Happy birthday to Ben Grieve, who turns 33 today.
Grieve is a classic example of why folks say players with "old player" skills -- slow, power, high walk, high strikeout -- don't age well. Grieve was the 2nd overall pick in the 1994 draft out of high school (sandwiched between Paul Wilson and Dustin Hermanson), and after an impressive cup of coffee in 1997, was the American League Rookie of the Year in 1998.
He was traded by the A's to Tampa Bay in a deal involving Cory Lidle and Johnny Damon after the 2000 season, a move that I thought at the time was questionable, because Grieve was cheap and had posted 3 straight seasons with OPSs in the 840s. But Grieve never hit that well again, and was out of the league by age 30.