Drafted in the 18th round by the Devil Rays out of Santa Rosa Junior College back in 2001, Jonny Gomes established himself as a Major Leaguer four years later with a third-place Rookie of the Year finish. In his 13-year career, Gomes played for the Rays, Reds, Nationals, Athletics, Red Sox, Braves, and Royals. He also played for Japan’s Rakuten Golden Eagles.
Gomes was perhaps best known for his hard-nosed style of play. As Gary Shelton of the Tampa Bay Times put it, “There is nothing laid-back, nothing calm about Gomes. He lives his life as if there are two outs in the ninth and the bases are loaded and the bars are closing and the fuse is burning and the air is running out.” From 2005-15, Gomes was hit by a pitch roughly once every 49 plate appearances, the 12th most-often in MLB.
Serving primarily as a left fielder and designated hitter, Gomes hit 162 home runs in his career. He hit at least 17 home runs in a season six different times, usually in fewer than 120 games. A right-handed hitter, Gomes terrorized southpaws throughout his time in the Majors. The list of pitchers he’s taken deep includes CC Sabathia, Andy Pettitte, Zack Greinke, Madison Bumgarner, Mike Mussina, Curt Schilling, Chris Sale, and Randy Johnson.
The biggest home run of Gomes’ career came in Game 4 of the 2013 World Series for the Red Sox against Seth Maness and the Cardinals in St. Louis. Despite not being in the original starting lineup that day, Gomes crushed a three-run shot that led to Boston’s win. The Red Sox won it in six games, and Gomes’ patriotism was on full display at the White House. Gomes would go on to pick up the second ring of his career in 2015 with the Royals before retiring in 2016.
Earlier this month, Gomes joined BaseballCloud as its Director of Strategic Partnerships. Part of his role involves the expansion of the company’s optical tracking system, Yakkertech. You can follow Gomes on Instagram here and connect with him on Cameo here.
Today, we were proud to host Jonny for a live chat with MLBTR readers. Click here to read the transcript of today’s chat!
If you’re a current or former MLB player, come do a chat with us! It only takes one hour, and you get to choose which questions you publish and answer. Click here to contact us.
Jonny Gomes! I loved watching that guy hit home runs. Talk about serious power. Those balls left the yard real quick.
Lol…. not in Japan they didn’t.
Aren’t the Braves the oldest organization in MLB? Didn’t Jonny Gomes play for the Braves? How can he think the Reds are the oldest when he was actually a Brave himself? I mean, the Braves proudly wore the number 150 on their sleeves since the start of last season. That wasn’t an advertisement. That was there because the Braves have been an MLB team for 150 years.
Reds are the first professional club and thats like widely known. They even always open the season as the home team because of this. I honestly think even the Cardinals and Phillies are older than the Braves… lol
Okay did a google and apparently you’re right, why do the Reds get opening day every year then lol?
WHY DO SOME SOURCES SAY THE REDS AND OTHERS SAY THE BRAVES MY WHOLE BASEBALL LIFE IS IN SHAMBLES
The Reds were the First Pro club but didnt join the national league until 1882. The oldest Major League Baseball team is the braves but the first professional team was the Reds
Best chat yet, well done guys!
Gomes and Napoli are the two that started the nationwide beard trend.
But I still like the guy.
Boston Strong!
better…u can do it!
Two hours, legend.
2 1/2!
MLBTR is digging deep in search of ‘hard hitting’ journalism.
Free content, and a look into an MLB Career from a players perspective. Imo, these are fantastic chats, and I enjoy reading the transcripts.
I agree with you Hammer. Jonny destroyed the ball when he got into one
This guy came back to play after suffering a heart attack. How many major leaguers can say that?
That was awesome! Thx Jonny
This guy was the scrappiest dirtdog in Boston. There are so many reasons to say he’s not good but he got big hits when we needed them and he’s a guy who just chips away. Not the greatest but secretly good and definitely an underrated centerpiece of that 2013 club.
Looks like Jonny was using Dragon or some other talk-to-type software.
It did. The chat stated with no introduction and a question followed by long silence. There were some misspellings as well on top of repeat sentences. It think speech-to-text is the best explanation. It was great, though. He talked way longer than any player chat I’ve ever seen. You can tell the guy still really lives baseball and always did. I agree with the other guy that this might be the best player chat ever. Not the biggest name and he didn’t do a lot of long answers but he answered a ton of questions and stayed in longer than any player I ever remember.
I asked a question he didn’t answer though. I will probably post this above but he said he loved playing for the Reds because they are “the oldest organization in MLB history.” (Or something like that). That’s actually not true. The believe the Reds are the second oldest. The Braves are the oldest franchise in MLB. Over 150 years old and wore it in their jersey’s this year. I wouldn’t normally nitpick something like that but Gomes actually played for the Braves. How did he not realize he was playing for the oldest franchise with the Braves when he was part of the team? Especially if he thinks about things like “oldest franchise” like he did in the chat?
That’s my only nitpicky point to make but it was a great chat.
u can slide on this one! we all needed this!
Who do you feel would be a good candidate to replace Jerry Remy?
Jonny Gomes: Me
My favorite answer EVER (so far) from a player!!!
Yeah, the voice-to-text was annoying, but offset by the sheer volume of questions he was able to get to made it worth it IMO.
Could have done without the freebies to promote his company/product, but if that’s the cost to get Jonny freaking Gomes, the legend himself, then I suppose that is an offset as well.
If it was voice to text he was using, I wonder if its because he’s not very good at typing and this was a faster more convenient way of handling the chat. The length of this chat was amazing.. I got in on the tail end for once, but sadly I could not think of a decent question to ask.
Also, this was the last chat the site had? I realize the last four days have been a whirlwind of news, but man I love these chats – both players and MBLTR staff – and over a week feels a little like a drug withdrawl..
Isn’t that pic of Dustin Pedroia?