Ken Griffey Jr. & Garret Anderson

by Jeff Sullivan on Feb 9, 2009 5:05 PM PST in Miscellaneous

It's no contest.

I'm not going to spend any kind of substantial amount of time talking about this, since I'm still guessing/hoping that Boras was the one to initiate conversation in an attempt to drum up some interest in an uninteresting client, but given a hypothetical choice between Griffey and GA, you have to go with Griffey.

He's been the better hitter for each of the past five seasons, every half-decent forecasting system projects Griffey to have a more productive 2009, and while GA is the better defensive outfielder by a significant margin, it seems the Mariners are more interested in landing a DH who only sees the field a few times a month, mitigating that concern. Yes, I'd rather have Anderson as an everyday LF. But as far as I can tell, that isn't what we're looking for.

Griffey comes with his risks, but he's a better bet to be a productive hitter next year than Garret Anderson, and as long as the former is available for chump change, I can't imagine there's any way that Zduriencik would try to sell us on the latter, or that there's any way the city would let him. All things being equal, you side with Griffey. And all things aren't even equal. Griffey's both the better draw and the better bat.

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Comments

Wait I'm confused by one line.

Wouldn’t jamming a knife into the hearts of Angels fans be a good thing?

Fear the NPE

by thewyrm on Feb 9, 2009 5:14 PM PST reply actions

Well that was stupid of me

Fixed.

by Jeff Sullivan on Feb 9, 2009 5:16 PM PST up reply actions

The ways I see us getting GA:

- Wakamatsu wants someone who can actually play the OF because he’s going to do Wheel O’ Rotating DH and not have a full time DH- basically, he’ll stick someone in there based on injury, matchup, needing a day off, whatever. That’s a legitimate strategy, if you figure that you’d keep Wlad and Shelton on the roster and mostly stack the lineups righty/lefty, and use Endy Chavez as a 4th OF/defensive replacement late in games. This way, everyone gets SOME playing time ala Lou, and you don’t get the situation you had with McLaren, where he’d forget someone was on his team for 10 days (for being Lou’s bench coach, he never could figure out how to use a useful player on his bench like Lou).

- Griffey’s salary demands are considerably more than GA’s- you can sign GA to a Cliff Floyd style contract for 750K, but Griffey wants 4-5 million and an option for 2010 vesting with a decent amount of playing time.

Otherwise, if Griffey is going to be the DH against LHP and play the OF once a month, and the salaries are comparable, sure, Griffey’s the logical choice given those alternatives. Of course, the correct choice involves trading for Nick Swisher… but I’m sure Z knows that.

by eponymous_coward on Feb 9, 2009 5:28 PM PST reply actions