Fred McGriff, in my opinion, was the best NL first baseman of the 1990s. I believe he was overlooked and underappreciated by many during his playing time.

Fred hit the 3rd most home runs by a first baseman in the 1990s with 300. He was only behind Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro in this category. He finished the 1990s with 975 runs batted in. This put him only behind Rafael Palmeiro and Frank Thomas for 3rd most by a first baseman for the decade.

For most hits in the 1900s Fred finished 3rd among first baseman behind Mark Grace (who led all hitters with 1754 hits), and Rafael Palmeiro.

Fred McGriff started his MLB career in 1986 with the Toronto Blue Jays. He would go on to play 19 seasons retiring in 2004 after playing in 27 games with the Tampa Rays (Devil Rays at the time).

During his 19 seasons he played 5 seasons with the Blue Jays, Atlanta Braves, and Tampa Bay. He spent 2 full seasons with the San Diego Padres, and 1 season each with the Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers.

Fred McGriff was a winner from the moment he started playing full-time in the majors. During his time with Toronto from 1986-1990 the team won a combined 358 games. Then in December of 1990 he would be traded to the San Diego Padres along with Tony Fernandez for Roberto Alomar and Joe Carter (the 2 players that propelled Toronto to a World Series in 1992 and 1993).

McGriff played two full seasons with the Padres from 1991 to 1993. He was traded July 18,1993 to the Atlanta Braves, where in his first at-bat he hit a home run. He would go on to provide the offense needed to help propel the Braves in the second half of the season to win the NL West that season.

He would play for Atlanta from 1993-1997 where he would win the 1995 World Series and appear in the 1996 World Series. He appeared in the 1993 NL Championship Series and the 1997 NL Championship Series with them.

In the 1998 season he joined the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, his hometown team, and played with them for their first 3 seasons before being traded to the Chicago Cubs in 2001. He would play for the Cubs through 2002 when he would sign a one-year contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers before the 2003 season. And then would sign with Tampa Bay before the 2004 season.

In 2004 he would end up getting released in July of that year. He wouldn’t be picked up by any team and officially retired in 2005.

Fred McGriff finished his career with a .284 batting average, 493 home runs, 1550 runs batted in, 72 stolen bases, .377 on-base percentage, and a slugging percentage of .509. He won three silver slugger awards. He won the 1994 All-Star game MVP award. He is a World Series champion. McGriff finished six times in the Top-Ten of the MVP voting in his career. He was a five time All-Star. He hit 30 plus home runs in 7 consecutive seasons. He appeared in 50 postseason games where he had a .303 average, 10 home runs, and 37 runs batted in.

For me as an avid baseball fan, Fred McGriff’s induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame is a long time coming. He failed to get voted in by the Baseball Writers Association of America from 2010-2019 receiving his highest support in 2019 with appearing on 39.8% of the ballots.

Fred McGriff displayed the power, the average, and the defensive prowess of a corner infielder. I believe he was always overlooked at his position since you had names like Mark McGwire, Jeff Bagwell, Frank Thomas, Andres Galarraga and Mo Vaughn. These guys were faces of their teams.

Fred McGriff wasn’t really the face of any of the teams he played on. He was the face of the Tom Emanski’s Baseball Fundamentals training videos from 1991 and any kid of the 1990s would remember these.

Fred not being considered the main guy or the face of a team could have factored into him not being elected until this year. For us, his fans, I am thankful that his peers from that time recognized he is a Hall of Famer, and I am excited to see in person one of my favorite players growing up get inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

– Chad Cain

-all stats courtesy of https://www.baseball-reference.com and statmuse.com

-photo of snntv.com / Getty Images