After failing to find headlines of "Tom Brady's Wife Hot?" "LeBron James Entertaining?" or "Tiger Woods Jokes...Too Soon?" anywhere else on ESPN.com, I figured I'd give my undivided attention to Thomas and his illustrious, if not unappreciated, career.
First off, his 521 career homeruns are tied for 18th all-time and considering six of the guys above him (Bonds, Sosa, McGwire, A-Rod, Palmeiro, and Manny) have been linked to PEDs, among clean players he's tied for 12th with current HOFers Willie McCovey and Ted Williams.
Secondly, his career OBP is an impressive .419. While that number is good for 21st all-time, only 9 of the players above him played after 1930 and one of them is Bonds. Among his semi-contemporaries, only Pujols and Helton have a higher career OBP. And while we're talking about modern day numbers, Thomas ranks 15th in career OPS (.974) and among presumed clean players, he moves up to 12th.
Next, and perhaps even more impressive, Thomas finished with almost 300 more career walks (1,667) than strikeouts (1,397). Of the presumed clean players who rank above him on the all-time homerun list, only Babe Ruth and Ted Williams had more "walks minus strikeouts." That's pretty good company.
As far as hardware goes, Thomas is one of just six in AL history to win back-to-back MVP awards and he finished top-5 in the voting another four times, one of which was in 2000 when he was runner-up to admitted cheat, Jason Giambi. He also took home four Silver Slugger awards, was a five-time All-Star, and a career .301 hitter in more than 10,000 plate appearances.
According to the Bill James developed "Hall of Fame Monitor," which measures how likely a player is to get into the Hall, Thomas receives a score of 194, higher than current HOFers Hank Greenberg, Rickey Henderson, Harmon Killebrew, Joe Morgan and Ernie Banks to name a few. A score of 130 is considered sure fire HOF material.
And while his career loses a fraction of notoriety because 57% of his plate appearances came as a DH, it doesn't take away from the fact that he was one of the most patient power hitters the game has ever seen.
Simply put- Frank Thomas a Hall of Famer? Yes, indeed.
3 comments:
It's worth noting the subheadline on the ESPN.com article was changed, just a few hours after I linked to it, to read "Frank Thomas On His Retirement" rather than "Frank Thomas A Hall Of Famer?"
Good for ESPN for quickly realizing how silly it was to question his HOF chops.
ESPN should be sending that cat for a urinalysis.
Big Hurt dominated his time. I wish these Ivory Tower reporters would get back to the true spirit of the HOF guidelines the original Board members put forth.
Big Hurt is good with me.
http://thebrooklyntrolleyblogger.blogspot.com/
I almost wish he hadn't played the last two or three years. He didn't need those 77 HRs. At the end of the '04 season, he had the third (not 9th) highest career OBP behind only Williams and Ruth.
If you can say that over the 15 years of a player's prime, the only people better in a major offensive category are Ruth and Williams, then he's a first-ballot, no question HoFer.
Post a Comment