Update on Shaq Thompson’s Baseball Experiment

Last month, 5 star Washington football recruit, Shaq Thompson, was drafted by and signed with the Boston Red Sox. While the arrangement allowed Thompson to still play football at Washington, it still shocked Husky fans.

Now, Thompson is twelve games into his baseball career, so let’s take a look at how he’s done so far.

Most importantly, he has stayed healthy, but that’s about the only thing the Udub safety has done right. So far, Thompson’s numbers have been staggering. He has 37 at bats thus far and 0 hits. That’s right, Thompson is 0 for 37 in his professional baseball career. More impressively, Shaq has struck out 36 times which means that he has 36 strikeouts in 37 at bats, coming out to a 80.0 K%. Thompson’s seven walks have brought his OBP up to .178, but that’s still miserable.

Another important piece of information is that Thompson is currently playing in the GCL (Gulf Coast League) which is part of rookie ball. Rookie ball is the lowest level of minor league baseball, so not only is Thompson constantly failing, but he is doing so against the youngest and least experienced and developed competition the ranks of professional baseball have to offer.

What can we take from Thompson’s first dozen games in professional baseball? I think it’s fair to say that he doesn’t have much of a career ahead of him. This is probably good news for Husky football fan since it raises the chances that Thompson will end his embarrassing baseball career and return to being a safety for the Huskies.