Click here to see his major league stats at Baseball Reference.
His major league career batting average was just .252 in only 751 PAs. That might not seem that impressive but his career OPS+ of 99 is just below the average of 100.
To simply hold your own as a big leaguer back then was impressive, given that there were not many options for professional athletes. But after his last season in the majors he played some minor league ball and did very well.
Click here to see his minor league stats.
In 1920 he played a 128 games for Akron of the International League (at the AA level, the highest level at that time). His AVG was .360 and his SLG was .563. He was 33 years old.
For players with 400+ ABs, he was 4th in AVG and SLG. He was 5th in total bases. On the IL leaders page, names of players who appear in bold are guys who played in major league baseball at some time. Most of them are in bold. So the competition was pretty good.
Click here to go to the 1920 IL batting leaders page.
In 1921, when he was 34, Thorpe played for Toledo of the American Association (also AA level). In 133 games he batted .358 with an SLG of .535. For players with 400+ ABs, he was 6th in AVG and 9th in SLG. Most of the guys in this league played time in the majors as well.
Click here to go to the 1921 AA batting leaders page.
So although he was just an average hitter for a short time in the major leagues, Thorpe did very well when he got quite a bit of regular playing time at some high levels of competition.
What's often overlooked is that 1920 appears to be a magic year where baseball at all levels began using the new live ball.
ReplyDeleteAlmost across the board we see a rise in batting average and power numbers while at the same time seeing an end to the sub 2.00 ERA's that littered the ought and teen years and suspect that had Thorpe remained in the major leagues as a regular, he too well might have shown a similar increase in average.