Cooperstown Justice: Fred McGriff is Getting Inducted into the Hall of Fame

On Sunday, Fred McGriff will be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York. Last December, at baseball’s winter meetings in San Diego, the Contemporary Baseball Players Committee, a panel containing 16 voters (including Hall of Fame players, baseball executives, and media members), unanimously elected McGriff to receive a plaque in the Hall.

McGriff will be a part of a two-man “Class of 2023” with 8-time Gold Glove-winning third baseman Scott Rolen, who was elected by the BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America) in January.

In last December’s voting, McGriff was on the ballot with Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Rafael Palmeiro, Curt Schilling, Albert Belle, Don Mattingly, and Dale Murphy. Nobody else got close to the 12 votes required for a spot in the Hall of Fame. Mattingly got 8 out of 16 votes, Schilling got 7 votes, and Murphy got 6 votes. The other players (including Bonds and Clemens) got “less than 4 votes.” (The Hall never embarrasses anyone by revealing the actual totals at the bottom of the scale).

I have always been a fan of Fred McGriff and an advocate of him as a worthy member of the Hall of Fame. McGriff spent 10 years on the BBWAA ballot, from 2010-to-2019. McGriff’s best showing on the BBWAA ballot was in his final turn (2019) when he got 39.8% of the vote. While that percentage is far short of the 75% needed for plaque in Cooperstown, it’s a respectable total that clearly played well with the members of the Eras Committee (the Hall’s “second-chance” process that used to be called the Veterans Committee).

Famously dubbed by ESPN’s Chris Berman as the “Crime Dog” (a reference to the cartoon crime-fighting dog “McGruff),” McGriff finished his career with 493 home runs (the same total as the immortal Lou Gehrig). At the end of his final season in 2004, 493 taters were the 21st-best total in baseball history. But McGriff’s 493 long balls, which in another era would have punched him an automatic ticket to Cooperstown, all of a sudden seem rather ordinary. Ahead of him when he retired, in the top 20 on the all-time HR list, were his contemporaries: Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Palmeiro, and Ken Griffey Jr. Today 493 home runs put him in 29th place on the all-time list.

Still, given the controversy surrounding the suspected/documented use of Performing Enhancing Drugs (PEDs) by Bonds, Clemens, and Palmeiro, McGriff was always considered one of the favorites for today’s vote. Three years ago, when the “Today’s Game” Committee considered the candidacies of ten men whose primary impact on the game occurred in 1987 or later, the two inductees were reliever Lee Smith and designated hitter Harold Baines.

Both Smith and Baines share something in common with McGriff; they both fell just a bit shy of benchmark statistical milestones. Smith finished his career with 478 saves, Baines with 2,866 hits. Both players might have reached those milestones were it not for the player strikes of 1981 and 1994-95. The same is true of McGriff, who almost certainly would have hit 500 career home runs were it not for the time he lost in 1994-95 due to the strike that canceled the ’94 World Series.

The lefty-swinging McGriff had a distinctive batting style. As Gerry Callahan wrote in Sports Illustrated, McGriff “waves the bat with his right hand as if he were conducting a symphony or swatting a fly. When he connects and sends a ball out of the yard, he resembles a medieval warrior, raising his sword in triumph.” In an era when players were lifting weights to exhaustion in the gym or using PEDs, McGriff maintained the same, wiry, body type throughout his career.

“Taking nothing away from (Jose) Canseco and (Mark) McGwire, but everybody knows they lift weights. I wish I could get Freddie to lift weights. The only things he lifts are candy bars.”

— Lloyd Moseby (told to Ralph Wiley, Sports Illustrated), May 8, 1989

The Crime Dog’s aversion to hitting the gym didn’t keep him from hitting tape-measure home runs. Before he ever made the majors, McGriff caught the eye (and the ear) of Hall of Famer Ted Williams, who took note of the young slugger’s power and the sound of the ball leaving his bat.

McGriff had an aw-shucks level of humility throughout his playing days. Because he played for six different teams, the Crime Dog never had a passionate following of one city’s fan base, which might have contributed to his lackluster results in the Hall of Fame voting.

He was perhaps known more for his endorsement of the ever-present Tom Emanski baseball instructional video than his 493 home runs. It’s ironic, of course, that Emanski’s video was about playing defense, something McGriff was never known for.

“McGriff might have been just too gosh-darn wholesome a star for an increasingly cynical age. On the other hand, it’s far better to be remembered for pointing a finger in the service of a timeless baseball fundamentals video than accompanying sworn testimony in front of Congress“ (a reference to Palmeiro’s infamous finger wag that he had never used steroids).

— Jay Jaffe (FanGraphs, November 11, 2022)

In this piece, I’ll recap McGriff’s 19-year career and make the case for why it’s time that justice is being served with the Crime Dog getting inducted into the Hall of Fame.

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Cooperstown Cred: Fred McGriff (1B)

• Blue Jays (1986-90), Padres (1991-93), Braves (1993-97), Devil Rays (1998-2001, ’04), Cubs (2001-02), Dodgers (2003)
• Career: .284 BA, .377 OBP, .509 SLG, 493 HR, 1,550 RBI
• Career: 134 OPS+, 52.6 WAR (Wins Above Replacement)
• .303, 10 HR, 37 RBI, .917 OPS in 50 post-season games
• 30 or more home runs 10 times in his career
• OPS+ of 140 or more 9 times in his career
• 6 times in the Top 10 MVP of voting
• 5-time All-Star

(cover photo: si.com)

This piece was initially published in the fall of 2017 when Fred McGriff was still on the BBWAA ballot. It has been updated in advance of McGriff’s induction into Cooperstown this Sunday.

Fred McGriff: Early Years

Frederick Stanley McGriff was born on October 31, 1963, in Tampa, Florida, the youngest of five children of Earl and Eliza McGriff. Fred grew up just four blocks from Al Lopez Field, the longtime spring training home of the Cincinnati Reds. Fred spent lots of time at or near the field, where he often came home with scarred-up baseballs or cracked bats, his “jewels.”

When he was young, “Fabulous Freddie” pitched in addition to playing first base. He was a late-bloomer, however. As a sophomore, he was only about 5’6″ or 5’7″ with glasses, and he was cut. Fred grew quickly after that, however, and became a top prospect as a junior.

Playing for Jefferson High School, when he was 17 years old, he homered far and deep off an up-and-coming hurler from nearby Hillsborough High School named Dwight Gooden. As a senior, he hit .513 and won multiple post-season honors.

McGriff was offered a scholarship to play baseball for the University of Georgia but opted instead to accept a $20,000 offer from the New York Yankees, who drafted him in the 9th round of the player draft of 1981 when he was 17 years old.

He looked thoroughly unprepared for professional baseball when he joined the Yankees’ Gulf Coast League affiliate in the summer of ’81; he had a woeful slash line (.148 BA/.255 OBP/.173 SLG) and did not hit a single home run in 94 plate appearances (PA).

In the offseason, playing in the Puerto Rico Winter League, McGriff met Emanski, the director of a company called Baseball World that produced instructional videos. Emanski offered to videotape his swing and McGriff later said that he learned a lot about hitting from that video. In 1982, now 18 and still in the Gulf Coast League, McGriff improved significantly, slashing .272/.413/.456 while hitting 9 HR with 41 RBI in 272 PA.

Trade to the Toronto Blue Jays

After the 1982 season, Fred McGriff was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays along with outfielder Dave Collins and pitcher Mike Morgan in exchange for relief pitcher Dale Murray and minor league outfielder Tom Dodd. Ultimately, this was one of the worst trades in the history of the Yankees. Murray won 3 games with a 4.73 ERA in two seasons with the Yankees while Dodd only logged 16 PA in Major League Baseball (with the Baltimore Orioles in 1986).

Meanwhile, McGriff, a “player to be named later” in the deal, became a Hall of Fame candidate. Although Toronto never got much out of Morgan (0-3, 5.16 ERA in 45.1 with the Jays in 1983), the former #1 draft pick went on to win 141 games. Collins had two respectable seasons with the Blue Jays before being traded to Oakland.

For the Blue Jays, of course, this was a steal. Jays General Manager Pat Gillick had his eyes on McGriff based on a recommendation from scout Epy Guerrero. At the time, McGriff’s public posture was that he was pleased, because “they say it’s hard to move up in the Yankees organization because of all the talent.” The Yankees did have two future MLB first basemen in the upper levels of the minors (Don Mattingly and Steve Balboni) and, in a piece of largely irrelevant but interesting trivia, had a 26-year-old first baseman in AA ball named Buck Showalter.

However, given his youth, McGriff’s path to the majors as a starting first baseman was anything but assured. The Jays had a 25-year-old lefty-swinging first-sacker named Willie Upshaw who was already established as an up-and-coming star.

McGriff’s Path to Majors

Fred McGriff, now 19 years old, played in both the Carolina League (Kinston, NC) and the South Atlantic League (Florence, SC) in 1983. He started flashing his future MLB home run power by swatting 28 home runs while driving in 83 runs.

McGriff spent 1984 splitting time between AA (Knoxville in the Southern League) and AAA (Syracuse in the International League). Against the tougher competition, he only hit .241 with 22 HR and 53 RBI but he was good enough to be anointed the #1 prospect for the Blue Jays by Baseball America. 

McGriff spent all of 1985 with Syracuse but it was a lost season. A stress fracture in his right foot limited him to 51 games and he hit just .227 with 5 HR and 20 RBI in those games.

Now 22, McGriff returned to Syracuse in 1986 and had a middling campaign, slashing .259/.369/.447 with 19 HR and 74 RBI in 133 games. When Upshaw suffered a spike wound in May, McGriff got a brief call-up to the big club. He went 1-for-5 in three games with the Blue Jays before returning to Syracuse.

When the 23-year-old McGriff came to the Jays’ spring training facility in February 1987,  he was out of options, which means that the Blue Jays had to put him on the MLB roster or put him on waivers. McGriff had a strong spring, hitting seven home runs.

1987: Rookie Campaign

McGriff made the Blue Jays Opening Day 25-man roster but, with Upshaw still entrenched at first base, he was a designated hitter in his rookie campaign, platooning with Cecil Fielder. Playing in Toronto’s Exhibition Stadium in his 7th game of the season, McGriff hit his first MLB home run against Boston’s Bob Stanley; it was a three-run blast in the bottom of the 5th inning that turned a 5-4 deficit into a 7-5 lead, leading the Jays to victory.

Although McGriff hit just .247 in his rookie campaign, he showed significant plate discipline (.376 OBP) and power (.505 SLG) which was good for a robust 130 OPS+; he hit 20 HR with 43 RBI in just 356 plate appearances. 92% of those 356 PA were against right-handed pitching.

Toronto looked poised to claim the second A.L. East title in franchise history; they had a 3.5-game lead over the Detroit Tigers with 7 games to play but, alas, the Jays lost their final 7 games, including suffering a three-game sweep in Detroit to end the season. In the second to last game in what would be his last at bat of the campaign, McGriff struck out with two outs and two runners on in the top of the 12th inning; the Tigers won in the bottom of the frame and closed out the division title the next day.

Even in a platoon role in a season that ended in disappointment, McGriff made quite an impact on the league and on the team that traded him. Four of his first seven MLB home runs came against the Yankees, the most notable being a blast into the third deck at Yankee Stadium which went an estimated 480 feet. The titanic tater was thought to be the longest home run in the Bronx since the stadium’s renovation prior to the 1976 campaign. Upshaw marveled that “I’ve never seen anything like that, and I doubt whether I’ll ever see anything like that again.”

1987-89: Fred McGriff’s Star Years in Toronto

The Blue Jays decided that Fred McGriff was the future; at the end of March, they sold Willie Upshaw to the Cleveland Indians. (Upshaw spent just one year with the Indians before spending the last two years of his career playing in Japan). McGriff was at first base for all 153 of his games played in 1988 and he blossomed into a star. For the season, the Crime Dog slashed .282/.376/.552 (157 OPS+) with 34 HR (second in the American League to Jose Canseco), 82 RBI, and 100 Runs. He finished 17th in the A.L. MVP voting and, thanks to solid fielding metrics, his 6.2 WAR was the best in the league among A.L. first basemen (although, of course, WAR was yet to be invented).

The Crime Dog followed up his strong campaign with arguably the best season of his career in 1989. He led the A.L. with 36 home runs (to go with 92 RBI), and also led the league with his .924 slugging percentage and 165 OPS+; he also had a career-best 6.6 WAR. Additionally, McGriff posted a .399 on-base percentage, thanks to 119 walks. McGriff finished 6th in the MVP vote and won his first Silver Slugger. Once again, by any metric one might be inclined to choose (WAR,  OPS+, HR), McGriff was the best first baseman in the league. However, because he was in the same league as Mattingly and Mark McGwire, he wasn’t honored with an All-Star berth in either campaign. The 1989 Blue Jays won the A.L. East but fell to the eventual champion Oakland Athletics in the ALCS, with McGriff hitting a disappointing .143 with no HR and 3 RBI.

In McGriff’s final campaign with the Blue Jays (1990), he retained his consistency. He hit .300 for the first time (with a .400 OBP, .530 SLG, and 153 OPS+) to go with 35 HR and 88 RBI. His WAR dipped to a still-solid 5.2. McGriff missed the Mid-Summer Classic again, overshadowed by McGwire and his former teammate Cecil Fielder, who returned from the Detroit Tigers to become the first MLB player to hit 50 home runs since George Foster in 1977. Not surprisingly, Fielder won the Silver Slugger Award.

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1991-93: McGriff in San Diego

In December 1990, Fred McGriff was part of one of the biggest blockbuster trades in baseball history. Gillick traded McGriff along with shortstop Tony Fernandez to the San Diego Padres for outfielder Joe Carter and future Hall of Fame second baseman Roberto Alomar.

The trade made sense for the Blue Jays because they had a replacement ready for McGriff with another sweet-swinging left-handed hitter in John Olerud, who finished 4th in the Rookie of the Year voting serving as a platoon DH, much as McGriff had done in 1987. With the Padres, McGriff joined a team with no star power besides four-time batting champion Tony Gwynn.

In February 1991, McGriff’s new team rewarded their new star with a four-year contract worth $15.25 million with a fifth-year option that could raise it to $19 million. Those numbers may seem quaint today but this was a huge contract in the early 1990s. The trade from Toronto to San Diego, however, meant that McGriff missed out on the Blue Jays’ emergence as a perennial A.L. champion (they won the division for three straight years from 1991-93 and won the World Series in 1992-93). With the Padres, he was on a team that had won just 75 games in 1990.

McGriff adapted quickly to the National League. He hit a two-run home run in the bottom of the first inning in just his second game at the Padres’ Jack Murphy Stadium. Overall, he slashed .278/.396/.494 (147 OPS+) with 31 HR and 106 RBI, the first time in his career that he drove in more than 100 runs. McGriff missed out on the All-Star Game once again (Will Clark and Eddie Murray were selected) but finished 10th in the MVP voting, his third straight top-10 finish.

The Crime Dog got off to a fast start in 1992, hitting home runs in four of his first five games, including a grand slam at home against the Dodgers. In early July, he homered in four consecutive games and finally made the All-Star team, voted in by the fans to start the game. For the entire season, McGriff posted a slash line of .286/.394/.556 (165 OPS+) with 35 HR, 104 RBI, and a 5.2 WAR. McGriff’s 35 taters were the most in the N.L., making him the first player to lead in both leagues in home runs since 1908. He also earned his 2nd Silver Slugger Award and finished 6th in the MVP vote.

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Now 29 years old, McGriff got off to a slow start in 1993; he hit just .190 in April. After that, however, his bat got hot (hitting .305 in the next 41 games with 15 HR and 39 RBI). In late May, McGriff hit the first walk-off home run of his career, a two-run tater that turned a 4-3 deficit into a 5-4 win in the bottom of the 11th inning.

The team, however, had an awful first half (33-56), so team owner Tom Werner decided to conduct a fire sale. In late June, Gary Sheffield, who had emerged as a superstar in 1992, was traded to the expansion Florida Marlins in a deal most notable for bringing future Hall of Fame closer Trevor Hoffman to San Diego.

After the Sheffield deal, it seemed inevitable that McGriff would be traded next. Rumors flew that he was headed to New York, with both the Yankees and Mets interested in the premier slugger. The Cincinnati Reds and Baltimore Orioles were also rumored to be in contention for the Crime Dog’s services but, ultimately, he was dealt to the Atlanta Braves in exchange for three players who never amounted to much (Melvin Nieves, Donnie Elliot, and Vince Moore).

1993-97: Atlanta Years

By joining the Braves, Fred McGriff went from a team languishing more than 20 games under .500 to a team that had won two consecutive N.L. pennants. The Braves were a team with four top-quality starters (future Hall of Famers Greg Maddux, Glavine, and John Smoltz, along with Steve Avery) but a struggling offense. The Braves were last in the majors with a .248 team batting average in the first half of the season. When asked about whether McGriff would be joining the Braves by plane or car, Glavine quipped, “He’s flying. He’s got a big ‘S” on his chest.”

Bobby Cox installed his new slugger into the cleanup role and the team’s fortunes instantaneously turned around. McGriff’s debut with the Braves (at Fulton-County Stadium) was delayed by a fire in the press box. His first at bat didn’t occur until 9:55p but the fans that stuck around were rewarded later when the team’s new slugger hit a game-tying two-run home run in the bottom of the 6th, sparking the Braves to an 8-5 win over the St. Louis Cardinals.

The Braves entered the second half of the season nine games behind Barry Bonds and the San Francisco Giants in the N.L. West. Led by McGriff’s 19 home runs, 55 RBI, and 1.004 OPS, Atlanta went 51-17 in their final 68 games, finishing with 104 wins, just one ahead of the Giants. In the NLCS (against the Philadelphia Phillies), McGriff sparked the Braves’ Game 2 victory with a two-run tater off the Phillies’ Tommy Greene. Although the Phils would go on to win the series in 6 games, the Crime Dog slashed .435/.519/.696 in his first postseason opportunity since 1989.

Overall (combining his statistics with San Diego and Atlanta), McGriff slashed .291/.375/.549 (144 OPS+) with 37 HR and 101 RBI. Because he was an indispensable part of the Braves’ second-half comeback, McGriff was rewarded with a 4th place finish in the N.L. MVP balloting. The new Braves first baseman also landed his third Silver Slugger Award.

McGriff had a huge first half to the 1994 campaign (.310/.385/.594, 23 HR, 63 RBI), giving him a second nod to the All-Star Game. With the N.L. trailing 7-5 in the bottom of the 9th, the Crime Dog came off the bench to hit a two-run homer off future Hall of Fame closer Lee Smith to tie the score. (The N.L. would go on to win in 10 innings and McGriff would be named the game’s Most Valuable Player).

McGriff’s hot hitting continued in the second half of the season. In 28 games, he hit .347 with 11 HR and 31 RBI. He hit 7 home runs in the first 10 games of August before the season was shut down (for good) by the most destructive players’ strike in baseball history. For the season, in just 113 games, McGriff finished with 34 HR, 94 RBI, and a slash line of .318/.389/.623 (157 OPS+); he finished 8th in the MVP vote. It was McGriff’s 6th consecutive season with at least 30 home runs.

When baseball returned in April 1995, McGriff played in all 144 games in the strike-shortened season. His production, however, dipped from his previously lofty standards. Although an All-Star again, McGriff slashed .280/.361/.489 (for a career-worst 119 OPS+), while hitting 27 HR with 93 RBI.

The 1995 Postseason

Led by the team’s three Hall of Fame starters (especially Maddux, who would win his 4th straight Cy Young Award) and rookie third baseman Chipper Jones (another future inductee into Cooperstown), the Braves easily won the N.L. East and matched up against the third-year Colorado Rockies in the first-ever N.L. Division Series (unless you count the split season of 1981). After the Braves took two of the first three contests, they pummelled the Rockies 10-4 in Game 4, led by McGriff’s two home runs and five RBI.

After sweeping the Reds in four games in the NLCS (with McGriff posting a 1.214 OPS with five runs scored but no RBI), the Braves matched up in the World Series against the Cleveland Indians, who won 100 games in the 144-game campaign. The 1995 Indians had multiple players who would wind up in the Hall of Fame (Jim Thome, Eddie Murray, and Dave Winfield) and several others who are strong candidates (Manny Ramirez, Albert Belle, Kenny Lofton, Omar Vizquel, and Orel Hershiser).

Maddux faced off against the Hershiser (the 1988 postseason hero) in Game 1. After the Indians scored in the top of the 1st inning, McGriff tied the game with a deep blast to right field off Hershiser to lead off the bottom of the 2nd. (The Braves went on to win 3-2 and also won Game 2 behind Glavine).

Back in Cleveland, the Indians won Game 3, despite a 3-for-5 performance (with a home run and two RBI) by the Crime Dog. The teams split the next two games at Jacobs Field before Atlanta closed it out in Game 6 with a 1-0 win and combined one-hitter by Glavine and closer Mark Wohlers.

In the overall postseason (14 games), as the Braves won their first World Series title in the city of Atlanta, McGriff slashed .333/.415/.619 with 4 HR, 9 RBI, and 14 Runs Scored.

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McGriff’s Final Two Years in Atlanta

Now 32 years old, Fred McGriff returned to the Braves for the 1996 campaign and had another solid campaign, albeit another one that fell short of the standards he had set during his best years from 1988-94. For the season, he slashed .295/.365/.494 (120 OPS+), hit 28 HR with 107 RBI and made his 4th All-Star squad. Due to his relatively low OPS+ in ’95 and ’96 and typically weak fielding and base-running metrics, McGriff posted a WAR of 1.4 in ’95 and 1.7 in ’96.

The Braves cruised to a fifth consecutive N.L. East title and romped over the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLDS. In Game 2 at Dodger Stadium, McGriff and Jermaine Dye hit back-to-back taters in the top of the 7th inning to turn a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 lead. The Braves went on to win by that same score and completed the sweep two days later in Atlanta.

In the NLCS, the Braves fell behind (3 games to 1) to the St. Louis Cardinals before winning the last three games to take the series in seven games. Games 5 and 7 were blowout shutouts; the Braves won 14-0 in Game 5 and 15-0 in Game 7. McGriff hit a home run and three RBI in Game 5 and went 3-for-5 with a triple, home run, four runs scored, and four RBI in Game 7.

The 1996 World Series featured the Braves’ fourth visit in the 1990s and the first appearance by the New York Yankees since 1981. The Braves were the favorites and won the first two games of the series on the road at Yankee Stadium. In the opener, McGriff contributed a solo HR in a game that featured the two home run breakout performance by 19-year-old Andruw Jones.

The Braves shut out the Yankees in Game 2, thanks to a combined shutout by Maddux and Wohlers. McGriff drove in the first three runs of the game with a pair of RBI singles and a sacrifice fly. After the Yankees won Game 3 in Atlanta, the Braves took a 6-0 lead in Game 4, with McGriff sparking the offensive onslaught with a solo home run to lead off the 2nd. The Bronx Bombers, however, came from behind to win the game 8-6 in 10 innings and proceeded to win the next two games to take the Championship. McGriff went 0 for 6 with a pair of walks in the last two games. For the entire postseason, the Crime Dog posted a .973 OPS with 5 HR and 16 RBI.

In 1997, although McGriff’s basic numbers (.277, 22 HR, 97 RBI) looked respectable, he set career-lows in OBP (.356) and SLG (.441), leading to a career-worst 106 OPS+ and, thanks to a league-leading 22 double plays and poor fielding/running metrics, a lowly WAR of 0.2.

Atlanta won the N.L. East again and swept the Houston Astros in the NLDS. In the NLCS, they were matched up against the fifth-year Florida Marlins, who were led by ace Kevin Brown and McGriff’s former teammate in San Diego, Gary Sheffield.

In Game 5 in Miami, with the series tied at two games apiece, McGriff made the final out because he took a pitch by Florida’s Livan Hernandez for strike three. Why would McGriff go down looking? Because the ball was about a foot outside. However, home plate umpire Eric Gregg had arguably the worst balls-and-strikes game for an umpire in the history of baseball. The Cuban rookie right-hander had 15 strikeouts that day, with Gregg calling the Braves hitters out on 6 of those 15 K’s. The Marlins went on to win Game 6 and, ultimately, the World Series.

1998-2001: McGriff Comes Home

Fred McGriff, after two seasons that were below his high standards, was sold to the expansion Tampa Bay Devil Rays on November 18, 1997, sending the slugger from a perennial contender to a soon-to-be perennial doormat. While the Braves would go on to win another eight straight division titles from 1998-2005, McGriff joined a franchise that would only manage as many as 70 wins once in the first ten years of its existence.

There was a silver lining for the Crime Dog, of course, in that he was going to be able to play Major League Baseball in his hometown. He was one of the Devil Rays’ two hometown marquee attractions in the early years, the other being third baseman Wade Boggs. (The future Hall of Famer was also a Tampa native).

Probably the highlight for both McGriff and the Devil Rays came in just the second game of the franchise’s existence. Playing at the Tropicana Dome against the Detroit Tigers, McGriff went 3 for 4 with a double in 4 RBI, leading Tampa Bay to an 11-8 win. Overall, however, it was a third consecutive down year for the native son. McGriff only hit 19 HR (with 81 RBI), posting a weak 111 OPS+. His WAR, however, was a respectable 2.9 thanks to improved defensive metrics.

Sidebar: why did McGriff all of a sudden, playing on Astroturf, have a statistically solid defensive campaign, 2nd best for A.L. first basemen (by WAR Runs Fielding) to Rafael Palmeiro? Well, the tangible reason to highlight is that he led the league in double plays turned by a first baseman. But there’s also this to consider: sometimes the ball just finds you more and it’s blind luck.

McGriff had a comeback season in 1999. He slashed .310/.405/.552 (142 OPS+) with 32 HR and 104 RBI. He was credited with a 4.0 WAR in ’99, thanks to defensive metrics that regressed back to his typically underwater numbers in Atlanta.

Now 36, the Crime Dog regressed a bit in 2000, hitting .277 with 27 HR and 106 RBI but with a middling 110 OPS+ (leading to a mediocre 0.2 WAR). Despite the lackluster overall statistics, McGriff did hit his 400th career home run and made his 5th and final All-Star Squad.

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McGriff rebounded again in 2001, hitting .318 with 19 HR in 97 games with the Devil Rays before the team decided to trade the slugger to the Chicago Cubs for reliever Manny Aybar. McGriff initially invoked his no-trade clause because he didn’t want to leave his family behind but ultimately relented when it became clear that he wasn’t in the team’s long-term plans.

2001-2004: Final Years in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Tampa

By leaving Tampa for Chicago, McGriff was instantly injected into a pennant race onto a team where he was not expected to be the big home run dog; that spot was occupied by Sammy Sosa, who was on his way to hitting over 60 home runs for the third time in four years. McGriff hit well for the Cubs (.282 BA, 12 HR, 41 RBI in 49 games) but the team slumped badly, losing 15 of its last 27 games to fall five games short in the N.L. Central.

Overall, with the Devil Rays and the Cubs, McGriff slashed .306/.386/.544 (144 OPS+) with 31 HR and 102 RBI. Baseball Reference credits him with a 3.7 WAR, his second-highest total since 1994.

McGriff was 38 years old for his one full season in Chicago in 2002. He had one final McGriff-esque campaign, with 30 HR and 103 RBI. His OPS+ (125) was still strong for a player in his late 30’s; his 2.1 WAR was respectable. The Crime Dog’s 30-HR season made him the first player in baseball history to hit 30 or more for five different teams.

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The Cubs opted not to re-sign McGriff for 2003, making him a free agent for the first time in his career. He signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers, his sixth MLB franchise. Unfortunately, for the first time in his career, the Crime Dog broke down. Injuries to his knee, hip, and groin limited McGriff to 86 games and his production suffered. He slashed just .249/.322/.428 (99 OPS+), hitting just 13 HR with 40 RBI.

McGriff went home again to the Devil Rays for the 2004 campaign. He had 491 career home runs and the team was hoping to get an attendance boost from his pursuit of 500. As it was in 2003, however, the Crime Dog was no longer on the case, his days as a productive hitter finished. After hitting just .181 with two home runs in 81 plate appearances, the Devil Rays released him on July 28. He officially retired during spring training in 2005, finishing his career with 493 home runs, the same total as a first baseman named Lou Gehrig.

The Hall of Fame Case for Fred McGriff

Perhaps more than any other player, the Crime Dog had been collateral damage in the Cooperstown conversations during the steroid era.  His 493 home runs just don’t look as good as they would have before the plethora of PED-fueled sluggers took to the diamond.

Fred McGriff was at his best in the first eight years of his career. Here is how he ranked in key statistical categories for those eight years.

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The statistic Wins Above Replacement (WAR) represents perhaps the biggest weakness of the Crime Dog’s Cooperstown resume. His ratings for fielding and base running are below par and WAR is punishing to first basemen in general. Still, at his best (from 1987-94), he was one of the best players in all of baseball. For whatever you think of WAR, his 11th-place ranking from 1987-1994 puts him behind Bonds, Will Clark, and eight Hall of Famers. It puts him ahead of Hall of Famers Puckett and Gwynn in their primes.

Say what you will about all of the different statistics one can use to analyze an offensive player, but the home run is still important. This is the Hall of Fame and, as we used to say in the 1990s, chicks dig the long ball. When you’re a slugging first baseman, you’re not paid for your defense or your base-running metrics, you’re paid to hit and hit with power.

Here’s a 17-year view (from 1987-2003) of the players who hit the most home runs in baseball:

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How the Steroid Era Has Impacted the Viewpoint on Fred McGriff’s Career

Since Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, and Palmeiro (the four ahead of McGriff on the list) all have links to PEDs, Fred McGriff deserves credit for being a premier clean home run threat during the height of the steroid era in which he played.

McGriff is listed on his Baseball Reference profile as 6’3” and 200 pounds and that sounds about right for his entire 19-year career. McGriff showed wiry power as a rookie in 1987 and as a 40-year-old veteran in 2004.  Unlike many of his contemporary sluggers (steroid tainted or otherwise), he didn’t turn into the Incredible Hulk over the course of his career. Look at these two photos of McGriff, one from early in his career in Toronto and his physique as a member of the Dodgers in 2003 at age 39.

Now compare these “before and after” photos to Sammy Sosa, owner of 609 career home runs, first with the Chicago White Sox early in his career and then with his cyborg-level physique with the Cubs during the home run boom.

Because McGriff was universally respected as a clean player, it’s fair to say that the media attention accorded to a milestone 500th home run might have served him well in his Cooperstown quest. The Crime Dog was in his prime during the 1994-95 players’ strike and he almost certainly would have hit seven long balls during those missed games. But that’s not what happened and, unfortunately, 493 home runs just aren’t sexy anymore.

For any excellent player in the “close but no cigar” category with respect to the Hall of Fame, McGriff’s career has two big “if onlys” regarding his final home run total of 493. The first is that he never got a chance to play with the team that drafted him, the New York Yankees. McGriff was traded at such a young age that being blocked by Don Mattingly wasn’t even an issue yet but, if he had remained a minor leaguer with the Yankees, his only path to a full-time job in Yankee Stadium would have been as a designated hitter.

Still, imagine McGriff and his left-handed power taking aim at that short porch 81 times per year. In 50 career games as a visiting player, McGriff hit 13 home runs in the Bronx, which translates to an average of 42 over 162 games. If the Crime Dog had even spent two or three seasons with the Bronx Bombers, his career total would almost certainly have eclipsed the magic number of 500.

A quick tangent: if the Yankees had never made that ill-fated trade to the Blue Jays after the 1982 season and McGriff made his MLB debut with the Yankees as their designated hitter, it’s unlikely that the team would have kept him there for multiple seasons. Another trade would likely have occurred eventually. However, if McGriff had spent even a couple of seasons in the Bronx, the team would never have felt the need to make the July 1988 trade when they dealt Jay Buhner to the Seattle Mariners for another lefty-swinging DH-type, Ken Phelps. Not making the Buhner-Phelps trade would have made Frank Costanza very happy. If you’re a “Seinfeld” fan, trust me, you’ll want to click on this link. Trust me!

Anyway, let’s now return to our regularly scheduled programming. The second “what if” in McGriff’s career was the 1994 players’ strike, which robbed the Crime Dog of 48 games during what was his most prolific home run season. He had 34 in just 113 games before the strike ended the season. He could have gone into a deep slump but, considering that he hit 7 taters in just 10 games before the strike, I think it’s fairly safe to say that he would have managed 7 more in 48 team games.

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How the PED Era and the BBWAA Ballot Squeezed Fred McGriff

When it comes to the PED era, there are four types of Hall of Fame voters:

1. PED hard-liners, who will not vote for any player with even a taint of a link to any Performance-Enhancing Drugs. This group did not vote for Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens and (mostly) did not vote in 2017 for inductees Ivan Rodriguez and Jeff Bagwell, who were suspected users but never linked.
2. Vote for PED users or suspected users sometimes. This group of voters generally will vote for the “whisper” candidates (Rodriguez, Bagwell, and Mike Piazza in 2016).
3. The Bonds-Clemens exception voters, who have the rationale that they would have been Hall of Fame players even if they had never used any illegal drugs. These voters generally also vote for the “whisper” candidates.
4. The “pretend it didn’t happen voters” who don’t take PEDs into consideration at all when voting; they just go by the numbers.

Personally, I waver between the third and fourth groups. If I had a vote, I would have voted for Clemens and Bonds in their final turn on the BBWAA ballot. I would not have voted for Sammy Sosa (because I believe his Hall of Fame case statistics lack authenticity). I’m an advocate for Gary Sheffield and have reluctantly supported Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez, even though they were suspended by Major League Baseball.

Unfortunately for McGriff, during his 10 years on the ballot, there were too many writers who fit categories #2, #3, or #4. There were 15 or 16 Cooperstown-worthy players on a ballot that limits each voter to 10 names each. Absent their PED links, Bonds and Clemens would have been inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2013 (see my piece on the Bonds/Clemens saga). But they stuck around for McGriff’s last seven years on the ballot, year after year, sucking two votes out of ten on the majority of writers’ ballots.

Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci said it best in his piece before the 2017 vote with this line: “When it comes to Hall of Fame voting, nobody has been more harmed by the Steroid Era than McGriff.”

That harm is now being repaired with McGriff’s induction this Sunday.

The Verducci Argument for Fred McGriff

Verducci has always been one of Fred McGriff’s greatest Hall of Fame advocates. In that aforementioned piece, Verducci made a couple of excellent points. For me, the most compelling is this: in the history of baseball, there are 41 players who have posted an OPS+ of 129 or greater over the span of at least 10,000 plate appearances. All of them who have been eligible for the Hall of Fame and not tainted by PEDs are in the Hall except for Fred McGriff (who had a career 134 OPS+).

Among the players with 10,000 plate appearances and a career OPS+ of less than McGriff’s 134? A whopping 37 Hall of Famers, including 400+ home run guys like Dave Winfield, Carl Yastrzemski, Eddie Murray, Andre Dawson, Billy Williams, Cal Ripken Jr., and Ernie Banks.

Verducci’s point is that consistent production at that level for such a large number of plate appearances is a rare thing. Despite the endorsement from a writer with the high esteem of Verducci, McGriff never made it close to the Hall via baseball’s scribes.

Comparing Fred McGriff to the Other Players on the Contemporary Baseball Ballot

Fred McGriff was on a lot of stacked ballots during the years in which the BBWAW was contemplating his candidacy. Last December, he was compared to just seven other players on the Contemporary Baseball Players ballot. Let’s start by saying that, statistically, the best four players on the ballot were Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Rafael Palmeiro, and Curt Schilling. Bonds and Clemens are two of the best players in the history of baseball. As for Palmeiro, he is one of just seven players to ever hit 500 home runs and collect 3,000 hits; the others are Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Alex Rodriguez, Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, and Eddie Murray.

Of course, Palmeiro was one of the first players to be suspended for using PEDs (in 2005, just months after infamously wagging his finger at Congress, defiantly claiming that he had never used steroids). As for Schilling, he won 216 games, had a career WAR of 80.5, the best strikeout/walk ratio since 1884, and was one of the greatest postseason starters of the LCS era.

If you’re going strictly by performance, McGriff was arguably the 5th best player on the 8-player ballot (ahead of Albert Belle, Don Mattingly, and Dale Murphy). So, given that the four players who are better all have “baggage,” McGriff always looked to be in a pretty good position. To make the point that he was the best “clean” position player on the ballot, let’s compare his numbers to those of Belle, Mattingly, and Murphy.

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If you look at these four players side-by-side, McGriff clearly has the superior numbers. The only case one could make for the other players is that they were more dominant during their peaks (I analyze this in detail in my piece about Belle). When the Hall reveals the Eras Committee vote results, they never tell us who voted for whom but, in this case, we all know that they voted for McGriff.

Conclusion

To wrap up, I’m not saying that there weren’t legitimate arguments against Fred McGriff as a Hall of Fame candidate. He was a somewhat one-dimensional player, not adding a lot of value defensively or on the base paths, hence his relatively low career 52.6 WAR. But I’m not moved by that. To me, his offensive value as an authentic slugger in an era fueled by chemically enhanced players is worthy of a Cooperstown plaque.

Anyway, Cooperstown is now calling. As I indicated at the top of the piece, McGriff’s Hall of Fame case was very similar to that of Lee Smith and Harold Baines, who were elected to the Hall’s Class of 2019 by the previous incarnation of what’s now known as the Contemporary Baseball Committee. The difference is that McGriff has a vastly stronger case for Cooperstown than either Smith or Baines, at least in this writer’s opinion.

The presence of Bonds and Clemens on last December’s ballot, of course, was the unpredictable wild card. The 16 members of the Contemporary Baseball Committee were only able to vote for three out of the eight candidates. If there had been sentiment in the room that it was time to “pull off the scab” and put Bonds and Clemens into the Hall, that would have made the math much more difficult for any other player to get 12 out of 16 votes (75%).

Clearly, the sentiment was not to put PED-linked players, even all-time great ones, into Cooperstown. As previously noted, McGriff got 16 out of 16 votes while Bonds and Clemens (along with Rafael Palmeiro) received “less than four.”

Anyway, McGriff had to wait a long time to get into the Hall of Fame but that time has now come. He will be on stage in Cooperstown this Sunday when his plaque will be unveiled.

Thanks for reading. Please follow Cooperstown Cred on Twitter @cooperstowncred.

Chris Bodig

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