Top 10 greatest Mariners

[NWinAZ]

Hey let's trade Paxton for Verlander. Look at Verlander's career vs Paxton's...it is a no brainer.

 

[seahawksfan234]

Health history is part (a big part) of the evaluation though. He did it when he was young and it doesn't get easier to stay healthy as you get older plus the fact that he was never known for his vigorous workout regime. Health factors into numbers and not just because of lack of games played but it also takes away from power and speed.

Injuries are difficult to project. You can't reasonably expect if a player is suddenly going to start having a shit diet, a poor workout regime, or if they're going to become a health freak and start taking things super seriously. That's just human nature. Although none of us are professional athletes, I'm sure we've all had moments when we've had a poor diet, and other moments when we suddenly start taking exercise and nutrition super seriously. I have to assume the same applies to professional athletes.

My point is, you can't reasonably project if a player is going to stay healthy or not.

Even though Griffey had a number of injury issues when he was with Seattle, he still averaged 140 games per season from 89-99 and he was only 29. The ability to acquire a superstar at the age of 29 can seem quite appealing. It's easy to look back and say that we can easily anticipate injury issues, but I really don't think it's that simple.

 

[NWinAZ]

Injuries are difficult to project. You can't reasonably expect if a player is suddenly going to start having a shit diet, a poor workout regime, or if they're going to become a health freak and start taking things super seriously. That's just human nature. Although none of us are professional athletes, I'm sure we've all had moments when we've had a poor diet, and other moments when we suddenly start taking exercise and nutrition super seriously. I have to assume the same applies to professional athletes.

Griffey already had the trends plus playing 4 or 5 years on the great turf in the Dome only added to it. If anyone thought he was the same guy at that point, they would have given up the whole team for him and not reject a 1 for 1 deal.

 

[seahawksfan234]

Griffey already had the trends plus playing 4 or 5 years on the great turf in the Dome only added to it. If anyone thought he was the same guy at that point, they would have given up the whole team for him and not reject a 1 for 1 deal.

I have to disagree. When he was shipped to the Reds he was coming off of the best 3 year stretch of his career.

1997: 56 HRs 147 RBIs 15 SB .304/.382/.646 157 G
1998: 56 HRs 146 RBIs 20 SB .284/.365/.611 161 G
1999: 48 HRs 134 RBIs 24 SB .285/.384/.576 160 G

Griffey was coming off of the 3 healthiest, most productive years of his career at the age of 29. I don't see how anything from his 27-29 years would indicate he was due to catch the injury bug.

 

[blstoker]

No shit! That was the factor and you can't negate that no matter how much you love Griffey. They were dead on and said at the time so it wasn't hindsight. It really isn't that hard to understand unless you close your eyes and plug your ears.

You're gonna have to provide a link to that - cause I cannot find anything that says that the Braves and Mariners were involved in trade talks for Griffey back in 1999/2000.

 

[StanMarsh51]

Yes, but that's all in hindsight. Hell, even the Mariners couldn't screw up trades if they knew how both players would perform for the next 9 years (probably). My statement was that at the time of the trade there was no comparing which player was the better of the two,

Griffey: 30.3 WAR from 1996-1999 (Seattle)
Jones: 17.9 WAR from 1996-1999 (Atlanta)

Granted, I dislike WAR as a benchmark, as it's too inconsistent from source to source, team to team and year to year. Hell, according to WAR (baseball-reference), Randy Velarde was better in 1999 than Griffey, Edgar and ARod.

Pretty misleading to start from 1996 since Andruw Jones played just 31 games in the majors in 1996 and started only 96 games in 1997 (spent a good part of the season as a late inning defensive replacement).

In 1998+1999, Jones had a 14.5 WAR compared to Griffey's 11.6.

 

[blstoker]

Pretty misleading to start from 1996 since Andruw Jones played just 31 games in the majors in 1996 and started only 96 games in 1997 (spent a good part of the season as a late inning defensive replacement).

In 1998+1999, Jones had a 14.5 WAR compared to Griffey's 11.6.

Which is a great example why WAR is such a misleading stat and all but useless.

 

[StanMarsh51]

Which is a great example why WAR is such a misleading stat and all but useless.

That makes no sense...you can't really use any stat to reasonably compare someone's 30 game sample to a full season's worth of games....not batting avg, not homers, not hits, not OPS, not WAR.

It's silly to compare include the 1996-1997 seasons for Jones when played so little then....that's not a flaw on WAR, but rather a flaw on your sample size.

 

[blstoker]

That makes no sense...you can't really use any stat to reasonably compare someone's 30 game sample to a full season's worth of games....not batting avg, not homers, not hits, not OPS, not WAR.

It's silly to compare include the 1996-1997 seasons for Jones when played so little then....that's not a flaw on WAR, but rather a flaw on your sample size.

I have never liked WAR. Its too problematic and has no set formula - as every site uses their own. Besides, While I agree with '96 as being too small a sample size - Jones played 153 games in '97 - so not exactly a small sample size of playing time within a single season. Just because he only started 90 games that year doesn't mean he didn't get playing time.

Actually, in the end it's really silly to compare the production of Griffey and Jones at any time leading up to the trade - as Griffey was far and away the more productive player, no matter the sample size you wanna take.

321 G 1239 AB 243 R 353 H 59 2B 6 3B 104 HR 280 RBI 44 SB 167 BB 229 SO .285/.374/.594/.969 145 OPS+
321 G 1174 AB 186 R 321 H 68 2B 13 3B 57 HR 174 RBI 51 SB 116 BB 232 SO .273/.344/.499/.843 115 OPS+

So, who played better in '98 & '99? That's right, according to WAR it was the second guy - and not even close. WAR is a major crock - about the only less reliable stat in all sports in ESPN Total QBR.

 

[seahawksfan234]

WAR isn't perfect, but it's a fairly decent way of (attempting) to quantify a player's overall performance into one number that expresses their overall value.

 

[StanMarsh51]

Besides, While I agree with '96 as being too small a sample size - Jones played 153 games in '97 - so not exactly a small sample size of playing time within a single season. Just because he only started 90 games that year doesn't mean he didn't get playing time.

Actually, in the end it's really silly to compare the production of Griffey and Jones at any time leading up to the trade - as Griffey was far and away the more productive player, no matter the sample size you wanna take.

321 G 1239 AB 243 R 353 H 59 2B 6 3B 104 HR 280 RBI 44 SB 167 BB 229 SO .285/.374/.594/.969 145 OPS+
321 G 1174 AB 186 R 321 H 68 2B 13 3B 57 HR 174 RBI 51 SB 116 BB 232 SO .273/.344/.499/.843 115 OPS+

So, who played better in '98 & '99? That's right, according to WAR it was the second guy - and not even close. WAR is a major crock - about the only less reliable stat in all sports in ESPN Total QBR.

Jones didn't even have 400 at bats in 1997....many of his games were as a defensive replacement where he got 0-1 plate appearance, so he was hardly playing anything close to a full game for over a third of the season, correct?

Offensively, Griffey was certainly better in 1998-1999, but you're not realizing one thing...Jones was historically great defensively those years. He had a +35 and +36 defensively those two years, which might be top 5 all time for outfielders. Griffey by that point was declining defensively, and metrics don't rate him as a good fielder for those two years.