If you haven’t noticed by now, Tigers OFer Marcus Thames is on fire. His last 7 hits have all been homers and he’s now up to 12 HRs in just 113 ABs. This follows an 18 HR performance in 269 ABs last year and 26 HRs in 348 ABs in 2006. That’s a total of 56 HRs in 730 ABs the last 3 years, or a HR every 13 ABs and a 46 HR pace over 600 at-bats. With a chance for every day at-bats, can we expect this kind of power production going forward and what kind of value can he provide in various league formats?

Let’s start by taking a look at all his important stats and metrics:

 
The first things you notice upon looking at the above tables is that Thames strikes out a lot, hits a ton of fly balls, and has enough power to push many of those fly balls over the fence. He also isn’t allergic to taking a walk, but doesn’t walk enough to be really be considered a three true outcomes type hitter.

This year, he has actually improved his contact rate to the best it’s been in his career to a very respectable level for a power hitter of about 79%. He’s also continuing to hit tons of fly balls, at a rate that would rank him 2nd in all of baseball if he had more ABs. Excellent raw power + lots of fly balls + acceptable contact rate = home runs galore. He has boosted his HR/FB ratio to 25.5%, continuing the trend of maintaining or improving this rate each year. However, with only a 17.9% career HR/FB ratio and 19.8% last year, can he maintain such improvement or will he regress back to his previous years?

I decided to check out his Hit Tracker profile to determine whether he’s hitting his HRs further than usual. There is data on 11 of his 12 HRs this year, and just 1 of them qualified as a “no doubter”, while 4 of them were “plenty”, and 6 of them were “just enough”. In percentage terms, that equates to 9%/36%/55%. The average standard distance of his HRs is 394.8 feet, compared to an AL league average of 389.2. In 2007, 2 of Thames’ 18 HRs were “no doubters”, 13 were “plenty”, and 3 were “just enough”. In percentage terms, that equates to 11%/72%/17%. The average standard distance of his HRs was 399.5. In 2006, which was the only year Hit Tracker published the following data, the leave averages for no doubters/plenty/just enough HRs were 18%/55%/27%.

Looking at this data, it’s interesting to see Thames not hitting his HRs as far as in 2007, and also benefitting from 55% of his HRs coming from the “just enough” variety. For the last 2 years, he’s been below league average hitting “no doubters”, which is a surprise given his high HR/FB ratios. This certainly does not give me confidence that he could sustain this new HR/FB level, so a regression back toward the 17%-20% range should be expected.

What has always held down Thames’ potential fantasy value was his consistently poor batting averages. With a career average of just .243, and a current average of .257, fantasy owners might be unwilling to benefit from all the home runs at the expense of average. The slightly good news is that his BABIP is just .221 this year, compared with a .261 career BABIP. The bad news is with a low 14.6% line drive rate and only a 16.1% career rate, his xBABIP this season is still only .266. If his HR/FB ratio does regress as I expect, but his BABIP increased, that would still probably leave his average right around the .260 range. All the fly balls also aren’t doing his average any favors as a fly ball is least likely to go for a hit out of the 3 primary batted ball types.

It’s time for some projections. Let’s assume his HR/FB ratio was 21.2%, which would give him exactly 10 HRs currently, as opposed to the 12 he actually has. If we then adjust his BABIP to his .261 career average, that gives him a .271 average. Pro-rating the 10 HRs in 113 ABs to a 600 AB pace, we get 53 HRs. Wow. That increased contact rate really helps.  

So the verdict is that I’d probably add him in 10-team mixed leagues and deeper. Chances are you probably have one bench guy who is expendable, and it’s worth taking a flier on a potential Adam Dunn clone, minus the walks. The HR/FB ratio will come down, but that BABIP should rise. Watch the strikeouts though, and if he continues with the improved contact rate, he could hit another 25 HRS easy, assuming he holds on to the full-time job.

Questions, comments, criticisms, praise, expert league invitations? Email me at FBGeneralsMike@gmail.com.