With the retirement of Ken Griffey Jr. last week baseball lost one of it's best and most liked players, one who even made it through the steroid era unscathed. But just how good was he, and when was he best? Sounds like a perfect time to debut my new baseball simulator program! The program plays a full nine innings with up to 9 batters using singles, doubles, triples, and home runs (it has yet to include speed things like stolen bases and advancing an extra base, and it counts walks as singles). Putting in a player's stats for a year then having them bat over and over repeatedly for a game gives a good indication of how good a player is at swinging away. So, how good was Griffey? Here's the results by year ("runs" being the program calculated category):
| YEAR | TEAM | OPS | RUNS |
GRIFFEY JR | 1989 | Sea | 0.74896 | 3.862 |
GRIFFEY JR | 1990 | Sea | 0.84987 | 5.274 |
GRIFFEY JR | 1991 | Sea | 0.93168 | 6.8 |
GRIFFEY JR | 1992 | Sea | 0.89248 | 5.661 |
GRIFFEY JR | 1993 | Sea | 1.02355 | 8.356 |
GRIFFEY JR | 1994 | Sea | 1.07558 | 8.828 |
GRIFFEY JR | 1995 | Sea | 0.85999 | 6.146 |
GRIFFEY JR | 1996 | Sea | 1.01857 | 8.006 |
GRIFFEY JR | 1997 | Sea | 1.02992 | 8.006 |
GRIFFEY JR | 1998 | Sea | 0.97242 | 7.037 |
GRIFFEY JR | 1999 | Sea | 0.95552 | 7.117 |
GRIFFEY JR | 2000 | Cin | 0.93908 | 7.081 |
GRIFFEY JR | 2001 | Cin | 0.89663 | 6.045 |
GRIFFEY JR | 2002 | Cin | 0.78522 | 4.621 |
GRIFFEY JR | 2003 | Cin | 0.91595 | 6.458 |
GRIFFEY JR | 2004 | Cin | 0.86276 | 5.713 |
GRIFFEY JR | 2005 | Cin | 0.95036 | 6.746 |
GRIFFEY JR | 2006 | Cin | 0.8019 | 4.682 |
GRIFFEY JR | 2007 | Cin | 0.8741 | 6.029 |
GRIFFEY JR | 2008 | Cin/CWS | 0.7761 | 4.583 |
GRIFFEY JR | 2009 | Sea | 0.7333 | 4.183 |
GRIFFEY JR | 2010 | Sea | 0.45506 | 0.712 |
GRIFFEY JR | Total | -- | 0.90428 | 6.264 |
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It turns out that Griffey's strike shortened 1994 season was his best, even better than his 56 home run performances in 97 and 98. How does this compare to other players? The average for the MLB so far this year is 3.68 runs (meaning this program is about half a run too low, most runners go second to home on a single) so even Griffey's worst years were better than average. Amongst other Seattle greats Griffey's '94 (8.83) is better than both A-Roid's '96 (8.41) and Ichiro's '04 (5.39). Still, Junior's not quite on Pujols's level (10.93 in 2008) and a long was behind former greats like the Babe (a whopping 17.63 in 1920). Nevertheless, with his 10 Gold Gloves, 184 stolen bases, and 630 home runs I'd take Ken Griffey Jr. on my team anyways.
Good suggestion Woozle.
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