Guest Post: Alfredo Griffin, Tony Fernandez, and Bryan Johnson

Written by Bill

Monday, 02 August 2010 09:00

Griffin One more guest post today. This one comes from Arne Christensen, proprietor of the excellent baseball history and trivia blog Misc.Baseball.

A few days ago I came across Bill's mention of Alfredo Griffin as the worst All-Star ever in 1984, and had an idea. A few months ago I was contacted by Bryan Johnson, who was a Toronto Globe and Mail reporter and baseball columnist in the early-to-mid-'80s, and maybe the first newspaper writer to focus on sabermetrics in his columns. He was responding to a few posts I'd done (such as this one ) on those columns on the Misc. Baseball blog I have.

Along with talking about the "Johnson Effect," as Bill James named it in the 1980s (it's now better known as the Pythagorean Theorem), how the column came to be, and what Johnson's doing now (teaching English in the Phillipines), we also exchanged a few emails in which he described "my impassioned, stats-based plea" for the Blue Jays to put Tony Fernandez in at shortstop to replace Griffin. That plea pretty much peaked as Griffin was getting elevated to All-Star status in 1984, just ahead of being permanently replaced by Fernandez.

So, here's Bryan Johnson's description of how the Griffin-Fernandez debate developed in 1983 and 1984, and what it represented:

I never realized that I was something of a "pioneer" in those days. I guess I just assumed that somebody at the Cleveland Plain Dealer or New Orleans Times Picayune must be doing the same thing. Anyway, if that's NOT true, I guess my impassioned, stats-based plea that the Blue Jays replace SS Alfredo Griffin with a minor leaguer named Tony Fernandez -- (yes, that Tony Fernandez) -- must rank as the first big, public Sabermetric broohaha in baseball history.

Griffin was a big favorite in Toronto, both of the team (Pat Gillick said he was "worth 5 or 6 games a year in the clubhouse") and the fans. So, essentially, everybody threw a fit when I labeled him an "out machine", and pointed out that we had a kid in the minors who was 10 times the ballplayer Griffin was.

You may recall that Griffin was the classic creation of the "old" baseball stats: good glove, a pretty decent batting average, but zero underlying stats. He drew 10 walks in a good year; seldom hit anything but singles. Probably had an OPS under .600.

Meanwhile, down in the farm...we had this great kid! In sabermetric terms, it was a no-brainer. And, in my columns, I opened up with both barrels.

Anyway, for weeks, I was either appearing on talk-shows, or, mostly, listening to myself getting hammered on radio call-in shows. It was a fascinating period. And, from what you tell me, probably quite a milestone in sabermetric history. I mean, heck, I really liked Griffin...as a person. He was a terrific guy, but a black hole in the offense.

I think I ended one column something like this: "I'm not saying that Alfredo Griffin isn't worth 5 or 6 games a year in the clubhouse. All I'm saying is, he'd better be!" [Actual excerpts from that column here.]

Because, clearly, he was costing them 5-6 games a year on the field.

Alfredo Griffin's OPS in his final 4 years as Toronto's regular SS, 1981-84 were: .531, .583, .637 and .546.

His overall OPS in 8 seasons as a Blue Jay was .607.

Tony Fernandez took over full-time in 1985. His OPS in a dozen Toronto seasons was .765.

Pretty clear in retrospect. But a damn controversial opinion to express, in the Toronto media, circa 1983.

If you are correct, and the Toronto media was ahead of its time as a Sabermetric battleground, then this Griffin-Fernandez dust-up is probably the first of its kind.

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