Junior as Hot Potato

Again, in the spirit of college debate, and since the New Zduriencik/Blengino Era inspires us all to comradely disagreement ... :- )

Thusly:

Ken Griffey Jr.'s 2008 season was destroyed by a knee injury.

It's possible, of course - there's no way for us to prove anything either way - but it's worth pointing out that Griffey hit just .248/.342/.416 in April, before he got hurt, and .249/.356/.427 the rest of the way with a comparable home run rate. There's no evidence that the bad knee was responsible for his bad season aside from the agent claiming it was, and what else would an agent say? ...

The evidence is, that Griffey did in fact have a very sore back knee. He had it drained three times during the season, and then rushed to the hospital for surgery immediately after the season ended.

For more 'evidence' that an infected knee can be responsible for less-effective hitting, go to the softball cage and see how far you can hit with your back foot up on its toe.

...........

And nobody said Jr's season was "destroyed" -- but perhaps docked by 10 or 20 OPS+ points. Griff's HR splits were indeed night-and-day after August.

Still, I'm not saying that maybe 2008 wasn't just an age-arc fade, rather than a knee. Maybe it was.  Junior's first-half splits weren't the key to understanding his season (although nobody said the knee was only bad in the second half).   Griffey carries the risk of age.  Point cheerfully conceded.

But getting your knee drained three times means there is a boatload of infection in that knee.

We baseball fans are a rather unsympathetic lot. :- ) One of these days you and I should be allowed to hit Brandon Webb with two or three ounces of pus in the back knee.

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Ken Griffey Jr. would be rejuvenated by a return to Seattle.

Griffey hit .260/.347/.405 after getting traded from a [lousy] team to a playoff contender. To claim that a return to Seattle would cause him to elevate his game would imply a whole lot of unfalsifiable things, not the least of which being that Seattle is somehow more worthy of his top performance than Cincinnati or Chicago. Coming back to a bunch of standing ovations would probably make Griffey feel good, but there's a lot more to hitting a baseball than being in your happy place. I'm not buying it.

Nobody has to buy it. We're strictly in the realm of opinions and baloney here, on both sides of the ball. Will cheerfully concede that.

What I *would* do, is make a prediction, and that's falsifiable. :- )

The "change of scenery" phrase is a cliche because it has its roots in reality. When Jim Edmonds moved to St. Louis, his attitude changed. Yes, Virginia, attitude does affect sporting performance. Jeff S was a pitcher, and in his less-irritated moments he'd tell you that state-of-mind matters.

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Ken Griffey Jr. would be a big draw...

Somebody else's argument, which is cool. It's not mine.

Nostalgia is good.

See above.

But we will say, one man's "nostalgia" is another (10,000) men's "electricity in the ballpark." Nostalgia to me has a negative connotation, the idea that you're living in the past because you're really not that good in the present.

Frank Thomas gave the A's some rather productive nostalgia at DH, and Griffey's return to Safeco produced some rather dynamic playoff atmospheres. I don't think that is an irrelevant consideration.

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Ken Griffey Jr. would be cheap to bring in.

With the vastly superior Burrell signing for $16m/2yr and the even more vastly superior Bradley for $30m/3yr, I can't imagine that Griffey's going to get much of anything...

Right. The question is more, what PT you have to guarantee him.

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Ken Griffey Jr. would take up playing time that would otherwise go to a young player who could be part of the future.

This much is true - if he DH'd, he'd take some time away from Jeff Clement, and if for some unholy reason he were to play LF, he'd take some time away from Wlad Balentien. But with the Mariners in the market for a bat, it seems like one of these things is going to happen anyway, so the issue isn't unique to Griffey. Griffey, Abreu, Dunn, somebody else, it doesn't matter who - if the Mariners bring in another bat, he's going to take playing time away from somebody else. It's on them to deal with the consequences.

It is a cost associated, that Junior will take away AB's from somebody like Clement. As Jeff mentions, that would be true with Dunn or whoever, too, but with Dunn the cost is associated with a clear and obvious benefit.

We might as well just sign Griffey since we're not going to go anywhere this year.

The Mariners, as currently constructed, are pretty close to being a .500 true talent ballclub, with upside at an awful lot of positions. The A's, Angels, and Rangers are all decent to good teams, but not one of them stands out as being very strong, and the opportunity exists for the M's to contend, especially if they add another multiwin bat. Bringing in Griffey neither improves the team nor grants development time to players who may help in the future. When that's the case for a team in our position, you're dealing with a move that isn't worth making.

This is the argument I'd run with if I were anti-Griffey: Are you going to win your next pennant with him?

The fact is, there is a cost associated with bringing in Griffey, one that makes me a little queasy if I'm the one bringing him in: he definitely is not part of your Coherent Vision. You're making a chess move that has zero to do with the position. Good way to mess up a position.

That said, you pay $25 for a view-level seat, rather than $7 for CF bleachers, because 70% of your baseball experience is about something other than wins and losses.

The Ken Griffey Jr. Experience is one I'm willing to pay for. But that's just me. :- )

Cheers,

Jeff C

Comments

1

Zduriencik has made waves about wanting a bat, but he's also said he can't afford to buy one. Which means we're getting our bat by trade or on the super-cheap.
Which means we're either going to acquire a Swisher type guy or we're going to sign Griffey or someone worse than Griffey...or we'regoing to try to do one of those things, fail, and cut our losses on the 2009 season.
There is no hope for 2009...not when the bigwigs say "you must now cut your budget 20% so we can pocket another 30 million dollars we don't need"...in that universe...we need to be thinking about building for 2010...and my first move is to trade for Swisher assuming the cost is not too high...and if that fails...I just start dumping salary and hoping Clement and Wlad (guh) learn to hit...especially you Wlad...you suck, but maybe if you suck a tiny bit less someone will want to trade for you.

2

What this neat trick...say we trade down from Heartburn's 10 mil salary to Swisher's 5.3 mil salary.
Washburn/Mark Lowe/Michael Saunders for Swisher
Sign Griffey Jr.
Line-up vs RHP:
RF) Ichiro (L)
CF) Gutierrez (R)
LF) Swisher (S)
3B) Beltre (R)
DH) Griffey (L)
2B) Lopez (R)
1B) Branyan (L)
C) Clement (L)
SS) Betancourt (R)
On your bench, you've got Johjima (R), Chavez (L), Balentien (R), Corona (L), and Morse (R)
Line-up vs. LHP
RF) Ichiro (L)
CF) Gutierrez (R)
1B) Swisher (S)
3B) Beltre (R)
2B) Lopez (R)
DH) Morse (R)
LF) Balentien (R)
C) Johjima (R)
SS) Betancourt (R)
Your bench has Clement, Branyan, Corona, Chavez, and Griffey
I think that team can score some runs. At low cost (!)

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