Diamondbacks Option Alek Thomas to AAA Reno
Alek Thomas entered the season as one of the Diamondbacks' top prospects before debuting on May 8th. He started off his career with a bang, hitting .260 with a .769 OPS with the D-backs in the month of May. His offense had been steadily declining as the season wore on, hitting rock bottom in September with a .130 average and .307 OPS.
As a result of his at-bats getting progressively worse, Thomas has lost out playing time to other outfielders who have shown improvements. Jake McCarthy has established himself as a potential core player in the outfield and has recently settled into the No. 3 spot in the batting order. Stone Garrett and Corbin Carroll have both forced their way into a big league evaluation and have been performing well enough to receive more opportunities. Throw in Daulton Varsho, who has been arguably the team's most valuable position player this season, and Jordan Luplow, who will get opportunities against left-handed starters, there were no consistent at-bats for Thomas in the big leagues.
After the D-backs loss to the Giants on Sunday, in which Thomas grounded out with two runners in scoring position in his only at-bat, manager Torey Lovullo was asked about Thomas' approach in that situation.
On a follow-up question about Thomas' swing and approach causing him to pull off the ball and trying to fix that, Lovullo had this to say:
Lovullo said the coaching staff has identified a couple major issues with Thomas swing, as the young outfielder has been "expanding the zone, he's trying to cover everything. High, low, in and out". The coaches have encouraged him to shrink the zone and use an opposite field approach so he isn't pulling off the ball. Lovullo said his last conversation with Thomas was to "cut the plate in half" and simplify the approach.
Thomas will get a chance to work on those things and get consistent at-bats with Reno in their final three regular season games and however deep they go in the Pacific Coast League and AAA playoffs.
