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Is It Really Time To Cash Out On Eric Thames?

Is It Really Time To Cash Out On Eric Thames?

If you’re an Eric Thames owner, you’re probably loving life right now. On average, Thames was the 218th overall pick in Yahoo, CBS, ESPN, and NFBC fantasy drafts, but he is the single most valuable fantasy commodity in standard leagues through the first 21 games. Naturally, what to make of Thames’ epic start is the biggest fantasy debate of the moment, and a chorus of voices are advising owners to sell high.

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Doubter’s Lines

Skeptics will point to the fact that eight of Thames’ 11 home runs have come against the Cincinnati Reds’ woeful collection of pitchers. They’ll remind us that the Korean Baseball Organization (KBO), where Thames put up an average stat line of a .349 average, 41 HRs, 127 RBIs, and 21 SBs over the last three seasons, is roughly equivalent to Class AA here in the states. And they’ll point to such baseball luminaries as Tigers 1B Chris Shelton, who hit 10 home runs in April 2006 — and then hit just eight more the rest of his career. But a closer look at how Shelton and Thames each reached double-digit homers in April shows why there’s good reason to believe Thames’ production is much more sustainable. It starts with plate discipline. Shelton had a 26 percent strikeout rate and 8.7 percent walk rate during his big April 2006, which turned out to be a glaring warning sign that his .326 batting average was a mirage. Thames, meanwhile, is displaying a firm grasp of the strike zone with a 17.8 percent walk rate to go along with a reasonable 21.1 percent strikeout rate.

Then there’s what happens when they put the ball in play. While Shelton’s 41.5 percent hard hit rate in April 2006 was quite impressive, Thames’ 51.9 percent is otherworldly. It’s also a bit unfair to completely discount what Thames accomplished in the KBO. Sure, it’s an inferior league to MLB, but the numbers he put up there are just silly. Shelton had no comparable achievements, unless perhaps you count his high school stats. There’s a reason that all the major projection systems expected Thames to top 25 home runs this year even before he exploded on the scene. 

Gaining Power with Age

At the end of the day, the Thames skepticism really boils down to this: He’s a 30-year old veteran who struggled during his previous exposure to big league pitching. But the truth is that a sudden power explosion from a player of Thames’ age is nothing new. Since 2010, the top four home run hitters in the Majors are Jose Bautista, Miguel Cabrera, Nelson Cruz, and Edwin Encarnacion. All four joined the 40+ home run club for the first time at age 29 or older.

Bautista had never topped 16 home runs in any of his first six seasons before he famously exploded for 54 home runs as a 29-year old in 2010. The most home runs that Encarnacion had hit in any of his first seven seasons was 26, until he sent 42 over the fence during his age-29 season in 2012. It took even longer for Cruz, who was 34 years old by the time he completed his first 40 home run season in 2014. The most surprising name on the list, Cabrera, slugged 33 homers as a 21-year old phenom in 2004, but did not surpass 40 homers until his age-29 season in 2012. We also shouldn’t forget another Blue Jay, Josh Donaldson, who has the fifth-most home runs in the league since the start of the 2015 season. His first (and to date only) 40 home run season also came at the age of 29.

In other words, if Thames were to reach 40 home runs in the Majors for the first time as a 30-year old, it would hardly be unprecedented. In fact, you could say it’s the norm for baseball’s preeminent power hitters. The fact that Thames struggled during his first go-around in MLB shouldn’t worry his fantasy owners, either. So did Bautista, Chris Davis, and to a lesser extent Encarnacion.

Of all these sluggers, the best comp for Thames may be Bautista. They have similar builds — both are six feet tall and weigh a little over 200 pounds. Both put up some subpar seasons (with the Blue Jays) before they figured things out. Both vastly improved their plate discipline as they got more experience, and began to draw walks at a very high rate and be more selective about which pitches they try to drive out of the park. Both play in home ballparks that are generally friendly to power hitters.  

So if you’re wondering whether to sell high on Eric Thames, let me answer your question with another question: Would you want to sell high on Jose Bautista in April 2010?


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Andrew Seifter is a correspondent at FantasyPros. For more from Andrew, check out his archive and follow him @andrew_seifter.

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