Cleveland Indians All-Time 25-Man Roster
First Baseman—Jim Thome
(with Cleveland from 1991-2002, 2011)
46.4 fWAR, 47.9 bWAR
.287/.414/.566, 1399 G, 5805 PA, 152 OPS+ (with Cleveland)
The power-hitting Jim Thome that Cleveland fans grew to love did not start out that way. He was considered undersized coming out of high school. In fact, he was a 175-pound shortstop, not yet the guy who is listed as 6’4” and 250 pounds by Baseball-Reference.com. Thome went undrafted after his senior year of high school, so he spent a year playing baseball and basketball at Illinois Central College. Cleveland drafted him in the 13th round of the 1989 June draft.
The guy who would hit 612 career home runs in the big leagues got off to a rough start. Cleveland started Thome in Rookie ball in 1989 and he struggled mightily, hitting .237/.314/.296. Just eight of his 44 hits went for extra bases and he didn’t hit a single home run.
That off-season, Thome worked with hitting instructor Charlie Manuel, with an emphasis on hip rotation. It paid off well. He hit 16 home runs in 67 games, while also showing the batting eye that would enable him to post a career on base percentage of .402. Manuel would later become Thome’s manager in the big leagues.
It took a couple years of bouncing between the majors and minors before Thome established himself in the big leagues and even then he didn’t become a regular until the strike-shortened 1994 season. That was a disappointing season for baseball fans everywhere, but particularly rough for Cleveland fans. After years of being non-contenders, the 1994 team was in second place and just one game out of first when the season ended in August. The good news was that this would be a sign of things to come.
Cleveland dominated the AL Central from 1995 to 2001. They won the division six times in seven years, while averaging 93 wins per season. They made it to the ALCS three times and the World Series twice, unfortunately losing both times. Thome was a big part of the hitting attack. From 1995 until his final year with the team in 2002, Thome averaged 102 runs, 38 homers, 104 RBI, and a .293/.426/.588 batting line. He also walked an average of 113 times per year, was a three time all-star and finished in the top 10 in AL MVP voting four times.
This was the essence of Jim Thome: Home runs, RBI, and walks. And he did it all with a downhome charm. He was a big guy with a big swing and an even bigger smile. He tied with Mike Sweeny as baseball’s second-friendliest player in a 2007 poll of MLB players (behind Sean Casey). Teammate Michael Cuddyer said of Thome, “He’s the nicest, gentlest, kindest guy you will ever meet . . . to everything except the baseball, he still hits that really hard.” An example of how hard Thome hit the baseball is this home run that was estimated at 511 feet against the Royals on July 3, 1999:
After their great run of success that, sadly, did not result in a World Series title, the team finished in third place in 2002. This would be Thome’s final season in his first tenure with the team and he made it a good one, hitting a career-high 52 homers and driving in 131 runs. The team was going into rebuilding mode, though, and Thome signed a free agent deal with the Philadelphia Phillies.
Thome spent the next eight season playing for the Phillies, White Sox, Dodgers, and Twins before making his way back home by way of a trade from Minnesota to Cleveland in August of 2011. The ballpark known as The Jake when he last played for Cleveland was now known as Progressive Field but the fan sentiment hadn’t changed. Thome was greeted warmly by the fans in his first at-bat back with the team and he tipped his cap to acknowledge them in a sentimental moment. Later that year, the team announced there would be a statue of Thome in Heritage Park and held a ceremony to honor him.
The Thome statue was unveiled in 2014 and he officially retired as an Indian. In 2015, Thome returned for the 20-year reunion of the 1995 team that went 100-44 and won the second-most games in a season in team history. Last January, he attended Tribe Fest and in July he was inducted into the Cleveland Indians Hall of Fame. This year will be his first appearance on the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot.