Amid all the warmth and fuzziness of a possible reunion with the Seattle Mariners, Ken Griffey Jr. just wants to prove he’s still a productive major leaguer.
Brian Goldberg, Griffey’s agent, said Tuesday that Junior knows he isn’t the player at age 39 that he was during his prime with the Mariners in the 1990s.
But, Goldberg said, Griffey plans to come back much better than he was this year after undergoing surgery on a left knee injury that hampered him throughout the season. He hit 18 home runs in 2008 with the Reds and White Sox, the fewest of any season in his career when he’s had at least 490 at-bats.
“One thing I can say is that Junior is very comfortable with who he was baseball-wise on the field and who he’s not anymore, but also who he can still be for a few more years,” Goldberg said.
Mariners general manager Jack Zduriencik said this week that he has spoken with Goldberg about Griffey, who is a free agent this offseason. Zduriencik said the talks where preliminary and that he would know whether the Mariners are serious about signing Griffey within a week to 10 days.
“You can’t forget history as far as what Junior meant to the franchise,” Goldberg said. “But at the same time, wherever Junior plays next year, whether it’s Seattle or another team, the bottom line is that it has to make sense baseball-wise for that team.”
Goldberg said he has spoken with nine teams, six from the American League.
The Mariners’ main focus this offseason is to sign players who can help them over the longterm, and signing a 39-year-old coming off surgery may be a risk they aren’t willing to take. Still, the Mariners have openings in left field, center field, first base and designated hitter, and Goldberg said Griffey would consider any situation, even a DH role on a one-year contract.
“He’s fine with that,” Goldberg said. “My thinking is that with him getting his knee fixed so early in the offseason and coming in lighter, he would like to play the field and he’s capable of playing right field, left field, some center and some first base. If the best situation for him is a DH situation, he would not turn his back on that. But he feels like he’s still capable of playing in the field.”
Scouts said Griffey’s swing had slowed to the point that he needed to cheat to catch up with a fastball in 2008. However, the Griffey camp has no doubt that he will be healthier and more productive in 2009 after he had torn cartilage in the knee repaired in October.
“He has lost 12-15 pounds, he’s running and he feels great,” said Dr. Tim Kremcheck, the Reds’ orthopedic physician who operated on Griffey. “There’s no question the extent of his knee injury hampered him in terms of his power and his production. He was unable to drive off that back leg. He’ll be at full strength by spring training, no question.”
Goldberg wouldn’t say what kind of money Griffey wants, but he said it won’t be significant.
Because Griffey will continue to get deferred money from his last contract, “he probably doesn’t need to be as aggressive compensation-wise as other players in that situation,” Goldberg said. “He can have the luxury of saying, ‘I’ll show for a year that I’ve still got something left.’”
Goldberg said he believes Griffey is capable of the 30 homers and 93 RBI he produced two years ago with the Reds.
“He understands the situation,” Goldberg said. “He knows he’s not going to be the 56 home-run guy he was, but he also should have no problem returning to what he did a few years ago.”
Read Kirby Arnold’s blog on the Mariners at www.heraldnet.com.
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