Griffey misses cut at Pro-Am, available contract-signing
Remember when people were concerned that he’d be playing golf today and it might throw off his schedule?
With a score of 207, he and Jason Bohn missed the cut. By eight strokes.
Other non-athletes who get to claim they’re better at golf than Griffey:
Greg Kinnear (201)
George Lopez (201)
Justin Timberlake (204)
Chris “You’re with me, Leather” Berman (202)
Stone Phillips (202)
Patrick Warburton (206)
Huey Lewis (200)
Rick Reilly (200) (did he keep asking other players for urine samples he could test?)
Carson Daily (200)
Bill Murray (200)
Former Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth (200)
Michael Bolton (205)
Michael Bolton!!!!!
And still playing:
Kenny G! Kenny G gets to gloat to Michael Bolton about their relative performance in a sporting event!
Wheel of Griffey stories continues
That Ken Griffey Jr.-to-Seattle reunion isn’t a foregone conclusion just yet.
Two baseball sources told ESPN.com on Saturday that the Atlanta Braves are making a late play for Griffey and have begun discussing money with his agent.
Pfffffffffft. Unless Griffey doesn’t show up in Seattle for his physical Monday or Tuesday, I’m not going to put any stock in this. I don’t know if it’s chatter, or if his agent wants to put some doubt into the situation to try and extract another million out of the M’s at the last moment, or what.
But really, if they call the M’s back and say “Hey, you heard the Braves are interested, right? And spring training works out better for him… but if we go to $5m, he’d prefer to be in Seattle.” The Mariners should say “Hold on, we’ve got Anderson on line two…” and then hang up.
Projecting new Mariner Griffey’s offense
Some people sure are impatient. Here’s a reader email from today:
Subject: put your money where youre keyboard is
If your SO confident that Griffey is going to be a bust… why not
make your stat prediction on his 2009 season.. and when you’re
wrong… shut your negative “I know best” additude down, and start
writing about dog shows or something, ya hack!!I say this because I can see (just in the last 2 days from my reading)
your still bashing your forum members, calling them names, and
censoring their opinions just like you always have.. does your high
horse get tired from time to time?
As always, reader service is our #1 priority here at USSM.
Let me start with the obvious stuff, and then get into refinements. Over the last three years, Griffey’s averaged 132 games a season, 482 at-bats, and put up about a .260/.350/.470 line, which is a little over league average but not that good for a corner outfielder (2008 AL LFers hit .271/.350/.453, NL .267/.336/.430). His speed on the basepaths is entirely gone now, along with any remnant of defensive value. So the team’s not going to get any value out of sticking him left part-time.
And as we’ve mentioned before, left-handed pitchers have owned him for years. You really don’t want him out there against southpaws if there’s any way to avoid it (last year, he hit .202/.299/.350).
There’s good news there, though. Here’s his split v. RHP for the last three years
2006: .278/.346/.523
2007: .300/.402/.540
2008: .272/.379/.462
That’s where you want to get your value: 400 or so quality plate appearances against right-handed pitching.
The problem is Griffey’s been on a pretty steep decline these last few years, and headed into a year-39 season, there’s no reason to think that he’ll do much better. His 2005 was easily the best season he’d put up since 2000, and that performance is three years of injuries in the past. That was a .300/.369/.576, which is certainly impressive. But that’s it — his other seasons have been shortened when they weren’t generally unremarkable.
Now, I was going to present a whole series of small graphs on the decline of his power stats, but from the Ken Griffey player page, here’s the Fangraphs ISO chart, which is great:
The bat’s not coming back. A resurgence will only get you so far. Even when the knee was good, the offensive decline was trouble. Moving from a hitter-friendlier parks to Safeco Field isn’t going to help his raw stats, either.
Anyway, back to the point. Here’s what I’m hoping for: Griffey’s a pure DH against RHP. He gets 400 good plate appearances and is a solid contributor to the offense, hitting .270/.360/.465 or something along those lines — 15-20 home runs. I’ll point out too that it’s really, really hard to hit the 30+ home runs I’ve seen people want to get out of a healthy, happy Griffey without having play full time and hit lefties, and he hasn’t been able to do the former often and hasn’t done the latter for a long time.
That’s a pretty effective replacement for Ibanez’s bat (Raul hit .293/.358/.479 last year), and we’d all be happy with it.
Now to poke at the best case a bit. That plan requires Griffey to be healthy for a whole year, to be a part-time DH, not playing the outfield at all, and to only decline a little. To deal with these in order:
If Griffey’s not healthy and misses stretches or his performance is hampered, his value declines quickly because they’re already platooning for him. We’re also giving him the benefit of the knee story, and hoping that he’s 100% effective and the power comes back as much as it can. You can assign your own value to how likely the best-case-healthy-Griffey is.
If Griffey bats against left-handers, he’s probably going to stink (you never know, right, small sample sizes and everything) and those outs will take away from the value contributed the rest of the time. Plus, extra playing time might not be the best thing for keeping him healthy.
If he plays the outfield at all, he’ll be killing the team.
We’ve seen this, right? Griffey’s way out on the margins of player age already. Hitting is amazingly hard. But at his age, with that decline, with his injury history, collapse is a risk. There’s probably a 25% chance Griffey ends up sucking way more than I expect, grinding through the season hitting .250/.325/.410 with every game a little more painful to play and watch.
Now, what do you think the chance he hits the best-case numbers is? 25%-40% he hits .270/.360/.465, a 10% chance he does better, then 25%-40% he does somewhat worse, and a 25% chance he finishes out the ugly .250/.325/.410 year.
I really want to believe in the best-case.
Holy crud Fields signs
I seriously thought we’d end up letting him go and taking the extra draft pick.
Griffey: still coming
Yesterday:
We know it, you know it, Griffey knows it. There’s no need to post every rumor escalation in every thread.
This was followed by a spate of posts on the Times, PI, other places about the various states of negotiation etc etc… look, he’s coming. He’ll take the physical Monday, if he passes, they’ll have a press conference Tuesday or Wednesday. Maybe he takes the physical Tuesday. Nothing’s changed.
Our Griffey Opinion, Summarized
This story is going to dominate the Seattle baseball news for the next few days, and I’m sure we’re going to get a lot of non-regular traffic, so let me just summarize what we think of the Griffey signing.
1. As a short term, low money deal where he realizes he’s going to be DH and potentially be platooned, it doesn’t have a huge impact on the team one way or another. He can still be a useful hitter against RHPs, and we recognize that there’s a significant portion of the fanbase that really wants to see Junior play in Seattle again for reasons other than wanting the team to win. It will probably generate a decent amount of revenue for the club. For the amount of money that they had in the budget, there probably weren’t any better options.
2. Griffey in the outfield is a really bad idea. His age and injuries have robbed him of all range, and he’s worse out there than Ibanez was. In a perfect world, he’ll get exactly 0 innings in left field this year. He’s a DH only, unless he wants to teach himself to play first base.
3. If the Mariners are surprising everyone and contending in July, and Junior is hitting .260/.320/.400, the organization has to be willing to put him on the bench and make the move to bring in a better player. Likewise, if Clement’s knee prevents him from catching, Junior has to be willing to step aside and let the kid DH. He has to be okay with the fact that he’s not guaranteed a job regardless of how he plays. There are several situations that could arise that would involve the best decision for the team being Junior becomes a bench player. That has to be okay with him.
If the team can manage those variables, then it’s a decent enough move. As a LH platoon DH, he’s an okay player. They have to make sure he doesn’t want to play every day, never get pinch hit for, and try to play left field, though. In those scenarios, he’s hurting the team, and they’d be better off without him.
Yes, Griffey’s coming
We know it, you know it, Griffey knows it. There’s no need to post every rumor escalation in every thread.
This would be a fine comment thread to post them in, now that I think about it.
Your handy guide to next week’s storylines
- The Kid returns an adult: Griffey is older, wiser
- More than just a sentimental move: Griffey to provide veteran left-handed power in the middle of the lineup
- Seattle welcomes a grown up Junior
- Return of the Prodigal Son: a long journey brings the Kid back to his roots
- Once the carefree Kid, Griffey returns to mentor a young Mariner team
- Healthy and with something to prove, Griffey seeks to rekindle flame
- In a sport wracked by steroid scandals, Griffey’s joy is a fan’s last refuge
- Junior moves in with his parents, to the house he built
- After years of horror, Griffey gives M’s fans something to smile about
- Griffey brings back memories of the glory years
- Junior looks to contribute in different way
- Familiar smile brings light to a dark clubhouse
- Hall of Fame career that began here may come to a fitting close
- Warm welcome helped convince Griffey to return
- “I always hoped to return to Seattle,” Griffey says.
- Griffey fails physical, deal to return appears dead
What am I missing?
Nick Johnson Requests A Trade
Mariner Fans Request Nick Johnson.
Link here – Johnson wants a shot to play regularly, which he won’t get in Washington now that they’ve signed Dunn to play first base.
Seriously, he’s perfect for the Mariners. Perfect. Yes, he has injury problems – those are obviously well documented. But the M’s aren’t a team that need a low ceiling, low risk player to fill out the roster and give them line-up stability. The M’s are in a position where a healthy Johnson could transform the line-up, but an injured Johnson wouldn’t be a big deal.
He projects out as something like a +3.5 to +4.5 win player over a full season. If he gets 600 PAs, he’d be about as valuable as Ichiro, Beltre, or Felix. That’s the kind of upside he brings.
Now, the odds of him getting 600 PA are extremely slim. He’s only done it once in his career, and he hasn’t really played for two years now. So, obviously, the playing time projection has to be pretty conservative. So maybe Johnson will only be worth +1.5 to +2 wins while playing half a season – that’s okay too.
The M’s have a large group of players on the roster they want to give at-bats too. With his health problems, you can be sure that he’s going to leave PAs available for Clement, Branyan, Balentien, Shelton, etc… This isn’t the kind of acquisition where you’re having to displace someone who you want to give a shot to. Adding Johnson to the mix simply gives the team a boost when he’s healthy and lets them play the younger kids when he’s not.
Nick Johnson would be a better acquisition than Abreu, Dunn, Griffey, Anderson, or any other LH bat the M’s have been considering. We’ve loved your entire off-season so far, Jack – bring us Nick Johnson and we might just throw a parade.
Why pay?
This turns up in Hickey’s latest entry @ the PI, and I’ve seen it elsewhere, that the M’s don’t have the money to sign Griffey or Garret Anderson, but they might do a deal with a lot of deferred money. Here’s Hickey:
Technically speaking, the Mariners don’t have the payroll to fit either man into the payroll at the pay level they might otherwise expect. But with some creative accounting – read that to mean lots of deferred money, it’s a good bet that a deal for one or the other will come down in the next few days.
Why? Abreu got $5m in base salary and you’d much rather have him than either of those two. The remaining market is pretty much no one. Why give Garret or Griffey a ton of money because it’s what they’re accustomed to? Why defer money?
If they want, the M’s can call both sets of agents, say “We have one contract here for $2m base and $1m at 400 PA and another $1m at 500 PA. The first person to say yes gets it. Second prize is you retire.”
We’ve seen the market crater this off-season. There’s no reason to overpay.