{"id":14457,"date":"2019-03-02T06:19:36","date_gmt":"2019-03-02T12:19:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/?p=14457"},"modified":"2019-02-23T13:44:46","modified_gmt":"2019-02-23T19:44:46","slug":"5-frank-thomas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/2019\/03\/5-frank-thomas\/","title":{"rendered":"#5 – Frank Thomas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Name:<\/strong> Frank Thomas<\/p>\n

Rank:<\/strong> 5<\/p>\n

Position:<\/strong> 1B\/DH<\/p>\n

Years With White Sox:<\/strong>\u00a01990-2005<\/p>\n

Frank Thomas was selected by the White Sox with the seventh pick in the first round of the 1989 draft.\u00a0 A little more than 1 year later, he made his major league debut on August 2, 1990 against the Brewers\u00a0at\u00a0County Stadium, going hitless in 4 at bats with an RBI as the White Sox won 4-3.\u00a0 The next night, he tripled off of Mark Knudson for his first major league hit.\u00a0 On August 28, he hit the first home run of his career, off Gary Wayne, in a 12-6 loss against the Twins at the Metrodome.\u00a0 He finished the year with a .330 average, with 7 home runs and 31 RBIs.<\/p>\n

In 1991, as the White Sox moved into the new Comiskey Park, Thomas became one of the most feared hitters in the American League.\u00a0 On April 22, he hit the first White Sox home run in the new stadium, in an 8-7 victory over the Orioles.\u00a0 When the season ended, Thomas finished with a .318 average, 32 home runs, and 109 RBIs.\u00a0 He lead the league in walks, OBP, OPS, and OPS+.\u00a0 He won his first Silver Slugger award and finished 3rd in MVP voting.<\/p>\n

Thomas continued his mastery in 1992.\u00a0 He ended the year hitting .323, with 24 home runs and 115 RBIs. He led the league in doubles, walks, OBP, and OPS.\u00a0 Those numbers were good enough for him to place 8th in MVP voting.<\/p>\n

In 1993, Thomas helped the White Sox win their first division title since 1983.\u00a0 He made his first All Star game appearance, getting a hit in his only at bat.\u00a0 On August 31, he clubbed his 100th career home run against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium.\u00a0 He finished the year batting .317 and set a club-record with 41 homers.\u00a0 He added 128 RBI, 106 runs scored, and 112 walks, to join Babe Ruth,\u00a0Lou Gehrig,\u00a0Jimmie Foxx\u00a0and\u00a0Ted Williams as the only players in baseball history to eclipse .300 with more than 20 homers and more than 100 RBI, runs, and walks in three straight seasons.\u00a0 In the ALCS against the Blue Jays, Thomas hit .353 in the 6 game series.\u00a0 Thanks to his historic season, Thomas collected his second Silver Slugger award and all 28 first place votes for a unanimous AL\u00a0MVP award, the first by a White Sox player since\u00a0Dick Allen in 1972.<\/p>\n

1994 was on track to be even better, before the strike ended the season in August.\u00a0 Thomas was elected to start the All Star game and got 2 hits in his 2 at bats.\u00a0 In only 113 games, Thomas had 38 home runs, 101 RBIs, 106 runs scored, and 109 walks.\u00a0 He led the league in runs scored, walks, OBP, slugging percentage, OPS, and OPS+.\u00a0 For the second year in a row, he took home the Silver Slugger and MVP awards, becoming just the second first baseman to earn consecutive MVP awards.<\/p>\n

When baseball returned in 1995, Thomas picked up where he had left off.\u00a0 He started his second straight All Star Game for the American League, hitting a home run off John Smiley.\u00a0 At the end of the season, Thomas had hit .308 with 40 home runs and 111 RBIs while leading the league in games played, walks, sacrifice flies, and intentional walks.\u00a0 He dropped to 8th place in MVP voting as the White Sox found themselves out of contention for the first time in his career.<\/p>\n

The White Sox bounced back in 1996 and Thomas continued to be an offensive force.\u00a0 He mashed his 200th career home run on June 9, going deep at Camden Yards against the Orioles.\u00a0 He was named to his fourth straight All Star team, though he didn’t make it into the game.\u00a0 He set a career high with a .349 average, while again hitting 40 home runs with 134 RBIs.\u00a0 For the second straight year, he led the league in intentional walks and finished 8th in MVP voting.<\/p>\n

1997 was another strong year for Thomas.\u00a0 He was named to his fifth, and final, All Star team.\u00a0 He led the league with a .347 average, a .456 OBP, a 1.067 OPS, and an OPS+ of 181, while hitting 35 home runs and knocking in 125.\u00a0 He finished 3rd in MVP voting, his 7th top 10 finish in his 7 full seasons.<\/p>\n

Off the field issues started to show an effect on Thomas’ production in 1998, his first as a full time designated hitter.\u00a0 Marital problems messed with his head, leading him to think the umpires were screwing him, opposing pitchers were taking advantage of him, and the media were ganging up on him. “I was miserable, and I made everyone around me miserable,” Thomas said early in the 1999 season. “It was an extremely humbling season.”\u00a0 He hit .265, 65 points lower than his career average entering the season, and finished with only 29 home runs, his lowest total in six years.\u00a0 He started referring to himself as Five O’clock Frank, a batting-practice terror who at game time sank under the weight of self-pity and tired excuses.<\/p>\n

Thomas, and the White Sox, hoped that he would bounce back in 1999.\u00a0 “I think he had a lot on his mind, personal things that were weighing on him,” hitting coach Von Joshua said early in the season. “He didn’t talk about it, but you could just see it in his eyes. He’s a lot more settled this year.”\u00a0 Unfortunately, things didn’t go well, though he did hit his 300th career home run on August 7 against the A’s.\u00a0 While his average did rebound, back up to .305, he hit only 15 home runs and drove in just 77 while setting a career low with a .471 slugging percentage.\u00a0 Bone spurs on his ankle limited him to just 135 games.<\/p>\n

2000 got off to an explosive start, and not the good kind.\u00a0 Thomas and manager Jerry Manuel went toe to toe in spring training over Thomas’ ability to participate in drills, following his surgery the previous September.\u00a0 Once the regular season began, though, it looked like the old Thomas was back.\u00a0 As the surprising White Sox ran off and won their first division title since 1993, Thomas, missing only 3 games all year, hit .328 and set career highs with 43 home runs and 143 RBIs.\u00a0 Unfortunately, Thomas, like the rest of his teammates, struggled in the post-season, going hitless in the ALDS as the Mariners completed a 3 game sweep.\u00a0 He won his fourth, and final, Silver Slugger award and finished 2nd in MVP voting, behind a juiced Jason Giambi.<\/p>\n

2001 was a tough year for Thomas, both personally and professionally.\u00a0 On April 27, he hurt his triceps diving for a ball while playing first base.\u00a0 After spending 5 days back in Georgia due to the death of his father, Thomas returned to Chicago for tests, which revealed a muscle tear that would require surgery and end his season.\u00a0 “This is the worst week of my life”, he said during a press conference. “First I lose my father, then come back and find out I’m lost for the season.”\u00a0 In only 20 games, Thomas hit .221 with 4 home runs and 10 RBIs.<\/p>\n

Thomas returned in 2002, but was obviously no longer the same player he was before the injury.\u00a0 He struggled in the first half, before picking things up in the final month of the season, hitting .359 with 6 home runs in September.\u00a0 He finished the season with a .252 average, 25 home runs and 92 RBIs.<\/p>\n

2003 was a better year for Thomas, though still below his career norms.\u00a0 On June 26th, he became the 36th player in history to reach the 400 career home run mark with a 5th inning shot against the Devil Rays at US Cellular Field.\u00a0 At the end of the year, he had posted a .267 average with 42 home runs and 105 RBIs.<\/p>\n

Injuries robbed Thomas of most of 2004.\u00a0 He was placed on the disabled list on July 7th, with a\u00a0.271 average, 18 home runs and 49 RBIs.\u00a0 He underwent surgery in early October to\u00a0remove debris from the ankle, perform a bone graft, and insert two screws.<\/p>\n

Thomas began the 2005 season on the disabled list as he recovered from his ankle surgery.\u00a0 He was activated on May 30, with the White Sox in first place in the AL Central.\u00a0 On July 18, he clubbed his 448th and final home run with the White Sox against the Tigers at US Cellular Field.\u00a0 He hit .219 with 12 home runs and 26 RBIs in 34 games before breaking his foot on July 21, causing him to miss the rest of the season and the post-season.\u00a0 Thomas threw out the first pitch prior to game one of the ALDS against the Red Sox.<\/p>\n

Thomas is the White Sox all time leader in home runs, runs scored, doubles, RBIs, walks, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and OPS.\u00a0 He is the only player in major league history to have seven consecutive seasons (1991-1997) with a .300 average and at least 100 walks, 100 runs, 100 runs batted in, and 20 home runs.\u00a0 His number 35 was retired by the White Sox on August 29, 2010 and he was part of the 2014 Hall of Fame class, elected on the first ballot with 83.7% of the vote.<\/p>\n

Thomas\u2019s\u00a0numbers in a White Sox uniform, both for games I attended and overall, were:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/tfoot>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Name: Frank Thomas Rank: 5 Position: 1B\/DH Years With White Sox:\u00a01990-2005 Frank Thomas was selected by the White Sox with the seventh pick in the first round of the 1989 draft.\u00a0 A little more than 1 year later, he made his major league debut on August 2, 1990 against the Brewers\u00a0at\u00a0County Stadium, going hitless in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[77,123,2790,2180,5041,5042,119,121,4127,631,614,260,2837,2501,84,8368,4315,7035,5043,8370,8369,124,8367,5040,79,50,258,5984,5648,230,118,596,8371,3353,51],"class_list":["post-14457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baseball","tag-1994-strike","tag-as","tag-alcs","tag-alds","tag-all-star-game","tag-babe-ruth","tag-blue-jays","tag-brewers","tag-camden-yards","tag-comiskey-park-ii","tag-county-stadium","tag-devil-rays","tag-dick-allen","tag-draft","tag-frank-thomas","tag-gary-wayne","tag-jason-giambi","tag-jerry-manuel","tag-jimmie-foxx","tag-john-smiley","tag-lou-gehrig","tag-mariners","tag-mark-knudson","tag-metrodome","tag-mvp","tag-orioles","tag-red-sox","tag-silver-slugger","tag-ted-williams","tag-tigers","tag-twins","tag-us-cellular-field","tag-von-joshua","tag-yankee-stadium","tag-yankees"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14457"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14846,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14457\/revisions\/14846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

Career Batting<\/b><\/caption>\n
BA<\/span><\/th>\nAt Bats<\/span><\/th>\nRuns<\/span><\/th>\nHits<\/span><\/th>\nRBI<\/span><\/th>\nWalks<\/span><\/th>\nStrike Outs<\/span><\/th>\nDoubles<\/span><\/th>\nTriples<\/span><\/th>\nHR<\/span><\/th>\nSB<\/span><\/th>\nGIDP<\/span><\/th>\nErrors<\/span><\/th>\nGames<\/span><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
0.256<\/span><\/td>\n195<\/span><\/td>\n40<\/span><\/td>\n50<\/span><\/td>\n36<\/span><\/td>\n47<\/span><\/td>\n46<\/span><\/td>\n6<\/span><\/td>\n0<\/span><\/td>\n13<\/span><\/td>\n1<\/span><\/td>\n4<\/span><\/td>\n0<\/span><\/td>\n62<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
0.307<\/span><\/td>\n6956<\/span><\/td>\n1327<\/span><\/td>\n2136<\/span><\/td>\n1465<\/span><\/td>\n1466<\/span><\/td>\n1165<\/span><\/td>\n447<\/span><\/td>\n11<\/span><\/td>\n448<\/span><\/td>\n32<\/span><\/td>\n190<\/span><\/td>\n80<\/span><\/td>\n1959<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n