Baseball - Jim Thome, HOF?

Is Jim Thome a hall of famer?

SPOILER ALERT!!

Yes.  Of course he is.  Thanks for reading.

We're not going make you read some long discussion and pretend that the answer isn't obvious.  With 600 home runs, Thome will be able to put "HOF" after his signature.  And it will likely only take him one ballot.  But just because the reality is obvious doesn't mean the question isn't interesting.

Due in part to the recency bias, our memories of Thome aren't particularly impressive.  In the past several years, he'd become a part-time player and one trick pony, occasionally rising from the bench and, since we only see him in Sportscenter highlights, always hitting home runs.  That notwithstanding, his most recent stats made him look like a classic "all or nothing" player, stuck in our minds as a .250 hitter.

Of course, that determination ignores one small detail - he played for 20 friggin years.  And in his prime (from his first full season with the Indians in 1994 until his 2007 season with the White Sox), Thome was an offensive force.  He hit more than 40 home runs 6 time and more than 30 a whopping 11 times, with a career high of 52.  Despite all that power, his career batting average is almost .280 having hit over .300 three times and never below .266 in a full season.  He got on base as much as anyone, finishing in the Top 10 in OPS 10 times (and Top 5 seven times), including leading the league once and walked a ton (8th most all time)  He scored 100+ runs 8 times and had over 2,000 hits.  Even the more enlightened statistics support his cause as he finished in the Top 10 for various Wins Above Replacement metrics 5 to 6 times.  To top it off, he apparently fought Chipper Jones in the minors (that's enough for us!!)  The numbers are Cooperstownian.  So what's the problem?

Well, in the days after any major milestone like this, the sportstalkosphere (a thing we just made up that we are part of) debates the merits of the players HOF candidacy using amorphous and imprecise standards like "feels like a hall of famer" and "I know one when I see one."  This is, of course, slightly ironic given that baseball, more than any other sport, is almost completely numbers driven.  No other sport has magic numbers like 3,000, 300 or 500 that are serve as automatic rights of entry.  Still, the debate is valid, particularly with Thome.  Despite all the numbers, what persists is that at no time during his career did he profile as one of the best players in the sport.  He was an All-Star only 5 times.  While his first base contemporaries were a strong group (Frank Thomas, Mo Vaughn, Mark McGwire, Tino Martinez, Jason Giambi, Carlos Delgado, Albert Pujols, Todd Helton, Paul Konerko and David Ortiz, etc.), they weren't exactly Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx and Hank Greenberg competing for spots in the '30's.  He never won an MVP and despite finishing in the Top 10 4 times, never finished higher than 4th.  And, for a player defined by his power, only lead the league once.  Now, steroids may have played some part in his lack of superlatives.  In his best years, 2 of the MVP's were presumed clean (Griffey and Ichiro) while 2 others weren't (Bonds and A-Rod).  Maybe he would have finished higher if it weren't for guys like Brett Boone, Juan Gonzalez, and Jason Giambi.  Even his best argument for induction - 600 home runs - makes him seem out of place: 

Sammy Sosa - 7-time All Star, 1 MVP.  Steroid aided.

Alex Rodriguez - 14-time All Star, 3 MVPs, Steroid aided

Ken Griffey, Jr. - 13-time All Star, 1 MVP

Willie Mays - 24-time All Star, 2 MVPs

Babe Ruth - Babe Ruth

Hank Aaron - 25-time All Star, 1 MVP

Barry Bonds - 14-time All Star, 7 MVPs.  Um...yeah

  

And that brings us to our bigger point - Thome being a lock for the HOF is less about him and more about the guys he played against. 

Because Thome looks like a really nice guy.  Because he smiles.  And because he's just a big-ass country looking dude who doesn't look like he needs any performance enhancement.  We want to believe his accomplishments were clean.  We'll give him the benefit of the doubt like we did with McGwire and not with Bonds ignoring the absurd proportions of one and judging by the head size of another.  And because we think he's clean, we'll make excuses for why he doesn't seem like a HOF player and why he never seemed to lead the league in anything that important.  We'll blame all the bad guys he played against - McGwire, Bonds, Sosa, Gonzalez, Rodriguez - for depriving him of his rightful place in history.  And then we'll make up stories about where he'd rank all-time in these categories if it weren't for steroids.  Make him only the 5th member of the 600 club.  Give him a few fictional home run titles and maybe even a revisionist MVP.  We'll do this because we like him.  Because we think he was pure.  Or at least because we don't have any publicly discussed evidence to the contrary.  And the lack of evidence, rather than the proof of innocence will be enough because in baseball, numbers still matter.  And, if by embracing Jim Thome and his good-but-not-great numbers we can restore the connection of today's game to Aaron, Ruth and Mays, that makes it all ok.  Even though he wasn't one of the best players of his generation, we'll convince ourselves he was.  Instead of a really good player who played a long time and compiled a bunch of great stats, we'll make him into Harmon Killebrew (league leader in home runs 6 times, 11 time All-Star, 1 MVP).  His career will serve as one of the few remaining links in the chain from Ripken to Pujols, freeing Griffey from having to do it all by himself.  And we'll do it to Frank Thomas too, he'll become a great player instead of a guy with a short peak and a bunch of lesser seasons. 

The problem is, no matter how we elevate and celebrate Thome in the name of stamping out those nasty cheaters, it won't work.  Memories may fade but they still last.  And a lack of memorable moments can't be overcome.  For all the bad bad things they did, McGwire and Sosa and Bonds and everyone else gave us moments that Jim Thome, for all his goodness, didn't.  No derby bombs over Fenway.  No crow hops and dual chases to 61.  Not even a cold, calculated assault on everything sacred about the game.  And thankfully no a weird Bronson Arroyo glove slap and purple lips.  For better of worse, those things stick with us and are what we'll remember when we look back on this era, while Jim Thome was just a nice guy.