Meant to put this up last week but I didn't get a chance.
Last month, Randy Johnson, "The Big Unit," called it a career. Now, just over a month later, two more future Hall of Famers are calling it quits. Lefty Tom Glavine and 1B/DH Frank Thomas are calling it a career.
Glavine will always a remain in a thorn in the hearts of Mets fans, as I don't believe they will ever forgive him for losing the critical final game of 2007 season (which in all honesty, was lost far before that game ever took place). However, I think we take for granted how consistent a pitcher he was for such a long period of time. In fact, Glavine maybe one of the last pitchers of his kind.
He is a three hundred game winner and a five time twenty game winner. In his 22 year career, he pitched over 200 innings 14 times, a sign of his tremendous durability and dependability. Yet for whatever reason, he never got as much credit as his teammates John Smoltz and Greg Maddux did. He didn't have Smoltz's tremendous fastball, nor did he have Maddux's impeccable control. Nevertheless, he was as dependable as either one of those two pitchers could have been the ace for any other team in the league.
When it comes to Thomas, I think some of us have forgotten the years that earned him the nickname "The Big Hurt." During my youth, Thomas may have been the second most popular player in the league next to Ken Griffey Jr. If not the second most popular, he was certainly as good, if not better at times than Griffey and was in my opinion the best right-handed hitter in the league. Over his first eight seasons, he averaged .330 with and an OBP of .452!!! That means that for eight straight years, he got on base almost 50% of the time. He also smashed 257 homers and drove in 854 runs.
Here is how he compared to Bonds and Griffey over the first eight years of their careers:
Griffey - .302, .381 OBP, 238 HR, 725 RBI
Bonds - .283, .391 OBP, 222 HR, 679 RBI
For whatever reason, starting in 1998, his power numbers began to stagger and while he would manage to continue putting up good power numbers, he failed to match the performance we saw out of him earlier in his career (with exception of his 2000 season, when he drove in a career-high 143 runs). Yes, he did suffer injuries which cost his major portions of his 2001 and 2005 seasons. Yet it remains unclear as to why he could not continue to put up the outrageous numbers we saw from him early on.
The knock against Thomas will be that he played most of his career as a DH. However, his numbers are too good to ignore and I think voters will be hard pressed not to admit him entrance to Coopertown.
You can never predict how the writers will vote six years from now, especially in light of Roberto Alomar's lack of admission to the Hall of Fame last month. It could get even more interesting if John Smoltz and Pedro Martinez hang up the towel too. Regardless, the 2016 Hall of Fame class will be an incredible group of ballplayers.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
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I think that Thomas should be a first-ballot Hall of Famer but I agree with you, Ben, that after Alomar didn't make it, you never know what could happen. And with guys like Johnson and Glavine on the ballot (and maybe Smoltz and Pedro) it may be a bit "crowded" for some voters. AND you have to figure that guys like Mariano Rivera, Trevor Hoffman, Ivan Rodriguez, and other Hall of Famers are going to be retiring soon as well so Thomas will have crowded ballots to deal with in the years beyond that. AND(!) if guys like Larkin, Edgar Martinez, Tim Raines, McGwire, Bonds, Clemens, Mike Piazza, Sammy Sosa, Craig Biggio, Curt Schilling, Jeff Kent, Mussina, Bagwell, Palmeiro etc. stay longer on the ballot, it may be trouble for Thomas.
ReplyDeleteBen pointed out how good Thomas was in the first 8 years of his career and Joe Posnanski pointed out this week (http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2010/02/15/frank-thomas/) that his first 8 years were better than that of Albert Pujols which is really amazing.
It's also interesting with Glavine and Thomas retiring together because both almost pursued other sports. The Los Angeles Kings once drafted Tom Glavine ahead of NHL Hall of Famer Luc Robitaille and Thomas got a scholarship at Auburn University--in football!
ReplyDeleteIt's funny because I actually looked at the first 8 years of Pujols' career and Pujols' numbers are actually still marginally better. But in many ways they were very similar hitters. Both of them were powerful line drive hitters. I once heard someone refer to Thomas' home runs as "long singles."
ReplyDeleteAnother point about Thomas - despite the fact that his defensive skills were subpar, he was actually an incredible athlete who also played Tight End at Auburn. Could you imagine him on an NFL Offensive Line?