Happy Birthday to the great Frank Thomas, “The Big Hurt.” For 19 seasons, mainly with the Chicago White Sox, Thomas established himself as one of the better power hitters in baseball history. He played some First Base but mostly found himself as a Designated Hitter; he is arguably the greatest DH who ever lived along with David Ortiz, Vladimir Guerrero, and Edgar Martinez.

Career (1990-2008):

.301 BA, 2,468 HITS, 521 HR, 1,704 RBI, 1,494 RUNS, .419 OBP

  • 5x All-Star
  • 4x Silver Slugger
  • 2x MVP 
  • 1997 Batting Champion

The White Sox weren’t necessarily considered a contender during the career of Frank Thomas, only making the playoffs three times. However, that didn’t stop him from winning back-to-back MVPs in 93-94. Frank had eleven seasons in which he drove in 100 or more RBIs, ten seasons Walking 100 or more times, and nine seasons of scoring 100 or more Runs. Frank had excellent plate discipline Walking 1,667 times while only striking out 1,397 times. He led the league in Walks and On Base Percentage four times, won the Batting Title in 1997, and eight years in a row, he scored 100 Runs while also driving in 100 RBIs.

In 2005, after all those years of grinding through the struggles as a White Sox, they beat the Astros in the World Series. Unfortunately, due to injury wasn’t on the postseason roster. He’d move on to the Athletics in 2006 and the Blue Jays in 2007, where he was productive, but in 2008 after struggling again with injuries, would retire.

Frank Thomas is a little overshadowed when you factor in that he played on a team that wasn’t competitive during his prime. Also, he played in the Steroid Era, in which guys who were doing Steroids got all the attention. Nonetheless, Frank Thomas is a first-ballot Hall of Famer, and he’s also one of eight players to hit 500 Home Runs while maintaining a .300 Batting Average.

References:

  1. Frank Thomas Career Statistics via Baseball-Reference: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/t/thomafr04.shtml
  2. Frank Thomas via Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Thomas_(designated_hitter)#