Serious Baseball: Jim Thome Projections

Since I spent so much time bashing the White Sox in my last article for acquiring Jim Thome for Aaron Rowand and some prospects, I figure it is only appropriate that I make some attempt to project the type of season that Thome will have in 2006.

Before I start the projection though, I would like to point out that Thome is one of the most underrated offensive players of our time. Just look at these career numbers:

5919 AB, .281/.408/.562, 431 HR, 1193 RBI, 1151 Runs Scored

To try and put those numbers into perspective, take a look at Hall-of-Fame first baseman Harmon Killebrew’s career numbers:

8147 AB, .256/.376/.509, 573 HR, 1584 RBI, 1283 Runs Scored

It’s fair to say that Thome is a better player than Killebrew. Now that I’ve gotten my feelings about Thome out of the way, let’s start the projecting.

Here is his career chart, with important predictive statistics IPD and ISOP:

Year	Age	AB	AVG	OBP	SLG	HR	IPD	ISOP
1991	20	98	0.255	0.298	0.367	1	0.043	0.112
1992	21	117	0.205	0.275	0.299	2	0.070	0.094
1993	22	154	0.266	0.385	0.474	7	0.119	0.208
1994	23	321	0.268	0.359	0.523	20	0.091	0.255
1995	24	452	0.314	0.438	0.558	25	0.124	0.244
1996	25	505	0.311	0.450	0.612	38	0.139	0.301
1997	26	496	0.286	0.423	0.579	40	0.137	0.293
1998	27	440	0.293	0.413	0.584	30	0.120	0.291
1999	28	494	0.277	0.426	0.540	33	0.149	0.263
2000	29	557	0.269	0.398	0.531	37	0.129	0.262
2001	30	526	0.291	0.416	0.624	49	0.125	0.333
2002	31	480	0.304	0.445	0.677	52	0.141	0.373
2003	32	578	0.266	0.385	0.573	47	0.119	0.307
2004	33	508	0.274	0.396	0.581	42	0.122	0.307
2005	34	193	0.207	0.360	0.352	7	0.153	0.145
Career	----	5919	0.281	0.408	0.562	431	0.127	0.281

Thome has great plate discipline, without question, but to try and project next season, let’s see how that discipline has progressed over the years:


The most important years to look at here are the most recent ones. Looking at these years you can see he is always between .120 and .160 in this category. Since age 27 he has never dropped in or out of this range. And with plate discipline being a facet of one’s game that doesn’t wither with age, this means that if you placed a bet on Thome’s IPD being between .120-.160 in 2006, you would win. So for my projection I will use an IPD of .140.

Now, a look at how Thome’s raw power has progressed as he has gotten older:

Unlike plate discipline, raw power (represented by the statistic ISOP) will go through a decline as a player gets older. And as you can see here, that is exactly what is happening to Thome. I am completely disregarding his 2005 season as he was obviously hurt, and only played for a limited time. Even before injury though, Thome was in a free-fall from his peak ISOP of .373 achieved in 2001 with the Cleveland Indians. So with this in mind it is only fair to project Thome to slightly fall in this category again. For the projection I will use a figure of .275 as Thome’s ISOP.

Now, as I do with all my offensive projections, all I have to do is project Thome’s 2006 batting average then his projected OBP and SLG will fall right into place by using his projected IPD and ISOP.

To do this, I will take a look at Thome’s BABIP (Batting Average on Balls In Play) to see how far he strays from the mean in this department. Remember, the league average BABIP is around .300; meaning that if any player has a BABIP higher than this in one season they were most likely lucky, and vice versa is true if they have one that is lower than the average. But, this tidbit of knowledge is useful for small sample sizes. When a player is always below or above average for their entire career though, it’s fair to say that he is a special player that can overcome the law of averages.

This is the case for Thome in terms of his BABIP. His BABIP in every season since his first with 450+ AB’s (1995) were .373, .365, .329, .368, .359, .324, .356, .324, .356, .325, .307, .301, and .260.

I’m not going to totally disregard that .260 in 2005, because his injury did have something to do with that figure. When you look at the three seasons before that though, you can see that Thome has been making worse contact with the baseball each season. Again, normally this would be a sign of a player regressing to the mean, but for someone as special as Thome, who has shown such a knack for high BABIP’s that he obviously possesses some type of talent that allows him to do that, this is a sign of decline. To make the decline more visual, here is his progression chart:

So with this regression in mind, and the belief that the .260 BABIP last season was so low due to injury, I will just continue to project a downward decline from his last healthy season (2004). Doing this gives me a BABIP around .290. With this number being lower than his normal BABIP (.334 for career), all of his other offensive numbers will drop as well. Now that all the work is done, here is how Jim Thome will perform in 2006 for the Chicago White Sox assuming a full healthy season of 500+ AB’s:

.267/.407/.542, 37 HR

That’s a damn good season for a player that I am projecting to decline.

The best part of this deal for the White Sox is that they don’t have to put Thome on the field since Chicago plays baseball in the American League and they can stick him in as a Designated Hitter. This can only be a good thing since Thome is a horrible fielder. This means only his offensive numbers will count towards his production in 2006.

So does this great projected season make Thome worth the package the White Sox gave up for him? The answer is still “No.”

Even though I haven’t projected a season for the main player the White Sox traded away, Aaron Rowand, it’s pretty fair to say that if Thome stays healthy that Rowand has no chance of matching him offensively. Even when you add in defense, which Rowand excels at, he still couldn’t match up with Thome in total production; but he gets a lot closer. Close enough where it is not only fair, but also smart to say it wouldn’t be worth it to add $21.5 million dollars to your payroll, and lose two good pitching prospects to fill the gap between the two player’s total productions—especially when the player acquired is 35 years old.

There you have it, I still have the same opinion I had on Thursday, and this article only strengthens my belief. I will say one thing though; “You White Sox fans will enjoy watching Thome next season (if he stays healthy) because he is truly a special player.”

Thank you for reading. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or suggestions, please do not hesitate to email me at frnkbndy@yahoo.com.