'It's the same game': Diamondbacks' top prospect Alek Thomas adapting well to majors

Brian Hurry, the head baseball coach at Mt. Carmel High School on Chicago’s south side, still remembers the moment when he realized Alek Thomas was different.

When Thomas was a freshman, his dad, Allen, was in his 12th year as the White Sox director of strength and conditioning. So one off day that spring, Allen invited Alek and a few of his teammates to hit in the batting cages at U.S. Cellular Park and meet some White Sox players, including ace Chris Sale. Allen specifically chose Mt. Carmel’s most advanced players — seniors who were committed to schools like Louisville, Missouri and Michigan. Still, the kids were star-struck.

Thanks to a childhood spent in that environment, Thomas wasn’t.

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“Alek goes, ‘Guys, what's the big deal? He's just a person just like me and you.’ And this was a 14-year-old telling an 18-year-old stud D-1 player this,” Hurry said. “It was like, this is backwards. I just started laughing.”

Seven years later, Thomas is back in a major league clubhouse. This time, he’s here as one of the centerpieces of the Diamondbacks’ increasingly optimistic future, a plus center-fielder who’s hit .309 with a .881 OPS in 300 minor league games.

Thomas, now 22, has filled out his 5-foot-11 frame. He’s gone through swing changes and back again. Little is the same now as it was in the spring of 2015. But his unflinching attitude remains.

“I don't think anything's been necessarily surprising,” Thomas said Wednesday, sitting in front of his locker before his fourth major league game. “I feel like it's the same game. I've been in a big-league clubhouse so that's nothing surprising either.”

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Instead, Thomas said that the hardest thing about the major leagues has been the movement of pitchers’ fastballs. In that regard, Wednesday should have been a difficult assignment. Marlins starter Sandy Alcantara gets an average of 11.5 inches of a horizontal break on his four-seamer, placing him in the 88th percentile league-wide.

That’s the offering he delivered to Thomas in the first pitch of his first at-bat Wednesday. Thomas responded by sending it 414 feet the opposite way to left-center for his first major league home run.

“When you see him square up a baseball and hit it (414) feet the opposite way, you know that you've got a very sound swing,” Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said.

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Through four games, Thomas is now 5-for-13 with a 1.154 OPS. His success, albeit in an extremely limited sample size, is supported by the underlying data, including an average exit velocity of 94.3 mph, six ticks above the MLB average.

That hot start began in his second plate appearance, when he roped a first-pitch double off the wall in left-center, just a few feet shorter than Wednesday’s home run.

“That was the first hit so … it was a big weight off my shoulders and now I can just go and play,” Thomas said.

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His confidence has also been bolstered by factors beyond his own success. The Diamondbacks’ clubhouse is filled with young players with whom he’s come through the ranks, like infielder Geraldo Perdomo. After each win, the two perform a spinning, leaping high-five in front of the pitchers’ mound, a tradition that dates back to their time together in Single-A Kane County.

There’s also the matter of Lovullo’s faith in him. On Tuesday, Thomas stayed in the lineup, even against left-hander Jesus Luzardo, who has excellent lefty-lefty splits throughout his career.

“I was like, okay, they have confidence in me that I can play against lefties and righties,” Thomas said. “So yeah, I think it's a big confidence boost and I can just keep going with that.”

To those around him, though, Thomas’ results aren’t the most impressive aspect of his hot start.

In his conversations with hitters, pitcher Merrill Kelly said there’s a consensus that “the way (Thomas) talks about at-bats and what he looks to do” stands out. To Lovullo, meanwhile, it’s his calm demeanor.

“That's the thing that impresses me most,” Lovullo said. “He's one cool customer. He doesn't have any nervousness to his game from just looking at him.”

Even after Wednesday’s home run, Thomas was unshaken. He pointed briefly into the stands, then turned, low-fived Daulton Varsho and jogged into the dugout, as if already preparing to do it all over again.

Theo Mackie covers Arizona high school sports and Phoenix Rising FC. He can be reached by email at theo.mackie@gannett.com and on Twitter @theo_mackie.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona Diamondbacks' top prospect Alek Thomas adapting well to majors