Frank Thomas announces retirement

by Tom Dakers on Feb 12, 2010 1:24 AM EST in Toronto Blue Jays News

I do always chuckle to myself when someone 'announces' he's retiring when no one offers him a contract for a couple of years. But Big Hurt is a special case. 521 home runs leaves him 18th on the career list. 1704 RBI is 22nd. 1667 walks, 9th. A career line of .301/.419/.555 is pretty amazing. 2 MVP awards,11 times he got MVP votes (the last 2007 as a Jay), 5 All-Star games, 4 Silver Slugger awards.

A clear Hall of Famer, though he'll be left off some ballots because he played 1311 games as DH compared to 971 as a first baseman. I'm not sure the Writers will vote him in the first time but he'll get there.

He had one really good year in Toronto; 277/.377/480, 26 home runs, 95 RBI. Then in 2008 at 40 years old, he started slowly, as usual, and was released after 60 at bats. Yeah, I know there was more to the story. The team wanted to bench him for a bit, he wanted to play. The team didn't have to pay him the last year of his contract by releasing him before he got to the number of at bats he needed to guarantee his 2009 contract. It was the right move but we really didn't have anyone else to DH. It forced Matt Stairs into the DH role (and he didn't have a good year either) and left room for Brad Wilkerson and Kevin Mench to play way too much. We finished 86-76 that year. How much better would we have been if Frank hit like he had in 2007.

He was always a favorite of mine. A big man (6'5", over 250lb), tonnes of power (9 times 30+ home runs), great eye at the plate (took over 100 walks 8 times) and drove in over 100 runs 11 times. You can see his career numbers here.

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I saw him whack a couple of game winners for the Jays. He was nice to have around.

by aagoodfella on Feb 12, 2010 9:06 AM EST reply actions

Tom Glavine too

Another great of the same era, this time on the pitching side, Tom Glavine made his retirement official after hinting not long ago that it was pretty much a foregone conclusion.

There’s no connection between these two guys, and you never know with the unpredictable baseball writers, but I figure these two would make a nice pair for an induction ceremony in five years. For my part, they both ought to go in on the first ballot.

by jabalong on Feb 12, 2010 9:08 AM EST reply actions

I guess it will be 4 years from now for each of them

since neither played last year.

by Tom Dakers on Feb 12, 2010 10:47 AM EST up reply actions

Yeah, I’m confused about the five-year rule here. I thought players went on the Hall of Fame ballot five years after they officially retired. But it seems like it’s five years from after they last played. So for instance, while Tom Glavine and Randy Johnson both announced their retirements in the past month, Glavine can go into the Hall as early as 2014 because he last played in 2008, whereas Johnson is only first eligible for the class of 2015 because he played in 2009. This makes sense, but isn’t how I understood it to be, as I thought that if a player delayed announcing his retirement that also delayed him getting on the ballot.

by jabalong on Feb 12, 2010 8:58 PM EST up reply actions

it's your last season in the majors

otherwise Rickey Henderson would have to be inducted posthumously.

"Look at me! I'm Tomokazu Ohka of the Montreal Expos!"

by jessef on Feb 15, 2010 9:13 AM EST up reply actions

I forgot about Gregg Maddux

Gregg Maddux will also be on the Hall of Fame ballot for 2014 induction – now that’s a good combo with him and Glavine going in the same year. We don’t often see three players go in the same year (the last time was 1999 according to Mike Bauman over at MLB.com), but I figure we should see Maddux, Glavine and Thomas all get in on the first-ballot for 2014.

by jabalong on Feb 12, 2010 9:02 PM EST up reply actions

Best I got to see was at a Boston Red Sox game in 2008. Bases loaded and Delcarmann hangs a change-up in the zone. The Big Hurt connected with a sound like an angry god applying the business to a nation of apostates. You could tell it was a home run with your eyes shut.

It wasn’t an especially long home run over the centre-left field fence, but it got out of there faster than almost any homer I’ve ever witnessed. The best was on the television replay later, when the camera focused on his face and you could positively watch his eyes light up as that pitch started coming down the pipe.

I don’t imagine Thomas will have to wait past the first ballot for the HoF.

by dexfarkin on Feb 12, 2010 9:44 AM EST reply actions