Trayce Thompson: The Dodgers’ Other Good Rookie

When the December three-way trade between the Chicago White Sox, Cincinnati Reds, and Los Angeles Dodgers was announced, you could sense Dodgers’ fans frustration. “Dodgers, Reds, Sox Complete Three-Way Trade Centered Around Todd Frazier,” is a great headline if you’re a Dodgers fan. Until you realize that Frazier isn’t coming to Tinseltown. Surely this was a mistake. After all, Justin Turner was having knee surgery, and how good is he, really? “We need Frazier!” the people of Los Angeles almost certainly said.

Well, it didn’t work out that way for the boys in blue. And, as it turns out, that’s just fine, as Trayce Thompson has been a revelation this season.

Before we get into why and how he’s been a revelation, I want to share a brief nugget of FanGraphs history with you. At one point, we had been considering a book project, and we crafted a few sample pages for it. On one, we placed blurbs for four players, one of whom happened to be Thompson. Here’s the blurb Carson Cistulli wrote for him (click to embiggen):

trayce thompson blurb

So, whenever I see Trayce Thompson’s name, I think of this, and it makes me smile. As I think you’ll agree, that blurb is Vintage Cistulli.

Where were we? Oh yes, the December trade that brought Thompson to Los Angeles. Thompson had actually played quite well at the end of 2015 for the White Sox, though he was seemingly playing at the top end of his talent level. He had posted 1.5 WAR in 135 plate appearances (though remained a rookie, technically, since he only recorded 122 at-bats and fell under the 45-day service-time threshold because most of his service time was in September). He had walked in an impressive 9.6% of his plate appearances, and his strikeout rate was acceptable for the level of power he had flashed.

However strong Thompson’s numbers, you still had to ask: how many non-prospects hit .295/.363/.533 in their first big-league action? He had a .341 BABIP. Surely, this wasn’t going to happen again. And this seemed especially true when you examined Thompson’s minor-league line. For starters, he had recorded two full seasons at Double-A, and all told was there during three seasons. Altogether, he racked up 1,680 plate appearances at Double-A and Triple-A combined. That’s not the profile of a hot-ticket prospect bent on stardom. In addition, his BABIP over those 1,680 PA was a normal .293. During his full-season stops, his BABIP never exceeded .301. So surely this high BABIP was a fluke.

Of course, now we can see that it probably was. What seems less flukish now, though, is the power. Or, at least, that seems to be the case. Thompson never regularly flashed this kind of power in the minors, and on the Statcast leaderboards, nothing sticks out about his exit velocity or batted-ball distances. And he actually hits a ton of balls on the ground, more than 52%. But he is turning batted balls into home runs like few have done this season:

2016 HR/FB% Leaders
Name Team PA HR HR/FB
Steven Souza Jr. Rays 170 9 33.30%
Jeremy Hazelbaker Cardinals 120 7 30.40%
Chris Carter Brewers 185 13 30.20%
Trayce Thompson Dodgers 113 7 29.20%
Yoenis Cespedes Mets 172 15 28.30%
Giancarlo Stanton Marlins 182 12 27.90%
Domingo Santana Brewers 133 3 27.30%
Ryan Braun Brewers 164 9 26.50%
Mark Trumbo Orioles 192 14 25.90%
George Springer Astros 217 11 25.60%
Minimum 100 plate appearances

Add it all up, and he has been even more valuable offensively than Frazier:

That’s pretty sweet, eh? The numbers have changed a bit in the past couple of days, but the point holds, as you can see in this custom leaderboard.

That this has happened could be viewed as a happy accident. After all, we didn’t have Thompson pegged for much playing time this season. If you look at our positional power rankings for left field, center field and right field, in spring training we had him pegged for 161 plate appearances, past which mark he should surge in the next couple of weeks. (Standard disclaimer that our PPRs/depth charts aren’t infallible. With that said, they’re still a good snapshot of preseason expectations.)

And really, if things had gone according to Plan A, Thompson might not have had the chance to play regularly. But he did thanks to injuries to Andre Ethier, Carl Crawford, Scott Van Slyke and Alex Guerrero, four players who were supposed to suit up in the outfield for the Dodgers this season. Thompson might not have been behind all of them on the depth chart, but the fact that the Dodgers can dip that deep into their depth chart and pull out a winner speaks to the mission that Andrew Friedman, Farhan Zaidi and Co. have been on since they assumed command of LA’s baseball operations department.

Will Thompson keep swatting homers on nearly one-third of the fly balls he hits? History would tell us no, but then history would also tell us to be patient. Either way, he doesn’t need to hit for this much power in order to retain positive value. The Dodgers seem to have found the third man in their young outfield triumvirate to go with Joc Pederson and Yasiel Puig.

Corey Seager was the Dodgers’ touted rookie at the beginning of the season, and Julio Urias will be their touted rookie starting now. Justifiably so, in both cases. But don’t forget about Trayce Thompson, as he has also been very fun to watch this season.





Paul Swydan used to be the managing editor of The Hardball Times, a writer and editor for FanGraphs and a writer for Boston.com and The Boston Globe. Now, he owns The Silver Unicorn Bookstore, an independent bookstore in Acton, Mass. Follow him on Twitter @Swydan. Follow the store @SilUnicornActon.

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linus
7 years ago

Invoke, Cistulli. “Elicit” means to “draw out”, as in an answer from a person.

Lunch Anglemember
7 years ago
Reply to  linus

Good point. Cistulli’s usage there was illicit.

O'Kieboomermember
7 years ago
Reply to  linus

It’s amazing how insufferable that flowery prose is, and how it becomes even moreso when executed poorly.

Prospectormember
7 years ago
Reply to  O'Kieboomer

Cistulli is a luminous butterfly, flittering through a drab ecosystem of statistical moths. If your negativity dampens his radiance, I will never forgive you.

Bipmember
7 years ago
Reply to  O'Kieboomer

The readers seem to have an exactly equal proportion of Cistulli lovers and haters. Both this comment and mine got a lot of votes, but with no net direction.

Bipmember
7 years ago
Reply to  Bip

for the record i can’t get enough of that sweet textual stroll through the poppy fields

devo1d
7 years ago
Reply to  Bip

Did your comment get a lot of votes?

zwibi
7 years ago
Reply to  O'Kieboomer

People like you suck. Appreciate the style for its differences. Or you can go and read Matthew Berry or Karabell. Because that style so much better…

cornflake5000
7 years ago
Reply to  zwibi

pudieron89 has had enough cranky, negative comments like that here, that’s it’s best to just move along and not acknowledge him/her

Bipmember
7 years ago
Reply to  linus

To be fair, posting from an unreleased book is probably a breach of some kind of writer’s etiquette–naked words before the editor has clothed them.

tramps like us
7 years ago
Reply to  Bip

And yet. were Springsteen to release a snippet from his next album, in context with events, many of us would applaud and find our appetites whetted. No, the “etiquette” is not lacking if it’s the band’s book (and it is).

devo1d
7 years ago
Reply to  tramps like us

I can’t help but reading everyone’s comments so far in a voice from GOT. Even my own….