On January 8, 2014 Frank Thomas added the most prestigious award to his already extensive resume, Hall of Famer. Thomas received 83.7 percent of the vote from the baseball Writers Association of America in his first year on the ballot, becoming the first position player since Rickey Henderson in 2009 to accomplish that feat.
While it may not come as a total surprise to even the most casual of baseball fans who have perused Thomas’ statistics (.301/521/1704), Thomas’ induction in the Baseball Hall of Fame could potentially open the flood gates for a slew of talent who most would have originally disagreed with. But, to really understand that, one must break down Thomas’ career to see that impact he made on the game and the future of the Hall of Fame.
The first thing that needs to pushed out of the way is his defensive capabilities, which were pretty much nonexistent. That’s not to say that he couldn’t play defense at all, but there were clearly people before and after him who played first base way better than he did.
Of the 2,322 games that Thomas played in throughout his career he only took the field defensively for 971 of them, 968 as a starter. The majority of this time came between 1990 and 1997 when Thomas was still pretty agile. In his first two seasons with the Chicago White Sox Thomas platooned with Dan Pasqua, who was in the prime of his career but quickly saw that his days on the starting line were numbered as soon as Thomas was called up. 
From 1992-1997 the White Sox got as much out of Thomas as they could while still being able to rotate through a series of power hitters in the designated hitter spot (George Bell, Julio Franco, John Kruk and Harold Baines) until the White Sox felt that Thomas was too much of a value to the club to risk having him play at first base anymore.
So, for the final 11 years of his career, Thomas was stapled into the DH role the other 1.351 games of his career (the majority). The reason why this stat is so important is because Thomas is the first player in MLB to be voted into the Hall of Fame who played the majority of their games as the DH, a position that is only allowed in the American League and therefore could boost the Hall of Fame potential for National League pitchers or give more credence to a guy like Edgar Martinez who received 25.2 percent of the vote in his fifth try or candidates in the future like Jim Thome and David Ortiz.
Thomas’ induction marks the 10th time a player for the White Sox has been voted into the Hall of Fame; however, he becomes only the fourth White Sox player to be voted in by the BBWAA. Pitcher Ted Lyons was the first in 1955 on his eighth ballot, shortstop/third baseman was the second in 1964 on his seventh ballot and shortstop Luis Aparicio was the third in 1984 who made it in his sixth year.
Therefore, Thomas made White Sox history by becoming the first player to get voted in on his first ballot. As befuddling as that may seem based on the names provided, it actually makes a lot of sense since Thomas, in 16 seasons in Chicago, holds White Sox franchise records in home runs (448), RBI (1465), runs (1327), doubles (447), walks (1466), intentional walks (162), on-base percentage (.427), slugging percentage (.568) and OPS (.995). As far as career numbers are concerned, Thomas ranks in the top-25 all-time in career slugging percentage (.554), RBI (1,704), home runs (521) and sacrifice flys (121), in which he is actually fourth all-time.
Another aspect of the game that Thomas brought to the table was how important he was in the playoffs, especially when it comes to Oakland Athletics fans. When the White Sox considered Thomas’ career over at the end of the 2005 season the Athletics rolled the dice on the slugger for one season… at $500,000. Thomas had made $8 million in his final season the in Chicago.
He clearly knew what he needed to prove in order to get back up to that pay grade and stay in the league. So, he went off to the tune of a .270 average, 39 home runs and 114 RBI. As exemplary as his regular season was, it was his .500 average with two solo home runs, a double, two singles and three runs in the ALDS against the Minnesota Twins that made him a legend in Oakland.
While it may not seem like a big deal, the thing that needs to be taken into consideration is where the Athletics were before he came into the club and where they’ve gone since he left. 1989 was the last time the Athletics won the World Series, but 1990 was the last time they were in it in which they were swept viciously by the Cincinnati Reds.
The Athletics made the playoffs again in 1992, but they were dispatched once again in six games against the Toronto Blue Jays in the ALCS. The important thing to note from that series is that it was still in the days when only two teams from each league made the playoffs and you only had to win one game to make the World Series.
When the divisional series was added due to the Wild Cards in 1995, the Athletics hit a hard four-year losing streak in the ALDS between 2000 and 2003 and restarted again in 2012 and 2013. In 2006 the Athletics finally brought the first streak to an end behind Thomas’ numbers. Not bad for a guy whose career was supposedly over.
The last bit of importance in Thomas’ career goes beyond being the 11th person to win back-to-back MVP Awards in 1993 and 1994, becoming the first AL player to do so since Roger Maris in 1960 and 1961; rather, his .301 career batting average is quite an anomaly when you look at how he got there.
Even though Thomas only played in 60 games during his rookie season (1990), he still managed to bang out a .330 average. From then until the end of the 2000 season Thomas only hit below .308 one time in 1998 when he hit .265. As mentioned above, this was the first year he took over as the primary DH. From 1990-2000 Thomas averaged .322 including three seasons in which he hit .347 or better.
For the last eight seasons of his career, however, Thomas never hit above .277 (2007) and managed a career-low of .219 in 34 games in 2005. Therefore, Thomas was still able to manage a Hall of Fame worthy average despite playing below his standard in the tail end of his career.