Is Alek Thomas Primed for a Bounce-Back Year in 2025?

Continuing the series of Arizona Diamondbacks player reviews, Alek Thomas is next. The projection below is a composite of ZiPS and Steamer projections, prorated to Jack Sommers' playing time projection.

Alek Thomas, Left-Handed Centerfielder, Age 24

Alek Thomas career stats and his 2025 projections for the Arizona Diamondbacks compared to MLB average numbers | Jake Oliver

Why Thomas may outperform the projection

2024 was a season to forget for Thomas as he dealt with numerous injuries, missing over two-thirds of the season and struggling at the plate when he was healthy. That caused him to be sent down to the minors for a portion of the season as Jake McCarthy took over the starting spot in centerfield.

It was just his age-24 season and the severe hamstring injury that Thomas suffered four days into the season could certainly cause enhanced struggles through the season, especially as his speed was noticeably slower than in years past.

He went from the 87th percentile in sprint speed in 2023 to 62nd percentile in 2024, likely due to his leg injury. So, just by staying healthy in 2025, Thomas should certainly perform plenty better than 2024 and take advantage of some enticing advanced stats that could see him have a breakout year.

Thomas is projected for a career high .718 OPS, which if comes to pass would be a new watermark by .71 points. A major swing. It might be surprising to see such a high number considering his wRC+ was 65 last year and it's never been higher than 71.

Plus, he would do this in a shorter sample size of 200 plate appearances against nearly all right-handed pitchers.

However, Thomas very quietly put up some good advanced stats on Statcast in 2024 despite a small sample size. This could predict a coming breakout year and be a reason as to why the D-backs have placed such a high price for him on the trade market.

In 2024, Thomas hit for .189 but his expected batting average was a far stronger .278 thanks to the amount of loud contact he was making. His expected slugging rate was .446 due to his hard-hit percentage being 46.8%. Those numbers were all easily career highs.

Both of those numbers are well above his projections so if Thomas is able to find some more luck beyond his incredibly unlucky BABIP of .200 and increase his ability to lift the ball, then Thomas is likely to reach these projections or exceed them.

The ball was jumping off of Thomas' bat with an average exit velocity of 91.2 MPH. Combine that with Thomas' ability to make contact and not strike out, just a 16.5% strikeout rate, and there are plenty of stats to give hope that Thomas can break out this year and blow past these projections in even a smaller amount of playing time.

Entering his age-25 season, Thomas should be starting the prime of his career. With a fully healthy off-season and the chance to improve his swing or launch angle while maintaining the elite advanced stats, Thomas very well could blow past or at the very least meet these projections.

Why Thomas might underperform the projection

There's truly one major factor that will likely prevent Thomas from achieving the numbers above. That factor is hitting the ball on the ground. Far too often, Thomas hits the ball extremely hard but straight into the dirt.

This was evident most in 2024 as he hit a ground ball 60.5% of the time. That's a sky-high number that's just untenable and will kill any hope for a solid batting line if it continues. That was 5% higher than 2023. Compared to the MLB average, that number is 42% so Thomas is a groundball machine compared to average.

Plus, his line-drive rate was a career low at only 15.8% of the time indicating he was failing to hit the ball on the barrel and drive it. The MLB average is 20%. This was proven via his barrel percentage of just 7.6% and Sweet-Spot percentage of only 26.6%.

those numbers must be higher if Thomas is to come close to the projections. There have been attempts to supposedly fid this problem. However, three years of data indicate that Thomas has been unable to make the changes necessary to lift the ball consistently despite increasing his hard contact.

Thus, this will be a difficult task that is perhaps unlikely to be accomplished by him which would cause him to fall well short of the projections.

Summary

Alek Thomas has all the tools to be a good hitter in baseball. He hits the ball hard, strikes out rarely, has good speed, and plenty more. However, there's been one fatal flaw in his approach that has so far left him struggling throughout his career.

That's hitting the ball on the ground far too often. Even though it's hit hard, a ground ball to second or first base is almost always an automatic out. That's what has plagued Thomas so far in his career.

If he can start to lift the ball or drive it to the outfield, he will likely meet these projections and come close to reaching his potential. If he doesn't, he will be a good defensive fourth outfielder that will fall short of the projections.

This season could decide whether Thomas is ultimately meant to be a starting centerfielder in baseball or an above-average fourth outfielder with his defense but light-hitting. The advanced and expected stats are there but now it's time for Thomas to turn that into real-life performances.