Saturday, February 12, 2022

Ken Henderson—Darned Good

By JT


 Playing next to Willie Mays had to help in the field, but Ken Henderson played some solid ball but when Gary Matthews came to the bigs, Henderson was expendable and traded to the white Sox

He played for seven teams in his career and had a nice 7-year peak from 1970-76—





Henderson had some pop in his bat (average 17 HRs per 162 games) and some speed (13 SBs in the same span) and averaged 30 doubles as well. He was a fine left fielder and a decent arm (15 assists in 1970 and 14 in 1972).  
While no superstar he was a solid player and in 1974 he was 19th in MVP voting and was likely the best centerfielder in the Al that year, ranking fourth in WAR and leading in OPS, SLG, doubles, HRs and RBI—
Had the UPI picked position players, rather than just three outfielders he'd have likely been All-AL that year. 

One of our favorite stats is the Power/Speed number—

He was in his league's top 10 for times—
1970 NL  18.4 (6th)
1971 NL  16.4 (5th)
1972 NL  15.8 (10th)
1974 AL  15.0 (6th)
(source Baseball Reference)

So, here's to Ken Henderson, a good compliment to a star centerfielder and for one year (1974) a fine near-star player in centerfield.

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