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[Gregory Pratt]

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I’m thinking of two baseball players. Both first basemen. Both right-handed hitters. Both were instant stars in the big leagues. I’ll tell you that one of the players is Albert Pujols, Prince Albert, Albert the Great, the guy who, if he stays healthy and motivated, could put up some of the most remarkable offensive numbers in baseball history.

 

And our mystery player … well, what can I tell you about him? He never led the league in home runs. He never led the league in RBIs. He was admired as a great player when he was young, but I would say the admiration for him as, well, muted. He only started in two All-Star Games his whole career. He only MADE five, which is just odd to think about. Steve Sax started two All-Star Games and made five. You could argue pretty persuasively that our mystery player was a lot better than Steve Sax. Steve Garvey made 10 All-Star Games and started nine. You could argue pretty persuasively that our mystery player was a lot better than Steve Garvey.

 

I’m sure when you look at the numbers you will know who our mystery player is … shoot, you probably already know.

 

Pujols (first eight years): .334/.425/.624, 319 homers, 977 RBIs, 947 runs, 2 MVPs, 170 OPS+.

Mystery (first eight years): .330/.452/.600, 257 homers, 854 RBIs, 785 runs, 2 MVPs, 182 OPS+.

 

So, what do you think of that? And it should be noted that, for reasons mostly beyond his control, the mystery player actually played in 163 fewer games his first eight years … almost a full season. So the counting numbers are much closer than they might seem. Look at them per 162 games:

 

Pujols (first eight years): .334, 45 doubles, 2 triples, 42 homers, 128 RBIs, 124 runs, 91 walks, 170 OPS+.

Mystery (first eight years): .330, 37 doubles, 1 triple, 39 homers, 129 RBIs, 118 runs, 132 walks, 182 OPS+.

 

Not bad. Mystery player seems to stand up quite well to the great Albert Pujols. In some ways, he was even better.

 

Our mystery player is especially prominent now because our mystery player is …

 

Frank Thomas.

 

Well, you knew that. From 1990-97, Frank Thomas was possibly the greatest right-handed hitter in baseball history. I mean, that’s a tough crowd obviously with Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Rogers Hornsby, Jimmie Foxx, Frank Robinson and the like. For those eight years, Thomas never hit less than .308, never on-based less than .426 (he walked 109 or more times every full season), and in 1994 he was on his way to one of the greatest seasons in baseball history when the strike happened.* If he was not the greatest, he was prominently in the photograph.

 

*In 1994, Thomas was hitting .353/.487/.729 with 38 homers and 101 RBIs in 113 games. If you stretch that out over a 162 game season, the numbers are quite staggering. Then again, several players stretched out over a full 1994 season have staggering-looking numbers. Thomas’ 1994 might not have even been the best season by a right-handed batter born on May 27, 1968:

 

Stretched out over 162 games:

 

Frank Thomas: .353/.487/.729, 49 2B, 1 3B, 54 homers, 144 RBIs, 152 runs, 156 walks, 211 OPS+.

 

Jeff Bagwell: .368./451/.750, 45 2B, 3 3B, 55 homers, 164 RBIs, 147 runs, 21 SBs, 213 OPS+.

 

Comment: Yes, Bagwell and Thomas were born on the same day.

 

Ken Griffey: .323/.402/.674, 35 2B, 6 3B, 58 homers, 131 RBIs, 136 runs, 16 SBs, Gold Glove, 170 OPS+.

 

Matt Williams: .267/.319/.607, 61 homers, 135 RBIs, 104 runs, 141 OPS+.

 

Albert Belle: .357/.438/.714, 50 2B, 3 2B, 51 homers, 144 RBIs, 129 runs, 193 OPS+.

 

Comment: You probably know that Albert Belle is the only player in baseball history to hit 50 homers and 50 doubles in the same season. He did that in 1995, a shortened season, no-less. It’s a staggering feat … to give you an idea only one other player in baseball history has hit 50 homers and FORTY doubles, and that one other player was Babe Ruth in 1921. Players very, very, very rarely hit 100 balls that hard in a single season; often what you will see is that when home runs go up, doubles go down, and vice versa. What Albert Belle did in 1995 is one for the books.

 

But here’s what’s even more amazing: As you can see, he was on pace to do it 1994. And later, in 1998, Belle hit 48 doubles and 49 homers for the Chicago White Sox. Few players ever hit a baseball as hard as Albert Belle.

 

Tony Gwynn: .394/.454/.568. We’ll never know if he could have hit .400. He really might have done it.

 

Barry Bonds: .312/.426/.647, 25 2B, 1 3B, 52 homers, 114 RBIs, 125 runs, 41 SBs.

 

Comment: Those numbers might not wow you because of what Bonds went on to do later. But in 1994, 52 homers would have been mammoth — it’s worth remembering that at that point only two players (George Foster and Cecil Fielder) had hit 50-plus homers in 30 years.

 

Greg Maddux: 22-8, 1.56 ERA, 283 IP, 210 hits, 14 complete games, 4 shutouts, 218 Ks, 43 walks, 6 home runs allowed.

 

Thomas is obviously back in the news because of A-Rod and because Thomas has been so publicly on the other side of the steroid story. Thomas was the only active player who was willing to talk to the people who put together the Mitchell Report. He was publicly outspoken about the need for drug testing in baseball, going back more than a decade.

 

And he aged hard, much like players of previous generations aged. He had his last truly great season when he was 32. After that he was beaten down by injuries and pain. He never hit anything close to .300 after he turned 32. He missed almost the whole 2001 season because of a triceps injury, then missed much of 2004, almost all of 2005. He came pretty close to winning the MVP in 2006, but that he was 38 by then and more in the We Are Family Willie Stargell mode of MVP; he hit numerous big home runs down the stretch. The next year, he did more or less the same thing for Toronto.

 

And it’s easy to forget just how brilliant Thomas was as a young player. He was Pujols at the plate. With the A-Rod news piling on top of all the rest, it’s pretty hard to say for certain that any player was clean. But Frank Thomas was always his own guy, he always lived by some sort of code that wasn’t especially clear to anyone but him. I suspect he was clean in a time when it was hard to be clean; in a time when it may have benefited him enormously to reach for performance enhancers. There have been mixed feelings about Thomas through the years. You probably remember when Chicago White Sox GM Kenny Williams called him “an idiot.” You probably have certain emotions about seeing Thomas toward the end, when he was huge and slow and one dimensional.

 

But when we look back, it’s funny: Frank Thomas really might have been the hero of the story.

[daa84]

posnanski writes one of the best blogs on the internet...and im not talking only baseball or sports blogs, but just one of the best blogs period

 

and that is a cool post