Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - The Ken Griffey Jr. Project (Part the Third)

Episode Date: May 29, 2020

Could Ken Griffey Jr. had been the all-time home run king if he would have stayed healthy? That is the main question D.C. Lundberg wanted to answer in this multi-show project, and Junior's final adjusted career statistics are revealed in this episode. This episode is also the final episode recorded on location in the Idaho Panhandle, as the Party in the Panhandle comes to a close. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Locked-on Mariners, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Here's your host, D.C. Lundberg. Thank you, J.M. D.C. Lundberg here on location one final time as we wind down the Locked-on Mariner's party in the panhandle. Today coming at you on location from Cordillane, Idaho. Same city where we started this party. Going to wrap it up in the same city. As a matter of fact, I had to drive by Cracker Barrel to get here, and the only reason I mentioned that is to make Locked-on Mariner's contributor John Miller jealous.

You're welcome, John. In any case, Locked-on Mariners is, of course, part of the Locked-on podcast network, or T-L-O-P-N, or T-Lopin, or Tlopin, brought to you by Built Bar. You can download, rate and subscribe to this program on Google Podcast, Apple Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher Radio, or whichever podcasting app you personally care to use. Ask your smart device to play Locked on Mariner's podcast or any of the other wonderful programs here on Tlopin. Follow this program on Twitter at L.O. underscore Mariners, and follow me on Twitter at D.C. underscore Lundberg, L-U-N-D-B-E-R-G for those scoring at home. Today we're going to finish

what I never imagined would turn out to be a three-show project, projecting out Ken Griffey Jr.'s career numbers to see what they may have been if he didn't miss so much time due to injury. I wanted to see how many home runs he may have accumulated if he'd cash Hank Aaron and how close he may have gotten to 800. In addition, with the projections thus far, he easily joins the 3,000 hit club. We left off after 2005 yesterday. So far, he's got 765 career home runs, 3,353 hits, and 2001 runs scored. And these numbers include seasons after 2005. I'm adding in what he may have done in games he missed had he not been injured. In 2006, Junior missed 26 games near the beginning of the season, but afterwards only missed the occasional day off. His injury occurred during the eighth

game of the season. I'm not going to go into detail on how I'm calculating my projections because I want to finish this project today. And if you've listened to the last 112 shows, you know my methodology. In any case, I'm giving junior 29 more hits and 105 at bats and an additional seven home, runs. He has a new season slash line of 257-315-501. His new career hit totals are 3,382 hits, 2,012 runs, and 772 home runs. I'm also wondering if his career batting average I've got for him so far will start to decrease a little bit since his season averages from here on out are all lower than the 288 I've got him with right now. But they're also also lower than his real life career average of 284.

2007 was his last full season in Cincinnati. He played most of the year. Aside from the days off, he has had regularly over the last few seasons, he missed the team's final nine games. However, I'm going to leave his season stats right where they are because he ended the season in a major slump, hitting just 195 over his final nine games with no home runs. For the 07 season, Junior slashed 277, 372, 496, and hit 30 home runs.

This was also his final All-Star appearance. In 2008, Junior missed no time due to injury, but still only played 143 games. After being traded to the White Sox at the trading deadline, he was no longer an everyday player. 2009 was his return engagement with the Mariners, where he was also no longer an everyday player. He played 117 games and started 102 of them. So it turns out that 2006 is the final season I need to project out to see where Junior's career stats may have wound up if he didn't catch the injury bug. I'll also note that if he didn't miss so much time,

his decline may have happened later. He may have been more productive in his 30s, and he may have lasted a few more seasons. But as it stands, with all the projections I've done over the previous two and a half shows, all the math that went with it, Junior's updated career slash line is 288, 372, 574. He ends with 772 home runs, 2012 runs scored, and 3,382 hits. He also has 6,426 total bases, a huge number, 6444 doubles,

and 2,220 runs batted in. He would have tied and surpassed Hank Aaron's home run record as a Seattle Mariner in 2009, his third and fourth home runs of that season, respectively, given these projections in earlier seasons. The 755th and tying home run would have taken place on May 10th in the Metrodome in Minneapolis, an eighth inning blast of Jose Mihades. Number 756 takes place at home run. and Safeco Field on Tuesday, May 19th. He gets it out of the way in the first inning off Angel

starter Matt Palmer. However, Barry Bonds had broken the record with some assistance. In 2007, he wound up with 762. Junior's 762 home run would have occurred on Wednesday, July 1st, in Yankee Stadium. It's a sixth inning blast off Andy Pettit. Junior would have surpassed bonds exactly one month later in Texas on Saturday, August 1st. And just like passing the hammer, Junior claims the home run record in the first inning off Tommy Hunter. His 3,000th hit would have occurred at the end of the 2006 season, which I did not project out. I only fudged with the beginning of the season, and that was the last part of his career I played with. So counting backwards, he ends 2006 with 3,013 hits.

which means his 3,000th hit took place against the Astros on Monday, August 21st at home in Cincinnati. It's a first inning single off Andy Pettit, the exact same pitcher, who would give up his record tying home run two seasons later. In this bizarre alternate universe, of course, he scores his 2000th run on Tuesday, September 15th, 2009, well, with the Mariners. It's a home game against his old team, the Chicago White Sox, and he was driven in by himself. It's a home run off, get this gang,

former mariner Freddie Garcia in the second inning of the ball game. He drives in his 2000 run on Tuesday, April 17th, 2007, in another home game in Cincinnati, this one against the Milwaukee Brewers. He drove in two runs that day. The second would have been number 2000, considering the last couple days worth of projections. He drives in Adam Dunn on an eighth inning double for RBI,

2000. In addition, he becomes one of only four players with 6,000 or more total bases. The others are Hank Aaron, Stan Musial, and Willie Mays. Among this quartet, Junior would rank second all-time in total bases. That's beyond amazing. I will reiterate something I said either yesterday, the day before. If Junior hadn't caught the injury bug as badly as he did in his tenure in Cincinnati, His career may have been even better than the numbers I projected out. His skills may not have eroded when they did. He may have had a few more good seasons in him. Who knows?

And as it happens anyway, my projected numbers only indicate a rough estimation on what may have happened. My process is completely unscientific, and I'm sure that there are stat heads out there tearing their hair out at the methods that I used. In any case, ladies and gentlemen, as it stands right now, with the career stats that he has and earned, Ken Griffey Jr. is among the all-time greats. I don't mean to or want to take that away from him or lose sight of the fact that he was as great as he was and as fun to watch as he was. Yes, it's a shame he couldn't stay healthy. He had a very good chance to be the all-time home run king if he had stayed healthy. And I'll say it, he had a chance at 800 home runs if his

body didn't wear down. But that's not the way it worked out. Nonetheless, Ken Griffey, Junior is one of the most elite men to have ever played Major League Baseball. Which brings us to the Mariners trivia question. In 1989, Junior placed third in the voting for American League rookie of the year. Who won the award? Answer following a word from Bilt Bar. What springs to mind when I say Bilt Bar? A trio of middle-aged fathers trying to put together a wet bar?

What I would hope springs to mind are the delicious, low-sugar, low-calorie protein bars made with real chocolate. There are 15 or more grams of protein packed into each bar. Perfect for a between meal snack, a boost of protein following a weightlifting regimen, or even a quick breakfast on your way out the door. New flavors were introduced recently, peanut butter banana, pineapple upside-down cake,

coconut pecan pie, and blueberry lemon. Go to builtbar.com to build your own box consisting of the flavors you'd most like to try or your already established favorites. Remember to use the promo code locked on to get $10 off your first box. And don't forget about Built Boost Powder, which makes for a refreshing burst of protein, fruit punch, blackberry lemonade, and of course my favorite Pena Colada. So if you like it, no, I've already beaten that joke to death.

But do go to builtbar.com, use the promo code locked on to get $10 off your first order. And in addition, all this week, you can get $5 off every box. Not much time left for that one, gang. so hurry on over to builtbar.com right at this exact moment. You can place your order while listening to the rest of the show. Answer to the trivia question. The 1989 American League rookie of the year was Orioles relief pitcher Greg Olson. Royals pitcher Tom Gordon was second, and as it happens,

Tom Gordon is the father of Mariners infielder Dee Gordon. Junior was third, as we noted earlier. Orioles infieler Craig Worthington was fourth, and inspirational Angels pitcher Jim Abbott was fifth. While Olson and Gordon both had long careers as big league pitchers and Jim Abbott had several effective seasons, tossed a no-hitter in 1993, and as one of my personal favorite players,

Jr. was clearly the top of this class. More Locked-on Mariners from Cordillane, Idaho, as we wind down the party in the panhandle in a bit. Now back to Locked-on Mariners and your host, D.C. Lundberg. That was our announcer, Joey Martin, also known as J.M., leading us back into Locked-on Mariners, today coming at you on location, once again from beautiful Cordillane, Idaho, one of my favorite cities, as our party in the panhandle concludes today. By the time the next show airs, Spokane County will finally be allowed to open back up,

about a month later than it should have. We're doing fine, neighboring Idaho is doing fine, and began their reopen at the beginning of this month. Hence why I've been doing the show here. In any case, with the Ken Griffey Jr. project put to bed, I've got basically half a show to pretty much screw around. Well, not really. There are some other players I'm curious about who were affected by one or both strikes,

going back to what I was doing last week. I'm going to keep at Mariners, though, and I'll start with a player affected by the 1981 strike. He was in the race for the batting title that year, and it finished second to Carney-Lansford. I speak, of course, of Mariners' left. fielder Tom Pishorek. I'm going to project out Pishorik's stats to account for the time missed to the strike to see where his batting average may have wound up if the strike hadn't interrupted

this season. I'm not going to go into detail so I can get through as many players as I can in half a show. Plus, if you've been listening to this program over the last few weeks, you know the process by now. I'm also going to project out Lansford's season and find out where he may have wound up. First, Pishorek. He was hot going into the strike and hot for about a week and a half coming out of it. His real season-ending average was a very solid 326. After fudging with his numbers, I have him at 337 for the fake season, 202 hits in 600 at bats.

Now for the 81 batting champion, 24-year-old Carney Lanceford. Also, gang, I'm going to use sample sizes that are most favorable to Lanceford, not Peshorek. I have to be fair. Lanceford wasn't a slump in the week leading up to the strike, but doing well in the week or so before that. As it happens, his batting average in this sample size is only slightly lower than the 336 he ended 1981 with. Coming back from the strike, he was also relatively cold, but picked it up about a week after. This sample size is slightly higher than his real-life season

ending batting average. The end result is a 334 batting average for Lanceford in the alternate universe, so he's behind Peshorek. I'm not going to stop there, though. I'm now going to go to the third, fourth and fifth place hitters in the American League, Cecil Cooper, Ricky Henderson, and Mike Hargrove, respectively. In real life, Cooper hit 320, Henderson hit 319, and Hargrove 317. Cooper, who was red-hot going into the strike, and also pretty hot after play resumed, gains seven points on his batting average going to 327. Ricky Henderson was also red hot going into the strike, cooling off a little bit just before play was halted. He was even hotter coming out of the strike, hitting at a

373 pace. His batting average here goes all the way up to 335, two points behind Pichorik, but with 13 more hits, 215 hits in 641 at bats. As for former Mariners manager Mike Hargrove,

he's an interesting case, because it looks like he was injured going into the strike. So I'm arbitrarily going to say he comes back after the originally scheduled All-Star break for the sake of not thinking too much into this, and also not knowing what kind of injury befell him. He actually started off the second half of the season on a hot streak, and I've got him now hitting 328 for the season. So just by going off the top five hitters in 1981, there were

some wild swings and batting average. Remember, teams lost anywhere between 50 and 60 games because of the strike, meaning players are going to gain about 200 at bats in these projections. That can make a big difference. I also see looking down the list that Mariners designated hitter Richie Zisk was seventh in batting average this year, so let's play with his numbers to see what we get. And while I'm at it, I'll also do the man in sixth place. That is Royal's Hall of Fame third baseman in Spokane Indians co-owner, George Brett. First, Zisk.

He wound up with a 3-11 batting average for this season, and of course, complicating things. Zisk had just come off the disabled list two days prior to the strike being called. However, he was healthy coming into it and healthy coming out. of it, so it's not that bad. His average prior to the strike was sinking like a stone, but after the strike, he hit almost 400 in the first month back. So the net result is that his batting average does go up to 322. George Brett ended 1981, hitting 314.

He was also red-hot in the month leading up to the strike after starting the season very slowly. However, he came back from the strike ice cold. As a result, he winds up losing. two points off as batting average by this math, ending at 312. So I've still got Peshorek leading the American League at 337. The National League leader was Bill Madlock at 341. Could Pishorik have led all of baseball? Let's fudge with the NL's top hitters and find out. After playing with Madlock stats, I've got his average going up to 355, so we don't need to go any further. For this season,

Madlock had fewer than 300 at bats, so his average was liable to swing pretty far in either direction if he had been on a hot or cold streak. And he was on a tear coming back from the strike, hitting at a 414 clip in his first two weeks back, which is why his batting average went up as much as it did. Prior to the strike, he was very good, but below his eventual season-ending average. Well, I think that's actually going to be just about it for the day. I didn't think that the 1981 batting race would take up the entire second half of the show, but it did.

Please remember to download rate and subscribe to Locked-on Mariners on Google Podcast, Apple Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher Radio, or whichever podcasting app your brainhead can come up with. Please remember also to follow the show on Twitter at L.O. underscore Mariners, and follow me on Twitter at D.C. underscore Lundberg. Well, gang, the week is over, and so is our party in the panhandle. I enjoyed doing the show out on the road. It was a fun experience. I'll be back next week from my home in Spokane, Washington. Until then, ladies and gentlemen, have a great weekend. This is Joey Martin speaking for Locked-on Mariners, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network.

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