Chicago White Sox: Frank Thomas should have been unanimous

The Chicago White Sox greatest player in franchise history made it to the Hall of Fame but wasn’t even close to unanimous but he should have been.

The Chicago White Sox have had some fantastic players come through the organization over the years. There has only been some real team success a few times in the past few decades but the 90s and 2000s saw the team’s greatest player ever come through. That would be Frank Thomas. He was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2014. He was a first-ballot guy that made it in with 478 out of 571 votes.

Thomas, however, should have been a lot closer to a unanimous vote than he was. There is a lot of debate going right now over the fact that Derek Jeter received 396/397 votes. There was one guy that looked at that guy’s career and determined he wasn’t a Hall of Fame player. That is a joke in its own right but to say Frank Thomas was not a Hall of Famer might even be a bigger joke. If Thomas played for the New York Yankees people would realize how good he was which would have made him much closer to unanimous.

Thomas had a career WAR of 73.9 and Jeter’s was slightly less at 72.9. Thomas also had a higher on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS, and had double the home runs. Jeter wasn’t a power guy as much and he had way more hits so they definitely had different strengths. They were both great players but Yankee fans should just be happy that their guy got in. He was one vote short from being unanimous but at least he gets the respect he deserves, unlike Thomas.

Yeah, Thomas was a first-ballot guy but he would have been a lot closer to unanimous if he played on Jeter’s team. He put up those elite numbers on a mediocre team while Jeter was on a team that competed for the World Series year after year. Hall of Fame discussions can get annoying enough as it is but Thomas definitely had an elite career.