the impressive minor league career of michael jordan

Chris Hirons

June 8, 2020

Michael Jordan’s first surprise retirement that sent shockwaves through international media was highlighted during ESPN’s 30-for-30, “The Last Dance,” on May 10.

The basketball star rode off into the sunset to play baseball, still at the pinnacle of his basketball career.

The then 31-year-old retired from basketball in October 1993, four months after the Chicago Bulls completed their first three-peat, and just a mere month before the start of the 1993-1994 NBA season.

Four months after the bewildering announcement, Jordan again surprised the world by signing a Minor League Baseball deal in February 1994 with the Chicago White Sox and joined the Birmingham Barons, their Double-A organization .

Two-sport athletes weren’t uncommon at the time - Bo Jackson had finished his “You Don’t Know Bo” campaign in 1990, splitting his time between baseball and football in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Two former Atlanta Falcons defensive backs, Brian Johnson and Deion Sanders, deflected passes downfield while recording putouts in the outfield.

By the standards set by the aforementioned multi-sport athletes, Jordan’s slashline of .202/.289/.266 that included just 21 extra-base hits in 497 plate appearances looked downright atrocious.

While those athletes found success at the Major League level, Jordan struggled while riding the bus in the minors. In addition, Jordan stole 30 bases over the course of the season. That number alone looks promising, but he was successful in just 62.5% of his attempts (the universally accepted break-even point is usually around 70%).

If Jordan were a player that had years of professional baseball experience, he would’ve likely been out of a job come springtime. However, when you take a closer look at his career, you begin to realize that Jordan’s single season of MiLB was impressive - maybe even a miracle.

One of the game’s greatest hitters, Ted Williams, once said that hitting a round ball with a round bat is the single most difficult thing to do in all of sports.

Although Williams could be a little biased, his quote applies to Jordan, a 31-year-old, jumping right into one of the higher levels of the minors. Jordan hadn’t swung a bat in a competitive baseball game since he was an underclassmen in high school.

Learning to hit a baseball is a lifelong process, one that can even fade away with time away from the game. Former Texas Rangers infielder Jurickson Profar, a former No. 1 overall prospect heading into the 2013 season, suffered multiple shoulder injuries before the 2014 season. After returning during the 2016 season, Profar has become a journeyman infielder and a decent bench bat, but not much more.

On the baseball field, Jordan wasn’t anywhere close to the prospect he was on the basketball court. Having only a high school crash course on skills, Jordan was thrust into one of the highest levels of the minors right out of the gate.

Double-A is typically the weed-out process of minor leaguers.

Most teams are able to find out whether or not pitchers have both a good fastball and a few good off-speed pitches. If not, they hit the unemployment line. Same goes for hitters — if they’re able to handle the fastball but not the curveball, then they might as well find another profession.

Most hitters see a big-league-level curveball for the first time at the Double-A level and see it for the first time. For them, it’s like seeing an alien — out of this world.

Jordan was no exception.

He struck out nearly 23% of the time, which is normal in today’s game, but the strikeout rate, in his time, was nearly two-thirds of what it is today.

In order to strike out that much and stick around, a player must hit for power. Jordan did just the opposite.

Described by his then-manager Terry Francona, Jordan was more of a “contact-oriented hitter.”

It’s hard to disagree with a manager that would go on to win two World Series championships as Jordan only hit three home runs in 127 games. Jordan showed he understood the strike zone by drawing 51 walks.

He slapped singles while turning some of those into hustle doubles. Even if he only had an OPS of .556, he showed some awareness and wasn’t just some frat boy participating in a mid-inning promotion.

Watching Jordan at the plate wasn’t pretty. The long and lanky 6-foot-6 shooting guard’s swing was long and disjointed; though, as someone who’s a tall-and-lanky former baseball player, I empathize with his grisly swing. Any baseball player knows that in order to be successful, a swing needs to be short and quick in order to catch up to a 95 MPH fastball or to make an adjustment to an off-speed pitch.

Jordan had a tough time using his legs to drive the ball, a body part needed to hit for power. Standing at his aforementioned height of 6-foot-6 and weighing in at 205 pounds, you might expect him to be able to hit for power. Unfortunately for Jordan, he was unable to harness the strength of his body to his advantage.

Take former New York Yankee Derek Jeter’s swing for example. Both players were somewhat similar in size, Jeter was three inches shorter and 10 pounds lighter. The pair had similar approaches at the plate as contact hitters — Jeter hit 20-plus home runs in three of his 19 big league seasons.

The difference between Jeter’s and Jordan’s swing? The shortstop’s weight transfer between his upper and lower body, the ability to use his legs to drive the baseball and a short-and-compact swing. Jeter used the power in his legs to drive the ball into the gap for doubles and triples. Jeter’s torso moved in motion with his legs, something that Jordan didn’t do with his swing.

The six-time NBA champion’s swing didn’t endure the same mechanics that Jeter’s swing had. His weight transfer was nonexistent. He would almost halt his forward momentum and commit partially to the swing, while he knocked his knees together, all in one motion. It looked like a pitcher going from his motion in the stretch, or a baby deer learning to walk.

Why does Terry Francona, who was Jordan’s manager by a hilarious coincidence, believe that Jordan would have been a big leaguer with another 1,000-or-so at-bats?

Well, despite all the aforementioned struggles and a swing that looks like a 10-year-old’s, Jordan managed to go straight into one of the upper-levels of the minors and hit .202. By the time the White Sox assigned him to the Arizona Fall League, the premier fall league amongst the game’s top prospects, Jordan hit .252 and started to look more comfortable against baseball’s up-and-coming stars.

Jordan faced technique issues, ones that theoretically and quite possibly could have been trained out of him if he stuck with the sport. Who knows what could have happened if Charles Barkley or Larry Bird bet him $50,000 that he couldn’t crack the starting lineup by Opening Day 1996.