The Crime Dog is in the Hall of Fame

He was the first player to lead each league in home runs since the American League was created.

He is a very reasonable selection. I hate all those “least common denominator” arguments, like “so-and-so should be in because he’s better than such-and-such,” because the guys at the lower end of the HOF were only above-average players who should not be in. Having noted that, I will resort to that very argument. He was a better choice than many other post-war 1B/OF/DH players who preceded him, like Jim Rice, Orlando Cepeda, Gil Hodges and (especially) Harold Baines. Based on lifetime WAR, he is approximately as good a selection as Tony Perez or Kirby Puckett.

There are two other strong arguments to be made in his favor:

1. His numbers are better than they look. He amassed some solid career numbers despite playing the first half of his career in an era when offensive numbers were low. (The two times he led his league in homers, he hit 35 and 36.)

2. He never cheated, although he was batting against juiced pitchers. He put up solid numbers in the second half of his career, despite staying straight when many, if not most, players were juicing. In his last four full seasons, for example, he knocked in 100+ runs each year, and he did that at ages 35-38.

The great offensive explosion began in 1993, when home run production suddenly jumped from .72 per team per game to .89. The next year it jumped again to 1.03. That’s more than a 40% jump in just two years. The steroid era had begin. By 1995, somebody was hitting 50 homers or more every year, even though that had been a great rarity throughout baseball history. If you look at McGriff’s stats before the explosion happened, 1987-1992, there were only two players in the majors with more homers – McGwire and Canseco – and they are that high only because they discovered steroids before everyone else. Canseco was basically patient zero, and McGwire was his teammate and protege. That means McGriff was the top guy playing fair. McGriff out-homered Barry Bonds in that period, 191-160, even though they are basically the same age and Bonds had more plate appearances.

Of course, we all know that McGriff continued to hit his same old 30 homers and 100 RBI every year, while Bonds went on to a season were he had hit 39 homers in his first 217 at bats, and looked for a while like he might reach triple figures. Gee, how could that happen? ‘Tis a mystery.

SIDEBAR: Home run production has never dropped back to the 1992 level. The steroid era ended (mostly), and the number settled back to .86 in 2014, but the new “true outcome” offensive philosophy suddenly had everyone swinging for the fences, even the little guys. By 2019, the HR/game number had risen to the all-time high of 1.39, far higher than the steroid-era peak of 1.17, and it would probably still be rising if baseball’s high sheriffs had not taken some action to bring it under control. It was 1.07 last season.

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