All-Time Bluefield Team - Bobby Grich

The starting second baseman on the All-Time Bluefield-to-the-Bigs Team is Bobby Grich, one of the most underrated keystone corner men of all time. A six-time All-Star and four-time Gold Glove winner has a compelling case to be enshrined in Cooperstown. The former Oriole and Angel completes the great infield of former Bluefielders along with 1B Eddie Murray, SS Cal Ripken and 3B Doug DeCinces.

Grich was born January 15, 1949 in Muskegon, Michigan. He grew up in California, attending Woodrow Wilson Classical High School in Long Beach*. He was drafted by the Orioles in the first round of the 1967 draft with the 19th pick. He had the highest career bWAR of that round by far, impressive considering that Ted Simmons, Jon Matlack and John Mayberry were also first rounders that year.


* The school has an impressive record of producing baseball players. Grich is one of four first-round picks from the school, along with 1974 AL MVP Jeff Burroughs (the 1969 top overall pick), his son Sean and Twins AA OF Aaron Hicks. Another Wilson grad is Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Lemon.

Grich made his pro debut in 1967 for the Bluefield Orioles in their Appalachian League championship season. Coming up as a shortstop, he batted .254 on a club managed by Joe Altobelli and that had future Orioles and Angels teammate Don Baylor starring in the outfield

He didn't really hit his stride in the minors until 1969, when he played for Altobelli again with the Dallas-Fort Worth Spurs in the Texas League. As a 20-year-old at Double-A, Grich hit .310 and was named co-MVP of the league with teammate Larry Johnson. Grich was a minor league champion again as the Spurs won the Texas League title

The following year at Triple-A Rochester he hit .383 to earn a 30-game stint in Baltimore for his major league debut. Back in the minors in 1971 he once again played under Altobelli and once again won a league championship. This time, he had the MVP all to himself after hitting .336 with 32 home runs. Not only was he the International League's top player, The Sporting News voted him the Minor League Player of the Year.
Grich started getting regular playing time with the O's in 1972. He played in 133 games and had 528 plate appearances while seeing time at all four infield positions, mostly shortstop. He hit .278 with a .358 on base percentage and made his first All-Star team, starting for the AL at short.

Prior to the 1973 campaign, Baltimore traded Davey Johnson to the Braves to open up second base for Grich. Now a fixture in the O's lineup, Grich responded by playing all 162 games and led all American League position players with a bWAR of 8.0. He won the first of four straight Gold Gloves, which makes sense since most of his WAR was boosted by his stellar defense. He totaled 29 fielding runs in '73. Chase Utley (2008) is the only second baseman with more in a single season since World War II.

In all four of his Gold Glove seasons, his double-play partner Mark Belanger won it at shortstop as well. I used the following chart in my earlier post about Belanger. Here are the ten pairs of teammates to win the Gold Glove at 2B and SS in the same season:

Shortstop	Second Baseman	Wins	Years
Luis Aparicio	Nellie Fox	2	1959-60
Gene Alley	Bill Mazeroski	2	1966-67
Jim Fregosi	Bobby Knoop	1	1967
Mark Belanger	Davey Johnson	2	1969, 1971
Mark Belanger	Bobby Grich	4	1973-76
Dave Concepcion	Joe Morgan	4	1974-77
Alan Trammell	Lou Whitaker	2	1983-84
Omar Vizquel	Roberto Alomar	3	1999-2001
Edgar Renteria	Fernando Vina	1	2002
Derek Jeter	Robinson Cano	1	2010

Grich got his first taste of the postseason in 1973 when his Orioles won the AL East and faced the defending champion Oakland A's. Facing elimination in Game Four, Grich homered off Rollie Fingers in the eighth inning to win the game. But Oakland won the next day to take the pennant en route to the second of three straight titles.

After the All-Star nod in '72 and the Gold Glove in '73, he earned both in 1974. His bWAR of an even 7.0 was just 0.2 behind Rod Carew for the AL lead among position players. The O's won the division again, but fell in the ALCS to Oakland. That season he had his only career three-homer game on June 18, driving in a career-high six runs.

He hit six walk-off home runs in his career, one of which ended this great pitching duel in 1975, when Jim Palmer and Frank Tanana traded zeroes. With the game still scoreless with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Grich took Tanana deep to beat his future team.

Grich won Gold Gloves in 1975 and 1976, and started the All-Star Game at second base in '76. But his time in Baltimore was up when he became a free agent that offseason. He went back home and signed a five-year, $1.2 million contract with the California Angels, the team he grew up rooting for.

Before he played a game in Anaheim, he injured his back lifting an air conditioner, marring his first two seasons with the Angels.

Bobby bounced back in a big way in 1979. He hit .294 with 30 homers and 101 RBIs while posting an OPS+ of 145. The Halos surged to their first division crown and Grich finished eighth in the MVP vote, the highest finish of his career.

A big contest during that resurgent season was July 15 against the two-time reigning champion Yankees on the Sunday before the All-Star Game. After a thrilling comeback win the night before, California trailed 4-0 early against New York ace Ron Guidry. Grich got them back in the game with an RBI single in the third inning and a two-run double in the seventh. Still down 4-3 with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, he ripped a two-run homer off Guidry for the walk-off win. Grich drove in all five runs and he told Baseball Digest in 1986 that it was "the game I'll never forget."

The Angels were back in the playoffs and faced Grich's former team, the Orioles. Baltimore took the first two games at home and went to the West Coast looking for the sweep. They were two outs away from one with two outs to go and with Rod Carew at second base as the tying run, Grich lifted a fly ball to center field that Al Bumbry dropped, tying the game at three. The next batter was Larry Harlow and he doubled to win the game and give the Angels their first-ever postseason win. The excitement was short-lived though as Orioles won the next night to win the pennant.

Grich had an interesting '79 season in that he had that career-high of 30 homers, but he still laid down 12 sacrifices. Since 1930*, there have only been eight seasons in which a hitter had 30 HR and 10 SH, but none since Grich. Only five of those seasons occurred after 1939.

* I originally looked up all 30 HR/10 SH seasons and found 38 of them, most in the 1920s and 30s by such luminaries as Babe Ruth (4x), Hack Wilson (4x), Lou Gehrig (3x), Rogers Hornsby (3x), Jimmie Foxx (2x), Al Simmons (2x) and Mel Ott (2x). HOWEVER, I learned in this Baseball-Reference article that the scoring rules prior to 1931 credited sacrifice flies as sacrifices whereas those are now kept separately. That could explain a lot about the inflated totals. Here are the eight seasons since 1930 of 30 homers and ten sacrifices:

Rk	Player	Year	SH	HR	Age	Tm	Lg	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	Pos
1	Bobby Grich	1979	12	30	30	CAL	AL	.294	.365	.537	.903	*4
2	Butch Hobson	1977	10	30	25	BOS	AL	.265	.300	.489	.789	*5
3	Rusty Staub	1970	11	30	26	MON	NL	.274	.394	.497	.891	*9
4	Joe Adcock	1956	11	38	28	MLN	NL	.291	.337	.597	.934	*3
5	Gil Hodges	1950	11	32	26	BRO	NL	.283	.367	.508	.875	*3
6	Hank Greenberg	1939	11	33	28	DET	AL	.312	.420	.622	1.042	*3
7	Ival Goodman	1938	12	30	29	CIN	NL	.292	.368	.533	.901	*9
8	Mel Ott	1936	10	33	27	NYG	NL	.328	.448	.588	1.036	*9

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used

Generated 5/21/2012.

1981 was a strike-shortened season (110 games), but it might have been Grich's best year. He tied for the league lead with 22 homers* and topped the AL with a .543 slugging percentage and 164 OPS+. Since Hornsby, the only 2B with a 160 OPS+ or better are Bobby Doerr (1944), Joe Morgan (1975-76), Grich and Jeff Kent (2000). He also had a career-long 21-game hitting streak that year, during which he hit .440. After the season he was awarded the Silver Slugger for the first and only time in his career.

* There was a four-way tie atop the AL in homers in '81 as Grich, Eddie Murray, Tony Armas and Dave Kingman all hit 22. But it's worth noting that Grich hit his in fewer plate appearances (404) than Murray (422), Armas (462) or Evans (504).

Nap LaJoie (1901, 14), Hornsby (42 in 1922, 39 in 1925), Grich and Ryne Sandberg (40, 1990) are the only second basemen to lead their league in homers.

1982 was his last All-Star season, but he did put up a 118 OPS+ over his final four seasons after that.

Those last few seasons included two excruciating playoff defeats. The Angels led the 1982 ALCS 2-0 over the Brewers, but they dropped three straight to let the pennant slip away.

They were painfully close to their first American League pennant again in 1986 before collapsing. They led the ALCS 3-1 over the Boston Red Sox. Then came the famous Game Five. Grich hit a two-run homer off Dave Henderson's glove in the sixth that put California in front and it was a 5-2 game in the ninth. Don Baylor hit a two-run homer to bring Boston closer, and Henderson's home run off Donnie Moore that put the Sox in front 6-5.

The Angels actually tied the game in the ninth and had the bases loaded with one out. But DeCinces flew out and Grich lined out to send the game to extras. Henderson hit a sacrifice fly off of Moore in the 11th that won it 7-6 and extended the series. Boston then routed the Angels twice at Fenway to win the pennant.

The classic game was recently ranked eighth on MLB Network's list of the top 20 games of the last 50 years (some of the program commemorating the game is here, which includes commentary from Grich, Henderson and Hurst).

Boston's Game Seven rout was Bobby Grich's last game in the major leagues.

He was the inaugural member of the Angels Hall of Fame in 1988. Unfortunately, he didn't fare well in the vote to join that other Hall of Fame.

In one of the great injustices of the Hall of Fame voting, Grich received only 11 votes in his first year of eligibility (1992) and fell off the ballot for good because his 2.6 percent of the vote did not cross the five percent threshold for staying on the ballot. Grich may not be a slam-dunk Hall of Famer, but he has a pretty good case and I think he should be in. At the very least, he deserved more time to have it examined.

Here is where Grich ranks on the all-time bWAR list among position players and you can see he is in pretty good company.

55.	Reggie Jackson+ (21)	68.4	L
56.	Frankie Frisch+ (19)	68.0	B
57.	Johnny Mize+ (15)	67.8	L
58.	Bobby Grich (17)	67.3	R
	Harry Heilmann+ (17)	67.3	R
	Barry Larkin+ (19)	67.3	R
61.	Jim Thome (22, 41)	67.1	L
	Alan Trammell (20)	67.1	R
63.	Ron Santo+ (15)	66.6	R

Here's the all-time second baseman leaderboard in bWAR:

Rk	Player	WAR/pos	From	To	Age	G	PA	H	HR	RBI	BB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	Tm
1	Rogers Hornsby	124.6	1915	1937	19-41	2259	9481	2930	301	1584	1038	.358	.434	.577	1.010	STL-NYG-BSN-CHC-TOT-SLB
2	Eddie Collins	118.5	1906	1930	19-43	2825	12040	3315	47	1300	1499	.333	.424	.429	.853	PHA-CHW
3	Nap Lajoie	102.2	1896	1916	21-41	2480	10460	3242	82	1599	516	.338	.380	.466	.846	PHI-PHA-TOT-CLE
4	Joe Morgan	97.1	1963	1984	19-40	2649	11329	2517	268	1133	1865	.271	.392	.427	.819	HOU-CIN-SFG-PHI-OAK
5	Charlie Gehringer	76.6	1924	1942	21-39	2323	10244	2839	184	1427	1186	.320	.404	.480	.884	DET
6	Lou Whitaker	71.4	1977	1995	20-38	2390	9967	2369	244	1084	1197	.276	.363	.426	.789	DET
7	Frankie Frisch	68.0	1919	1937	20-38	2311	10099	2880	105	1244	728	.316	.369	.432	.801	NYG-STL
8	Bobby Grich	67.3	1970	1986	21-37	2008	8220	1833	224	864	1087	.266	.371	.424	.794	BAL-CAL
9	Ryne Sandberg	64.9	1981	1997	21-37	2164	9282	2386	282	1061	761	.285	.344	.452	.795	PHI-CHC
10	Roberto Alomar	63.1	1988	2004	20-36	2379	10400	2724	210	1134	1032	.300	.371	.443	.814	SDP-TOR-BAL-CLE-NYM-TOT
11	Willie Randolph	63.0	1975	1992	20-37	2202	9461	2210	54	687	1243	.276	.373	.351	.724	PIT-NYY-LAD-TOT-MIL-NYM
12	Craig Biggio	62.6	1988	2007	22-41	2850	12504	3060	291	1175	1160	.281	.363	.433	.796	HOU
13	Jackie Robinson	58.7	1947	1956	28-37	1382	5804	1518	137	734	740	.311	.409	.474	.883	BRO
14	Joe Gordon	54.0	1938	1950	23-35	1566	6538	1530	253	975	759	.268	.357	.466	.822	NYY-CLE
15	Jeff Kent	53.9	1992	2008	24-40	2298	9537	2461	377	1518	801	.290	.356	.500	.855	NYM-TOT-SFG-HOU-LAD
16	Billy Herman	52.5	1931	1947	21-37	1922	8639	2345	47	839	737	.304	.367	.407	.774	CHC-TOT-BRO-PIT

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 5/21/2012.

11 of the 16 are in Cooperstown, with only Whitaker, Grich, Randolph, Biggio and Kent out. Biggio is on the ballot for the first time this winter, it will be a pretty contentious vote with Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, Mike Piazza and Curt Schilling all first-timers as well. Biggio doesn't have the PED cloud hanging over him (although his Astros teammate Jeff Bagwell unfairly has one) and should cruise in with 3,000 hits. Kent hits the ballot in 2014 with Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, Mike Mussina and Frank Thomas.

Whitaker is a good comparison for Grich. Both were superb-fielding, high-on base second basemen who are major HOF snubs after falling off the ballot after one year with less than three percent of the vote.

Here is a list of middle infielders with an on base percentage of .370 or better and an OPS+ of 125 or better (min. 1000 games, plus Hanley Ramirez, who should get there by the end of this season):

Rk	Player	Year	OPS+ ▾	OBP	From	To	Age	G	R	H	2B	HR	BB	BA	SLG	OPS	Tm
1	Rogers Hornsby	1937	175	.434	1915	1937	19-41	2259	1579	2930	541	301	1038	.358	.577	1.010	STL-NYG-BSN-CHC-TOT-SLB
2	Honus Wagner	1917	151	.391	1897	1917	23-43	2794	1739	3420	643	101	963	.328	.467	.858	LOU-PIT
3	Nap Lajoie	1916	150	.380	1896	1916	21-41	2480	1504	3242	657	82	516	.338	.466	.846	PHI-PHA-TOT-CLE
4	Alex Rodriguez	2012	144	.386	1994	2012	18-36	2441	1846	2815	499	634	1186	.301	.564	.950	SEA-TEX-NYY
5	Eddie Collins	1930	142	.424	1906	1930	19-43	2825	1821	3315	438	47	1499	.333	.429	.853	PHA-CHW
6	Arky Vaughan	1948	136	.406	1932	1948	20-36	1817	1173	2103	356	96	937	.318	.453	.859	PIT-BRO
7	Joe Morgan	1984	132	.392	1963	1984	19-40	2649	1650	2517	449	268	1865	.271	.427	.819	HOU-CIN-SFG-PHI-OAK
8	Jackie Robinson	1956	132	.409	1947	1956	28-37	1382	947	1518	273	137	740	.311	.474	.883	BRO
9	Hanley Ramirez	2012	130	.376	2005	2012	21-28	893	638	1054	224	141	384	.303	.502	.878	BOS-FLA-MIA
10	Chase Utley	2011	127	.377	2003	2011	24-32	1109	731	1198	258	188	462	.290	.505	.882	PHI
11	Bobby Grich	1986	125	.371	1970	1986	21-37	2008	1033	1833	320	224	1087	.266	.424	.794	BAL-CAL
12	Charlie Gehringer	1942	124	.404	1924	1942	21-39	2323	1774	2839	574	184	1186	.320	.480	.884	DET
13	George Grantham	1934	122	.392	1922	1934	22-34	1445	912	1508	292	105	717	.302	.461	.854	CHC-PIT-CIN-NYG
14	Tony Lazzeri	1939	121	.380	1926	1939	22-35	1740	986	1840	334	178	869	.292	.467	.846	NYY-CHC-TOT
15	Lou Boudreau	1952	120	.380	1938	1952	20-34	1646	861	1779	385	68	796	.295	.415	.795	CLE-BOS

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used

Generated 5/21/2012.

Grich is on the lower end compared to Hall of Famers like Hornsby and Wagner, but his excellent peak plus his under-appreciated on base ability plus his sparkling defense add up to a Hall of Famer in my book. 

Joe Gordon was put into the Hall by the Veterans Committee in 2009. He had a great career and I think he should be in, but if he is so should Grich (and Whitaker). This piece from 2011 from The Baseball Analysts breaks down the Gordon/Grich comparison. The recent induction of Bert Blyleven and this summer's enshrinement of Ron Santo are two examples of darlings of the sabermetric community finally getting in, maybe one day Grich will get his due.

Either way, he was a no-brainer for the All-Time Bluefield Team. I'll match up the Murray-Grich-Ripken-DeCinces infield with that of any other to come up through one minor league team.

All-Time	Bluefield Roster
Pitchers
SP 1	Dean Chance
SP 2	Mike Boddicker
SP 3	Bill Monbouquette
SP 4	TBA
SP 5	TBA
RP	TBA
RP	Ken McBride
RP	TBA
RP	Sammy Stewart
Setup	TBA
Setup	Arthur Rhodes
Closer	Sparky Lyle
Catchers
C	Gregg Zaun
C	TBA
Infield
1B	Eddie Murray
2B	Bobby Grich
SS	Cal Ripken
3B	Doug DeCinces
IF	Mark Belanger
IF	TBA
Outfield
LF	Don Baylor
CF	Luis Matos
RF	Bob Bailor
OF	David Dellucci
OF	TBA