Ken Griffey Jr. next in line for Hall of Fame call

A year from now, the question won't be about Ken Griffey Jr.'s election to the Hall of Fame, but his vote total.

Today, the Hall announced the election of Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz and Craig Biggio. Johnson, Griffey's former teammate, earned 97.3 percent of the vote, the eighth-highest percentage in history.

Tom Seaver, another former Red, leads all Hall of Fame voters when he received 98.84 percent of the vote in 1992. He's followed by Nolan Ryan (98.79 percent in 1999) and Cal Ripken Jr. (98.53 percent in 2007).

If the Hall of Fame voting has shown us anything, it's that nobody -- no matter how deserving they may be -- will be elected unanimously. That said, Griffey could challenge Seaver as the top vote-getter of all time and Ripken as the top position player.

Griffey will get 75 percent of the votes -- and because the specter of the steroid era has been such a large part of voting, he may even get a bump because he has never been accused of using performance-enhancing drugs and is perceived as clean.

Griffey finished his career with 630 home runs, 13 All-Star appearances, 10 Gold Gloves and the 1997 Most Valuable Player award. But more than that, he was the player of his generation, the one player that transcended the sport and made baseball cool. To be a baseball fan in the 90s was to be a Ken Griffey Jr. fan.

Griffey, of course, became a Red in 2000, but when he's elected, he'll be wearing a Mariners cap. Griffey started and ended his career with the Mariners, the team that drafted him No. 1 overall from Moeller High School in 1987. From 1990 to 2000, he hit .299/.384/.579 with 422 home runs and won a Gold Glove every year until 2000.

Griffey played nine seasons in his hometown, and despite hitting .270/.362/.514 with 210 home runs, he was seen as a disappointment by the hometown fans, with much of his time here marred by injuries. Despite that, he's still one of the game's all-time greats.

Griffey finished his 22-year career with a .284/.370/.538 slash line, and according to the Jaffe WAR Score system developed by Jay Jaffe to measure the career and peak value of players, Griffey is rated as the fifth-best center fielder of all time, behind Willie Mays, Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker and Mickey Mantle, ahead of Joe DiMaggio, Duke Snider and Carlos Beltran.

But when the voters from the Baseball Writers Association see his name on the ballot next year, it probably won't require a deep dive into the record books or Baseball-Reference.com. Griffey's name will receive an easy check.

Also appearing on the ballot for the first time next year will be former Reds minor-leaguer Trevor Hoffman, who was selected by the Marlins in the expansion draft in 1992 and went on to become the all-time saves leader when he retired. Fellow closer Billy Wagner also joins the ballot, as does one-time Red Jim Edmonds. Others on the ballot for the first time include Jason Kendall, Garret Anderson, Mike Sweeney and Mike Hampton.