Slang Editorial :: Never Underestimate The Value Of A Holla'

Friday, January 30, 2009
HR/baseball/mcgriff

Funny tidbit from Peter Gammons:

"Miguel Cabrera led the American League with 37 homers; the last time the AL home run leader hit less than 40 was 1989, and that includes the strike-shortened 1994 season, when Junior Griffey led the AL with 40 homers and Matt Williams the NL with 43."

And who was it in '89? That's right, Fred McGriff, bitches, with a sweet 36 HR (also leading the AL in OPS with a quaint-seeming .924). And what about the NL, when was the last time the leader there hit less than 40? Oh yeah, '92... when my man McGriff hit 35 for the Padres.

I love these stats, I love this man, and I'm sad that he will get shafted when he and his 493 HRs come up for HOF election, penalized for peaking from '88-'94, immediately prior to the subsequent mid-late 90s numbers explosions. He was top 6 in his league in OPS/OPS+ and plenty more complicated mechanisms: Runs Created/Batting Wins/Adjusted Runs/Offensive Winning Percentage all seven of those peak years. And of course, like a handful of other dudes (Matt Williams, Ken Griffey, Jeff Bagwell, Frank Thomas) in the midst of the best seasons of their career. At least Thomas and Bagwell got MVPs out of it...but McGriff, well, he just gets to feel glad for not being slandered as a possible former user of steroids.

But man, last thing: on the topic of Thomas, I will kill the next person I hear suggest even for a heartbeat second that Frank Thomas is not a Hall-of-Famer... beyond his two MVPs in 93 and 94, he was #1 or #2 in OPS+ for seven years from 91-97 (during all of which time he played 1B, not DH). I think we all forget because of the arrival of Bonds and the Giant Head in 2001, but before that Thomas put up a string of insane numbers (especially high walks/OBP) of the likes of which no one had seen since Ted Williams. Yes.

also on the topic of "greats being shafted", i forgot about Greg Maddux, who though he still won the Cy Young Award both seasons, had his two best efforts in the strike shortened years of '94 and '95, going 16-6 1.56 ERA and 19-2 1.63 ERA (those numbers literally pulled from head by memory). '95 was only shortened by 18 games from 162 to 144 (still, that's four more starts), but the '94 Braves only got through 114 games... meaning he could have easily had another 8-10 starts (meaning another 6-9 wins). We remember his '94 season already as one of the greats already, but he instead gone 24-7 with 280 IP (he got to 202 in only 25 starts) it would seem that much crazier. Though on the flipside, weird also how weak the Braves were in '94 compared to rest of the '90s that Maddux could have lost even 6 games despite having 1.56 ERA. And despite all this blather, his '95 season was actually a bit better even. Thank god for '95! Thank god for Dave Justice and Tom Glavine's 1-0 lifeliner! Craziness! Memories!!

posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 1/30/2009 09:07:00 PM 0 comments

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