Matt Kemp Drawing Comparisons To The Duke

The Dodgers are honoring Duke Snider next Tuesday with a pregame ceremony as well as giving out a bobblehead of Snider to the fans in attendance at the game (which may or may not be Nate Eovaldi's major league debut, but that's another story). That you'd have to go back to the Hall of Famer Snider to find another season by a Dodger center fielder to equal what Matt Kemp is doing this year is incredible.

Earlier today, we saw that when the season was broken down into thirds, Kemp's second 54-game stretch was even better than his first, which was amazing in itself. That spurred some discussion in the comments about the greatest season ever by a Los Angeles Dodger center fielder, and it looks like Kemp is in good position to overtake Jimmy Wynn's 1974 campaign.

Looking at all Dodgers, even in Brooklyn, to play at least 60 games in center field in one season, here are the center fielders to slug at least .500:

That Grissom made this list is remarkable, especially considering that it was one season after the worst 20-home run season in MLB history (hey, numbers two and four on that list look familiar!). Grissom and Snider (in 1958) are the only Los Angeles Dodgers to show up in this list of slugging center fielders, but neither of them qualified for the batting title.

Which leaves us with the fact that Kemp has an excellent chance to become the first full-time LA Dodger center fielder ever to slug .500 in a season. With a slugging percentage of .591, he has some cushion too; if Kemp goes hitless in his next 72 at-bats (only 27 more AB than Craig Counsell!), his slugging percentage will still be .500.

Lineups

Game Time: 7:05 p.m.

TV: KCAL

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