The Kid and The Mick

Two Fridays ago in San Francisco, Ken Griffey Jr. played in his 2,402 ^nd major league game, passing Mickey Mantle for 74 ^th on the all-time leaderboard. If he can play in 140 games this season, he’ll pass Zack Wheat at 69 ^th with 2,410*. After an injury-maligned stretch from 2002-04, when many pundits labeled him as washed-up, Griffey has come back to play in 128, 109 and 144 games for the last three seasons respectively—and he’s not just collecting a paycheck, either. His closest comparisons from baseball-reference.com for his age 36-38 seasons include Sammy Sosa, Frank Robinson, Willie Mays and Mantle. Last year was his 11 ^th season with 25+ homers, and his 13 ^th All-Star game selection. With all the attention being paid to his reaching 600 home runs, let’s take a moment to commemorate that other achievement, and see how Griffey matches up with Mantle.

*Pete Rose is the career leader, with 3562 games played. To reach him, Griffey will need to play in 140 games for 8 more seasons after this one, or until 2016. If he were to accomplish that, and furthermore hit 20 homers a year along the way, he’d be going into the 2017 season with about 770 home runs, all while just 47 years young. Good luck, Junior!

The Kid

Griffey broke into the bigs with Seattle in 1989, at the age of 19. Despite having just a year and a half in the minors, he forced the hand of Mariners manager Jim Lefebvre by hitting .359 in spring training as a non-roster invitee. Junior, hindered by a hand injury, came in third in Rookie of the Year voting. The next season he earned his first All Star game selection and his first Gold Glove; he would win both distinctions every year for the rest of the 1990s. Griffey helped rejuvenate baseball in a city that had yet to witness a winning season. His smooth swing and acrobatic defense eventually helped bring the M’s their first ever division title, in 1995. He missed a significant number of games that year with a broken wrist, but made up for it by starring in the playoffs against the Yankees and Indians.

Through the first seven years of his career, Griffey, still just 25, had 189 home runs, six All Star selections, six Gold Gloves, and three Silver Sluggers; in the strike-shortened 1994 season, he’d hit 40 homers in just 111 games. This stretch of his career, however, pales in comparison to what followed. From 1996-2000, Griffey hit .289/.382/.603; he hit a total of 249 home runs, topping 40 each season and bringing his career total to 438. His finest year came in 1997, when he led the AL in home runs, RBIs, slugging and total bases, helping the Mariners to their first ever 90 win season.

The case can be made for Griffey as the best player of the 1990s. Only Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Frank Thomas had a higher OPS for the decade. Of these three, neither McGwire nor Thomas had the all-around game of the other two, and Griffey had much greater range in center than Bonds did in left. Although Barry probably moves ahead due to his better BB/K ratio and baserunning, Griffey actually had more hits and home runs in 80 fewer games during the 1990s. It is also worth pointing out that those were Griffey’s age 20-29 seasons, compared to 25-34 for Bonds.

The Kid turned 30 after the 1999 season and, with his family in mind, forced a trade to Cincinnati. Griffey’s success into his 30s is a very impressive and overlooked aspect of his resume. He’s had to remodel his game as he’s aged, especially in the field; critics dismissed him as washed-up after a string of injuries in 2002-04, but he’s since come back with three solid seasons, hitting 35, 27 and 30 home runs in 2005-07. He was a deserving All Star in 2007 and appears to have at least a few seasons left in his legs. His statistics will be shown below.

The Mick

Like Griffey, Mantle made his debut at the age of 19 in 1951, splitting time with Hank Bauer in right field during Joe Dimaggio’s final season. His career can be conveniently divided into three phases. The first, from 1951-54, comprises his age 19-22 seasons; the second, from 1955-64, was his most dominant stretch; the third, from 1965 until his retirement in 1968 at the age of 36, comprises his ‘decline’—if three All Star selections in four years can be called a decline!

By 1954, the Commerce Comet had already established himself as an elite American League hitter. He knocked 84 home runs in three and a half seasons, and maintained an OBP near .400. He covered an astounding amount of territory in CF, exhibiting a strong throwing arm and ranking among the league leaders in Range Factor each year. In 1954, at the age of 22, he also racked up 20 assists from center field, more than anyone else in baseball.

From 1955 to 1964, no player in baseball even approached Mantle in terms of all-around production. In nine full seasons (discounting 1963, in which he appeared in only 65 contests), Mickey would reach 30 home runs, 90 walks, and .390 OBP. His lowest OPS+ during that stretch was 151, in 1959, when the Yankees lost the pennant to the White Sox. That was also his only full season in that period in which he did not finish in the top five in MVP voting; he won the award three times and came in second place three more. He also stole 116 bases with a success rate of 86%, and was named an All Star in all ten seasons. Naturally, his contributions played no little part in the Yankees capturing the pennant nine times in those ten seasons.

By the mid-1960’s, Mantle’s legs had deteriorated to the point that he was shifted first to left field, then to first base. In his final four seasons, he hit 82 home runs and again maintained a high OBP. For the duration of his career, Mantle’s lowest ever OBP in a full season was .379 in 1965. He finished his career in the 500 home run club, with 16 All Star game appearances and 7 World Series rings.

The Comparison (Griffey’s numbers through April 24, 2008)

Interestingly, Griffey has surpassed Mantle in every counting stat except for walks. Of course, those extra 562 walks for Mantle help explain the gap in at-bats, but even looking instead at plate appearances, Griffey has 10,260 to Mantle’s 9909, still a difference of 351. Conversely, Griffey’s extra at-bats hurt him in the rate stats, which go decisively in favor of the Mick. The difference in OPS+ is particularly striking, again caused by all of Mantle’s free passes.

The defense, as usual, is a bit harder to consider statistically. In 2113 games in center, Griffey had a 2.47 range factor, compared to a league average of 2.35. Mantle, on the other hand, was slightly below average, posting a 2.25 against the league mark of 2.30 in 1217 games. It is only after 1955, however, that games played in the outfield are sorted into three positions, and it was later in the 1950s and 1960s that Mantle’s health problems reduced his range. From 1952-55, his range factor in the outfield was much higher than the league average—but again, this advantage is artificially inflated by comparing him against corner outfielders. Griffey has compiled 146 outfield assists against 117 for Mantle, and was of course known as an acrobat in the field in his younger days.

In a 2004 discussion of Griffey’s status among the all-time greats in center field, Rob Neyer ranks him seventh, behind Willie Mays, Ty Cobb, Mantle, Tris Speaker, Joe Dimaggio and Duke Snider, in that order. Neyer came to that conclusion using Win Shares; Michael Hoban made a similar list several weeks ago on this website using his NEWS HOF Gauge, on which Griffey again places seventh. Mantle moves down to fourth, behind Speaker. A look at the numbers reveals that this difference through 2401 big league games can be largely explained by Mantle’s higher walk totals and OBP. Throw in a 7-0 advantage in postseason jewelry, and the Kid, despite some gaudy counting stats, has surely been bested at 2401 games and counting.

References: www.baseball-reference.com, www.baseballlibrary.com .