1994 MVP at age 26: 109 walks, 61 strikeouts
For those of you who didn’t catch it, this post is a follow to my Then VS Now comparison of players back in the day who hit for power but struck out very little compared to sluggers of today like Mark Reynolds, Ryan Howard, and Adam Dunn who don’t care about contact and focus solely on hitting one out of the park. Well, my step-dad brought up that discussion and weighed in on his thoughts about modern players VS guys back in his day and he brought up a VERY interesting exception: Frank Thomas.
Frank Thomas is a modern player with an identical build to Ryan Howard who hit for both historic power and an impressive average. I would really recommend checking out both his bio and his stats, but if you’re too lazy to read either or both I’ll give you the highlights:
- One of 9 players all-time with 500+ home runs and a .300+ lifetime batting average
- One of 6 players all-time with 500+ home runs and 1600 walks
- Back to back AL MVP awards in 1993 and ‘94, first time that had happened in the AL since Roger Maris in 1960 and ‘61. Would have won a third MVP in 2000, but was robbed by a juiced up Jason Giambi.
- One of 3 players all-time with 500 home runs and 120 sacrifice flies
- His 138 walks in 1991 were the most in any single AL season since Harmon Killebrew walked 145 times in 1969.
- In 1994, Thomas posted the highest slugging percentage in AL history
- In the strike shortened 1994 season, Thomas was threatening the triple crown by hitting 38 homers, driving in 101 RBI, posting a .353 average. He was also leading the league in runs with 106 and walks with 109.
- His .729 slugging percentage in 1994 was the highest in the AL since Ted Williams posted a .731 in 1957
- His .494 on base percentage that year was also the highest in the AL since Ted WIlliams’ .528 in 1957
- Finished with all-time ranks of 18th in home runs, 21st in RBI, 24th in slugging percentage, and 4th in sacrifice flies
Now, I can go on all day about how great Thomas was, or how impressive his numbers were given that he was doing it clean in the middle of the steroids era, or how he was the only active player to give statements for the Mitchell Report, which he did voluntarily, or how he advocated for drug testing as early as 1995. But for the purposes of this post, I’m going to point out his 1667 walks versus 1397 strikeouts. I’m going to focus on that 4th all-time in sac flies stat. I’m going to highlight his lifetime .301 average. And then I’m going to compare those numbers to Ryan Howard.
2006 MVP at age 26: 108 walks, 181 strikeouts
Howard has 402 walks to 878 strikeouts. That’s embarrassing. He has a .278 career average, and has only hit .300 or better once. He only has two seasons with an on base percentage better than .360. And he was quoted last year after being criticized for his strikeouts as saying, “an out’s an out.” I would like to point to Frank Thomas’s 121 sacrifice flies and let Ryan Howard know that those outs produces 121 runs for the Big Hurt’s teams over his career. Runs that led to wins. Runs that were produced because of Frank Thomas’s high contact rate. There’s no reason for Ryan Howard or any other modern player to be striking out as much as they do, save for the effort and focus they need to put in to pitch selection and making good contact, versus trying to muscle the ball over the wall every time. Frank Thomas never hit bombs. He hit line drives that went over the wall because he was big enough and heavy enough to make them carry that far. By doing so, he was able to hit for a high average and for tremendous power while walking significantly more than he struck out, moving runners over, going the opposite way, hitting RBI sac flies, and doing all the little things that complete players do to win. Ryan Howard could do the same with his nearly identical body to Big Frank’s. He just doesn’t care enough to try.
Subscribe
Comments
If I were a major league pitcher, I’d rather face the Reynolds’, Howard’s, & Dunn’s of the league than David Eckstein or Placido Polanco in ANY situation.
What about Manny and A-Rod, both have career .300+ batting averages, both have over 500 Home Runs, both also have many more strikeouts than walks in their careers. They don’t seem to fit into your argument at all, because they have tremendous power and hit for average.
Pat, A-Rod and Man-Ram (they should start their own gay night club together with that name) are the two big exceptions along with pujols eventually, and Vlad Guerrero joining them if he ever makes it to 500. I’m just saying that EVERYONE hit for contact back in the day even if they hit for power, not it’s pretty much either or except for a few future Hall of Famers that we can easily name off the top of our heads. But the reason I used Frank, is that he and Howard have the exact same body type, but the one was a line drive, high average hitter who was so big that some of his line drives would leave the park. Howard has an uppercut swing and tries to take it out, not to make solid contact and let his weight allow the ball to carry. By doing so, he costs his team runs by not getting on as often and by not moving runners over.
I remember when the the 2004 Red Sox batted Mark Bellhorn second in the lineup. I actually thought this was genius because Bellhorn usually struck out rather than hit into double plays. In fact, that season, he almost NEVER hit into the DP. Basically, I’m saying that striking out is bad, but I would SO much rather a player have a propensity for K’ing than hitting into the double play. Also, that Sox team also had Cesar Crespo who frequented Coolidge Corner Starbucks in Boston where Patrick and I “worked”.
I disagree JD. Hitting into a double play is, in effect, worse than a K. However, contact resulting in a double play is often just a few feet away from being a ingle up the middle or to left or right field, which almost guarantee a run being scored. Also, it there’s two men on and no out, a double play still puts a man on third. Some good can always take place when contact is made. Nothing is accomplished by striking out.
Um, ok, but I wasn’t talking about a single up the middle or to left or right field. I was talking about hitting into a double play. It’s worse than striking out, because it counts for two outs, which is one more out than one.
In the same way that you can say a double play with two men on allows one to advance, a strikeout with nobody out and two men on allows two other batters to come to the plate. The double play is a rally-killer. I bet more managers would agree with me. The Bellhorn example is proof and, of course, the Sox won the World Series that year.
Contact can result in a productive out, even in a double play situation if a runner is moved to third. No contact results in nothing productive every time. I get that double plays kill rallies and end innings, but I’m positive if you took a pole of managers, they would prefer any kind of contact to a K. That’s why Charlie Manuel had to pull Ryan Howard aside for a talk last year after he said “an out’s an out.” There are productive outs.
We’re not discussing contact versus non-contact. That’s a different argument. We’re discussing a double play verses a strikeout. And saying that a double play ball could have easily been a single is a moot point. A strikeout can easily be a homerun. It’s a game of inches.