Junior Milestones for 2010

With the 2010 season to look forward to as yet another season that will see Griffey in a Mariners uniform it is a good time to take note of the potential milestones that the future hall of famer should or could reach this following season.

First and foremost on everyone's minds is Griffey's place on the career home runs list. As the current active home run leader with 630, Griffey is fifth on the list behind Willie Mays, Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, and Barry Bonds. Griffey needs 31 to pass Mays (660), and with a very productive season, Griffey could do it in 2010. However, its been a couple of seasons since Griffey has surpassed even 20 homers and this would depend on him staying healthy as well as productive.

In the runs batted in category, Griffey finds himself ranked 16th all time with 1829, a mere 4 behind Dave Winfield and 6 behind Rafael Palmeiro. If Griffey can knock in 85 rbis this season, he'll Willie Mays and reach the top 10. Even with a very mediocre season, Griffey should pass hall of famers Winfield, Ted Williams (1839), Carl Yastrzemski (1844), and Mel Ott (1860).

Then there are several lesser known statistical categories that Griffey should advance in this following season:
-With 3 extra base hits, Griffey will find himself ranked 6th overall in that category behind Mays, Ruth, Stan Musial, Bonds, and Aaron.
-Griffey currently has the 4th highest amount of intentional walks (246), and with 15 more he will pass Willie McCovey, though Bonds has probably made the all time record damn near untouchable with 688 lifetime.

And finally, there are the franchise records. Griffey is already the Mariner's franchise leader in home runs (417), Intentional Walks (172), and On base plus slugging percentage (.935). In many categories, Griffey finds himself second to only one other future Mariner's hall of famer, Edgar Martinez. Though most of these categories seem unlikely for Junior to reach next season, only 53 more rbis will claim the franchise top spot from Martinez.

Thus, several milestones await to be reached by Junior this coming season. Next up, we'll see what's instore for Ichiro this season to top reaching 2000 career hits in the MLB, 3000 career hits when combining his MLB and Japanese totals, and 9 consecutive seasons of producing 200 hits or more.