The Sabermetric Soapbox: Hurtin’ Big

The Big Hurt’s been cut. Is he HOF material?

When I was a wee lad growing up in the burbs of Chicago, I wanted to be a professional athlete like most little boys can dream of at age 8. Naturally, as I tried to learn the games, I also looked to emulate my favorite players. I tried to mimic Brett Favre’s missile chuck (still can’t do it). I dreamed of pulling off Michael Jordan’s fade-away (Me? Jump high? Yeah, right). And I imagined muscling balls out of the yard like Frank Thomas (not a good idea when you stand in the front row of the 2nd grade class picture).

With Frank Thomas being cut last week by the Blue Jays, a familiar note of sadness descended upon me, echoes of saying goodbye to the aforementioned pigskin icon with the knowledge that you just don’t think you’ll see him play. So now that I got my sappy personal story out of the way, and with all respect to Prof. Hoban and his section of this blog, let’s take a look at the Big Hurt’s credentials for his application to Cooperstown.

The numbers
It would be my column without them. Here are the key career stats (with more at the venerable baseball-reference.com):

Traditional: 516 HR, .302 BA, .420 OBP, .559 SLG, 1685 RBI, 2 MVPs, 5 time All-Star,

Sabermetric: 157 raw OPS+, 1976 RC, 69.3 Batter Wins, 4.79 MVP shares

HOF Metrics: 326 NEWS Gauge (32nd all time after 2007), 104.9 JAWS (avg HOF 1B 84.5)

The legend

Arguably the best hitter in the AL between 1991 and 1997, he lead the White Sox to 2 division titles when those still meant you had to play good baseball to win them. Although plagued by injuries during the latter half of his career, he had renaissance years in 2000, 2003, and 2006, 2 of which led his team again to division titles and showing that he could still be a dominating force with the bat.  One of the few players of the Home Run Era who hasn’t been accused of artificial enhancement. And who can forget his famed Topps rookie card? Plus, he could seeming use one arm to hit a baseball on the outer half of the plate out of the yard with his strength, and arguably made him “the most feared hitter”  in the AL in his prime*.

* Look, I honestly don’t like that last reason as an argument for a HOF case, but if it ends up working for Jim Rice then Frank is a shoe in on the same logic. The funny thing is I hadn’t really heard of Rice until the last few years anyway, and I’m sure that’s true for most of the millennial generation that’s under 30 and follows baseball with some regularity. If he was so feared, why did it take me so long to hear about him? But, in true Pozterisk style, we must return…..

Perhaps the only thing keeping this fan from booking a trip to Cooperstown for the summer of 2014 is the fact he isn’t officially retired. But can anyone legitimately sign Frank Thomas and not receive Barry Bonds collusion flak? I’m skeptical to that answer, and thus I think he’s done.

You can put it on the board…… YES!