Eric Thames Went Deep AGAIN Last Night, And I'm Starting To Think That Nothing Can Stop Him
I usually have at least four games running every night at Barstool Baseball HQ, and admittedly I haven’t missed a Brewers game yet this season, but I had only been watching them because I’m a big Travis Shaw guy. We’ll get to him later. But, inadvertently, I’ve had a front row seat to the Eric Thames Show, and holy shit has this guy been amazing. So amazing that Korea is apparently even broadcasting Brewers games because of him.
And trust me, I’m not naive. As I wrote yesterday after John Lackey’s wink, wink, nudge, nudge reference to Thames’ hot start being suspicious, I’m going to recognize that it appears too good to be true, but I’m also going to give him the benefit of the doubt because there is literally nothing besides his baseball-reference page that would make anybody believe that what we’re watching isn’t legit.
But as we can see above, Thames hit his major league-leading eighth home run of the season in just fourteen games. He’s on a pace to hit 76 home runs this year, which I guess is pretty decent. If you’re one of those fans who truly can’t believe what they’re watching right now, then maybe I can sway you to the “let’s give this guy the benefit of the doubt” side of the internet, because we at least have somewhat of an explanation for what he’s doing.
I mean, clearly he’s strong as hell. He was averaging over 40 home runs a year in Korea the last three years, so we know he can clear the fence quite a bit, but pitchers are throwing it right down the dick to the guy. Not only that, but they’re mostly fastballs when he had the reputation of struggling with breaking pitches. I read that story about how they throw more curveballs in Korea so that’s how he learned to become a more patient and comfortable hitter at the plate against curveballs, but only one of his eight homers has been on a curveball. Four four-seamers, a two-seamer, a changeup, a cutter and a curveball.
To his credit, he’s seen 62 breaking pitches (curveballs and sliders), and he’s hitting .333 with a 1.278 OPS against them. Also, it’s way too early to look at league leaders for one specific pitch, but I’m gonna do it anyway — Thames’ 2.667 OPS against curveballs is the third highest in the majors right now. Small sample size and it doesn’t mean a whole lot here in April, but I just thought I’d throw that in there.
What is worth mentioning, though, is that I don’t think pitchers are trying this approach as often as they should be. Like I said, he’s seen 62 breaking pitches, but is that even a lot? Is it too little? Thames has seen the 106th most breaking pitches in the majors. Yes, he’s had early success against breaking pitches, but is that sustainable? If you’re an opposing pitcher, you should probably try to find out. For comparison’s sake, Jose Bautista has seen the most breaking pitches in the majors this year (119), and he’s hitting .050 with a .236 OPS when he sees one. That’s pitiful. Pitchers are attacking his weakness, and it’s working.
So that begs the question — What is Thames’ weakness? Does he even have a weakness? Are pitchers doing enough to find out what his weakness might be? If you look at it pitch by pitch — cutter, splitter, changeup, slider, fastball, sinker, curveball — the ONLY pitch that Thames looks human against is the slider, and even those numbers are still good, all things considered. He’s hitting .286 with an .837 OPS when he gets the slider, his “worst” marks against any pitch. What’s he hitting against fastballs? He’s seen 104 fastballs, and he’s hitting a ridiculous .529 with a 2.064 OPS against them. That’s absurd.
Simply put, it doesn’t matter what your best pitch is. Thames is probably going to hit it. Like, really, really hard and really, really far.