Lee Thomas and the expansion of 1961

Lee Thomas was an All-Star player and pennant-winning general manager, but he probably couldn’t have done any of that without the American League adding two teams for the 1961 season. Thomas, who died at the end of August at age 86, was a Yankees farmhand, who made the major-league roster for the first time in 1961 at age 25. Which means he spent most of the first half of his 20s behind the players behind the players who were behind Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris (and first baseman Bill Skowron). Since 1961 was the year Maris, on his way to consecutive MVPs, hit 61 home runs, and Mantle 54 (and Skowron 28), Thomas was hardly an essential Yankee. He pinch-hit twice in the first 20 games of 1961, and then the Yankees traded him to the first-year Los Angeles Angels, who had, according to Thomas’ bio at sabr.org, declined to pick him when made available in the expansion draft. A few months later, they had changed their mind. Thomas went without a World Series check in 1961, which might have hurt financially in the short term, but he gained over the long term. The Angels had a position — in fact, multiple positions — for Thomas to play and a friendly ballpark to play in. He played right field, left field and first base, had 505 plate appearances, batted .284, and hit 24 home runs in Wrigley Field. Like the Cubs’ home park of the same name, the Angels’ was hitter friendly, albeit more so. It was roughly 345 feet to right center in the Angels’ home park, though with a nine-foot wall compared to a 14-foot wall in left center. Thomas, playing regularly, thrived, though he was equally effective on the road. Bob Cerv, for whom Thomas was traded, played 57 games and batted 131 times for the Yankees all season, and he never appeared in the Yankees’ five-game World Series triumph. Thomas had more hits in one September doubleheader — going 9-for-11 with three homers and 8 RBIs — than Cerv had from August 1 to the end of the season. Thomas hit all three homers and knocked in all eight runs in Game 2, which didn’t keep the Angels from being swept, 7-3 and 13-12. Thomas had his best season in 1962, even after the Angels moved in with the Dodgers at Dodger Stadium. In a more-pitcher friendly home stadium, Thomas was just as good. He had career-bests in average (.290), home runs (26), RBIs (104) and runs scored (88), and the Angels won 86 games, finished third and were as close to the Yankees as four games on September 11 with 16 to play. A six-game losing streak ended that fantasy, but the 1962 Angels were the most successful second-year franchise of the modern expansion era — until the Diamondbacks won 100 games in 1999. Thomas was a big reason why. He was second on the team to Leon Wagner in homers and RBIs, made both All-Star games and finished 11th in the MVP voting. Thomas: “If it hadn’t been for the expansion, I might have been a perennial minor-league star. Another Rocky Nelson,” according to the website ripbaseball.com. Expansion came too late for Nelson, who was a decade older than Thomas, and hit 234 minor-league homers, but only 31 in the majors. (Nelson spent most of the 1950s in the minors but he did play in two World Series, for the ’52 Dodgers and the 1960 Pirates. Batting .300 in 234 plate appearances at age 35, he was no small part of the latter’s championship.) Neither the Angels nor Thomas could maintain their success. The Angels lost 16 wins and six places in the standings in 1963, finishing 70-91 and ahead of only Washington, Thomas lost 70 points in batting average (.220), two-thirds of his homers (9) and nearly half his RBIs (55). Early in 1964 the Angels traded him to the Red Sox, for whom Thomas had his last good year in 1965 (.271/361/464, 22 homers, 27 doubles, 75 RBIs). But Thomas was traded three times in the next three seasons, played for four teams and was done as a major leaguer at age 32. Thomas’ management tenure as Phillies GM had the super nova highlight of the 1993 pennant, but otherwise was dim. The pennant-winners were the only winning team in Thomas’ decade in charge, and the Phillies finished last in half of his 10 seasons. After 69-, 67- and 68-win seasons from 1995-97, the Phillies fired Thomas. The 70-win 1992 Phillies and 54-win (in the strike-shortened season) 1994 Phillies made the pennant winners even more appreciated. Thomas built the team, and character wasn’t a foundation, given the post-playing legal and personal issues of some of the 1993 team’s stars (Lenny Dykstra served half a year in jail for fraud; Curt Schilling was sued by Rhode Island; Mitch Williams was ejected from his son’s Little League game). Pete Rose, who played on the Phillies’ 1980 World Series winners, would have fit right in with his group; remember the 1993 Phillies the next time some sideline reporter asks about character). But just as character wasn’t why the 1993 team won, it also wasn’t why it disintegrated. Injuries were. Dykstra had 773 plate appearances in 1993; he had 842 over the next three seasons and never played more than 84 games again. Schilling made 34 starts in 1993, just 30 over the next two seasons. Williams was traded after the season, but pitched just 37.1 innings over the next four seasons. Thomas fired the manager after 1996, old friend and Angels teammate Jim Fregosi, and said, “He’s still a fine manager.” Thomas’ last managerial hire was Terry Francona, and it was a good one, even if neither the Phillies nor Thomas ever benefited from it. Career stats: .255 average, 106 home runs, 428 RBIs, 405 runs scored, 111 doubles, 847 hits, 332 walks, 397 strikeouts, .327 on-base percentage, .397 slugging percentage, .724 OPS, 100 OPS+, two times receiving MVP votes (24th in 1961, 11th in 1962), tied for third in 1961 AL Rookie of the Year voting, 2.9 WAR.