99.3% of the vote.

But we could have gotten even more baseball from Griffey than we did.

In the 80s, when fans talked about “Ken Griffey,” they were still talking about Ken Griffey père, then a veteran outfielder whose career featured stints with the Reds, Yankees, Braves, and Mariners, who was wrapping up his Hall of Very Good career. But by the 90s, it was Junior’s turn. When sportswriters of that decade named batters who could challenge Hank Aaron‘s home run record, Griffey was typically the protagonist, not the eventually successful Barry Bonds. Just as Juan Soto and Ronald Acuña Jr. are phenoms for young baseball fans today, Griffey was the start for younger Gen-Xers like myself and for older millennials. Junior always felt special, a player drafted out of high school with the first pick of the 1987 draft, the son of a famous player, an outfielder blessed with the coincidence of being born in Stan Musial’s hometown, on Musial’s 49th birthday.

With so many expectations riding on him and the sudden transition to becoming a professional baseball player as a teenager, Griffey’s career almost ended tragically before it had begun — he attempted suicide in early 1988, swallowing 277 aspirin and ending up intensive care. Thankfully, he never made such an attempt again, and his personal struggles didn’t prevent him from terrorizing minor league pitchers in the summer of 1988, earning him a promotion to Double-A by the end of the season.

Griffey was arguably the most famous prospect ever and when Upper Deck released its first set of baseball cards in 1989, it was Griffey who was No. 1 in the set, a spot traditionally reserved for a more established star. At age 19, he started the 1989 season with the Mariners and while his .264/.329/.420, 16 home run, 2.5 WAR rookie season didn’t constitute instant stardom — another personal favorite of mine, Gregg Olson, was the AL Rookie of the Year — it was an amazing season for a teenager.

His name recognition in pop culture was probably greater than that of any player in a similar position today. In The Simpsons, when C. Montgomery Burns needed a center fielder for his team of ringers (his first choice being Harry Hooper, who was 105-years-old and dead), it was Griffey who he turned to for fill out a lineup mostly made up of veteran superstars. Oh, and Steve Sax.

Junior eventually recovered from his animated form and spent the next decade building an easy Hall of Fame case in Seattle. Through 1999, his age-29 season, Griffey had already collected 1742 hits, 398 homers, and 68.5 WAR, the latter number already Cooperstown-worthy and 13th all-time among position players for that age. He wasn’t lacking in traditional baseball hardware, either, with an MVP trophy (and MVP votes in all but two seasons), 10 Gold Gloves, seven Silver Sluggers, and an All-Star appearance for every year of the 90s.

The Aaron approach pattern seemed to be right on-target. Griffey’s 398 homers by the end of his 20s was the most in baseball history, ahead of Aaron’s direct pace by 56. (Alex Rodriguez would eventually take the top spot on this list, but his 148 home runs through 1999 (his age-23 season) weren’t yet enough.)

Beating Aaron was no easy task. The Kid had to get ahead of Aaron’s pace because the Braves mainstay had an impressive late-career kick, hitting 413 home runs after his 20s, eventually surpassing Babe Ruth. Griffey wasn’t going to cruise his way to the home run crown, but 755 didn’t look insurmountable.

Nearing free agency, Griffey was reportedly happy with the contract terms offered by the Mariners, but just wasn’t sure he wanted to stay in Seattle. Living in Orlando and unhappy with Safeco Field, Griffey was hoping for a trade to a contending team that played spring training in Florida, which would give him another month at home every year. The story of the Griffey trade is a whole book in itself, and I can’t narrate the tale better than Tom Verducci did for Sports Illustrated, so you should go read that.

Woody Woodward, the general manager of the Mariners, had little interest in trading Griffey, so the task fell to the next GM, Pat Gillick, and team president Howard Lincoln.

[Woody] Woodward retired after the [1999] season, remaining true to the words he repeated to Cincinnati general manager Jim Bowden on the three or four occasions every season when Bowden would ask, “When are you going to trade me Griffey?” Woodward would say, “I’m not going to be remembered as the guy who traded Ken Griffey Jr.”

That distinction would fall to 62-year-old Pat Gillick, Woodward’s successor. In November, Gillick and Mariners CEO Howard Lincoln flew to Orlando to meet with Griffey. The outfielder did not want any more offers. He wanted out. He told Gillick and Lincoln he preferred to be traded rather than play the last season of his contract in Seattle. As a player with 10 years of major league service, including at least the past five with his current team, Griffey had the right to veto any trade. He gave the Mariners a list of four teams he would consider playing for. He listed them in his order of preference: Braves, Reds, Astros and New York Mets.

Long story short, the Reds ended up winning, as you probably know. The team had a lot to offer — the team played in the Grapefruit League at the time and Cincinnati was where he’d spent a lot of childhood. He even took a below-market contract, something the Reds quite appreciated!

Unfortunately, Griffey’s story in Cincinnati strayed from the fairy tale route. His first season with the Reds was fairly typical for him, a .271/.387/.556, 40 homer, 5.4 WAR campaign. But Griffey only played 140 games twice more during the rest of his career, regularly missing significant time to injury. From 2001 to 2004, he tore a hamstring on three occasions, the last being a full rupture that required extensive surgery to remedy.

Griffey still hit home runs when he was healthy. His 232 homers over the rest of his career was a perfectly respectable total that, at the time, was in the top 50 for players in their 30s and beyond. But that wasn’t enough to catch Aaron, Ruth, or Mays, which felt like a letdown for those of us who hoped Griffey would finish his career as a contender for the best player ever. He was also no longer the complete player he once was, becoming more one-dimensional as his once highlight-reel defense deteriorated rapidly with his speed. The Reds didn’t force the issue after he became inadequate in center and the Mariners didn’t force him to designated hitter, resulting in Griffey only having a single two-win season after 2000. He was below replacement-level in both of those remaining 140-game seasons.

So, just how likely was Griffey to catch Aaron, really? To find out, I consulted the ZiPS projections for Griffey as of the time of his trade. In this scenario, I’ve left Griffey with the Reds, which would have been more likely to happen if his stint in Cincy had been a happier one (and he if hadn’t presumably ached for a proper bowl of chili):

Contrary to popular wisdom, while Griffey was unlucky when it came to injuries, he wasn’t that unlucky. The 30s tend to be a time of decline and reduced playing time; that Aaron was so resilient doesn’t mean he was likely to have been so. In terms of home runs, ZiPS projects an over/under safely under Aaron’s total and even a little under Ruth’s 714. ZiPS projects a 25% chance of catching Aaron, which is impressive for such a difficult feat. But 297 homers vs. 232 homers is hardly a significant miss for a player’s decline phase. Simply put, the odds were always a bit longer than us Griffeyphiles believed in our hearts.

Where the injuries robbed us — and Griffey — was in the speed with which they diminished him as a complete player. Notice the giant misses in stolen bases (126 projected vs. 17) and how quickly he actually declined in defense, leading ZiPS to believe nearly 30 wins are missing from Griffey’s career. 105.1 wins would have landed him 17th all-time (A-Rod passed Griffey later on), nestled between Rickey Henderson and Frank Robinson. His actual number — 77.7 wins — is enough for 41st right now, but that’s not enough to satisfy our greed!

We were extremely fortunate to see as much of Ken Griffey Jr. as we did. A little more, however, would have been nice, and a decade of stardom in Cincinnati would have allowed a whole new generation to experience the phenom that we were able to see. One of my favorite quotes — the one I currently intend to have on my eventual epitaph — is Orson Welles’ on the subject of happy endings.

“If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.”

All-in-all, the story of Ken Griffey Jr.’s career in baseball was a happy one. That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have been nice to be able to edit the later chapters.