Dodgers first baseman/outfielder Cody Bellinger has gained much attention from Dodger fans and the baseball world in general, and deservedly so. He has the making of a superstar. For those of us that follow the teams down on the farm, another Cody has been wending his way along after a late start to baseball. If he hasn’t been noticed before, he has gained some attention with a three-home run performance for the Drillers on Wednesday night.
Outfielder Cody Thomas was selected by the Dodgers in the 13th round of the 2016 First-Year Player Draft out of the University of Oklahoma. He had previously been drafted by the New York Yankees in the 2013 Amateur Draft when he graduated from Colleyville Heritage High School in his hometown of Colleyville, Texas. He chose not to sign with the Yankees but made a commitment to play football and baseball at the University of Oklahoma.
The 6’4”/211-pound Thomas was initially most interested in becoming the starting quarterback with the Sooners. He devoted most of his time to football and in 2014 played only 14 games with the baseball team collecting but one hit in a total of 12 at bats.
Thomas played football exclusively in 2015 but was disappointed that he could not get past the role of backup quarterback, a role he was not satisfied to keep playing. Following the 2015 season he decided to change directions. That is, to give up his dream of becoming an NFL quarterback and turn to baseball, full time.
It then appeared that the road to a baseball career may be just as littered with potholes as the football route. He reported to the team only to discover there were nine outfielders vying for three spots. He would pretty much start at the bottom of the pile as most of those players would have had more baseball experience than him. However, he doggedly set out to win a spot although the odds were against him.
Thomas very quickly found a way, perhaps surprising himself, but definitely impressing head coach Pete Hughes who liked what he saw as he separated himself from the rest of the pack.
“He hit five home runs in two and a half weeks,” Hughes said when asked what Thomas did to separate himself. “That’s it. Our next guy had three, our next guy had one, but he just showed up and balls were going over the hill over there. It was really impressive.”
Coach Hughes continued:
“He could be a monster,” Hughes said. “He’s committed to this thing. He’s just a presence out there. Every time he swings I think he’s going to hit it out.”
His coach concluded:
“For him to hang in there mentally when he was on the bench shows what kind of kid he is,” Hughes said. “He’s super mature and has been around, and he’s a team-first guy.”
Thomas finished his junior year with Oklahoma University with a triple slash of .299/.354/.556 along with 27 runs batted in and six home runs. His production belied the fact that he had been out of the game for two years.
He signed with the Dodgers and began his professional career with the Arizona League Dodgers on June 26, 2016. His stint in the Arizona League lasted all of seven games in which he had 11 hits in 22 at bats.
He homered in each of his first three games with the Ogden Raptors and finished his first pro season with a triple slash of .276/.360/.576 in 52 games along with 16 home runs that tied him for second most in the Pioneer League.
Thomas reported to the Great Lakes Loons for the 2017 season showing good power with 20 home runs and driving in 65 runs. Along the way he was part of two historic moments with the Loons and one that is perhaps historic in baseball. On August 3rd in a game against the Dayton Dragons, he hit two home runs in the first inning. That in itself is rare but became more rare as on both occasions Carlos Rincon followed Thomas and also homered twice in the inning. He hit a third home run in the fifth inning setting personal and team records with three homers and seven RBIs.
During the 2018 season with the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, Thomas improved his batting average and posted a triple slash of .285/.355/.497 along with 19 home runs and 87 runs batted in. His RBI total ranked second in the league to teammate Cristian Santana. The highlight of his season may have come on September 9 when he collected four hits and drove in two runs as Rancho Cucamonga beat Lancaster, 8-1, to win the best-of-5 South Division Finals, 3-1.
Moving forward in lockstep fashion, the 24-year-old Thomas opened the 2019 season with the Tulsa Drillers of the AA Texas League. Continuing his flair for the dramatic, on Wednesday, April 17 Thomas was a perfect 4-4 with three home runs and five runs batted. His 13 RBI leads the team and is tied for second in the Texas League.
Thomas credits hitting coach Adam Melhuse for his successful game after batting practice had not gone very well.
“I came out with a pretty poor batting practice and my hitting coach [Adam Melhuse] took me aside and tried to help me realign some things with my approach and my thinking,” Thomas said. “It came down to the direction my thoughts were taking and getting back to a more left-center approach. Before that, I was pulling it too much, trying to get some power, but that usually just causes me to roll it over more. He kinda brought me back to center, so I have to credit him for that.”
His three home runs were not all of the strictly pull type hits. He had one to center, one to right center and one to right field. Thomas explained the hits.
“When I’m at my best, I’m hitting the fastballs to left-center and staying off the off-speed,” he said. “Both the homers that went to right field were on off-speed [pitches], but the only way I was able to stay on them that well was because of the change in my thinking. I’m able to get on them better if I’m not trying to pull them.”
Minor League Report by DC
Great Lakes Loons 1 – West Michigan Whitecaps 5 (Detroit)
The Loons were unable to capitalize on two early bases loaded situations and a good start by Andre Jackson. Although he was not as sharp as he might have been, he did pitch four scoreless innings on two hits. He struck out four and walked three. He was allowed to make an uncharacteristic 81 pitches relying heavily on his 92-mph fastball. On occasion he reached as high as 96 mph. Jackson was followed by Jose Martinez who turns 20 on Tuesday. Martinez pitched three innings giving up five runs on five hits, two of them home runs. Justin Bruihl finished up with two scoreless innings in his 2019 debut. The only batter he allowed to reach base did so on a walk.
The Loons lone run came in the fifth inning on a Jair Camargo sacrifice fly following a Leonel Valera double and a Dan Robinson single. The Loons had eight hits and seven walks with a LOB of 25. As a team they lead all of minor league baseball in walks and walk rate.
RC Quakes 1 – Inland Empire 66ers 5 (LAA)
Bryan Warzek started for the Quakes and had his least successful outing of the year. He lasted only 1.2 innings giving up five runs on five hits and five walks without recording a strikeout. Logan Salow, Elio Serrano and Ryan Moseley held the 66ers at bay for the next 6.1 innings allowing only two hits, no runs, two walks and striking out five. Salow recorded four of those strikeouts while 20-year-old Serrano had his best outing of the year with three innings of one-hit ball.
The good relief work was pretty much for naught as the offense could only muster one run on a Marcus Chiu double in the second inning following a Carlos Rincon double. The only other Quake offense came on four singles. Brayan Morales stole his 11th base now tying him for the league lead.
Tulsa Drillers 0 – Midland RockHounds 4 (Oakland)
Dustin May started for the Drillers pitching five innings and giving up two runs, one of which was unearned. He gave up three hits while walking two and striking out three. Shea Spitzbarth gave up an additional run in 1.2 inning pitched while Michael Boyle allowed another in 1.1 innings. Only one Midland run was earned with the other three being helped by three Driller errors.
The Driller bats were pretty much silenced with only four singles, two by Christian Santana.
OKC Dodgers 8 – Iowa Cubs 5
The Dodgers got off to a rather poor start giving up four runs in the top of the first inning on two two-run home runs. Daniel Corcino started for OKC and settled in after the first inning pitching an additional four scoreless innings. Joe Broussard pitched a scoreless sixth and was followed by Kevin Quackenbush who gave up one in run his lone inning. JT Chargois and Jaime Schultz finished up with a clean inning apiece. Shultz recorded his first save and Corcino got the win.
Corcino made amends for the first inning with a two-run home run of his own in the bottom of the second inning and gaining another RBI on a bunt scoring Kyle Garlick in the fourth inning. He came around to score as the Dodgers knotted the score at four. From there they scored an additional five runs on a Matt Beaty ground out and home run, a Will Smith two-run single and a Kyle Garlick solo shot.
Well, I’m impressed! Hard not to be.
Are Thomas’ scouting grades available? Is he a righty or lefty bat. Is he in the Dodgers top 100 prospects?
I have not seen any grades but based on scouting reports and other player comps, I would think that his grades are:
Hit – 40
Power – 55
Run – 50
Arm – 45
Field – 45
Overall – 40
Cody is a LH hitter and throws right.
He is in the top 50 Dodger prospects in most Dodger prospect lists. I would rate Cody higher than Carlos Rincon, but I would not have Rincon in the Dodgers Top 30 as MLB Pipeline does.
What Cody is, is an athlete. I think his ceiling is as a #4 or #5 OF.
He is a left-handed bat.
David Hood ranked him No. 24 on March 19, 2019.
Fangraphs; He has a plus arm, good range in the outfield and potential 60 raw power. The Dodgers will need to add several other players from Thomas’ draft class to the 40-man (Will Smith, Mitch White, Jordan Sheffield, Tony Gonsolin), so Thomas would seem to be a candidate for trade if a team loves the tools, ability to lift the baseball, and has some 40-man space/time to spare to let him develop further.
His attitude would serve him well as a 4th or 5th outfielder if he could contribute with small amounts of playing time.
Logan Landon is the Texas League Offensive Player of the Week for April 15-21.
In six games he posted a triple slash of .357/.375/1.000 with one double, one triple and two home runs among his five hits. He had six runs batted in and scored three runs.
Looks like the Bryce Harper honeymoon might be coming to an end. Arrieta called him out last night for getting ejected arguing balls and strikes. Stay tuned, might get better….So glad we passed on him.
I’d love to have Harper.
I”m still stunned we reportedly offered him 4/$180 or whatever it was!
Stunned he didn’t take it, also glad.
Seager, Bellinger, Pederson, Muncy and Verdugo combined make less than Harper. I think I see a better way of constructing a team. Thx AF!
Haha don’t thank AF; he offered Bryce a K. Thank Bryce for saying no
I preferred Machado over Harper and now that Pederson and Bellinger are off to hot starts, Machado’s righty bat would play better than Harper’s. I’m fine without either one though, at least for this year.
Include Verdugo/Muncy and Seager as regular leftie hitters and yes, a nice RH bat would fit very well in the middle of all that.
Hopefully JT and Kike take advantage of it
I was under the impression that Pollock was to be that RH batter. Mark keeps telling us to be patient, that he will suddenly explode and hit 30 HR’s with 100RBI’s and 20 SB’s. Okay, I’m very patient. What else is one to do?
I guess Mark is like a cheerleader. He uses history as his pom poms. History usually includes both sides, but his history is only the positive side. It would be nice to see an impartial evaluation out of him, at least on occasion. Calling a spade a spade and doing away with the hype and speculation on numbers. Just sayin’……….
I view today’s loss not as a criticism of the Dodgers. How can any team win all of its games? Most people always blame someone for a loss. It’s never taken as a given reality. Only wins are acceptable. This is a pretty crazy concept, no?
I would have preferred Yelich over either of those two. …and Yelich would’ve been cheap.
Oh well.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/howardcole/2019/04/22/with-a-little-initiative-dodgers-couldve-traded-for-christian-yelich/#30391da7320b
Don’t show AC that report….
I said that before he was traded to Milwaukee. I wanted him more than Stanton or Ozuna. And I really did not understand how he was not a Dodger after seeing what Milwaukee traded.
Gerrit Cole and Christian Yelich were on my want list last year. Oh well!!!
Bryce Harper is a great player. Adding him to this team would have made it better. But, he cost a lot of $$ and a very long commitment. He also has some warts. To me, he wasn’t the perfect fit so it was probably best to pass on him. Time will tell.
The best fit would be a right handed power hitter that can play LF or 1B. Goldschmidt would have been perfect. Haniger would also be perfect but there’s no way any team trades a superstar in the making that has 4 years of control remaining. That would be like us trading Seager, Bellinger or Bueller. Who else is out there that fits that description? Marcell Ozuna, I’m laughing right now thinking about him climbing the wall to miss a fly ball in front of him. K Davis just signed an extension and might be worse that Ozuna defensively.
We have a very good team. It’s tough to improve upon it. Maybe someone falls in our lap at the deadline.
Agree 59, our position players and bench are really tough right now. Vasseghe has said multiple times when he is talking on his pod cast that the pieces just seem to fit together better this year than last, and I agree. The bullpen, like every year will be a work in progress, but I am excited to get Dick Mountain back, he was looking pretty damn good in spring training before he got hurt. Once Urias and Chicken Strip go to the bullpen, we will be looking a whole lot tougher. This team is starting to scare me by how much young talent we have on the field right now. JT is the only old man, Guggenheim might be saving up some of their cash to pay these dudes in the next couple of years.
Lefty pitching so
Hernandez 2B
Turner 3B
Freese 1B
Seager SS
Pollock CF
Bellinger RF
Taylor LF
Barnes C
Maeda P
Looks like we have 2 platoons right now
Muncy/Freese
Pederson/Taylor
I asked about Cody Thomas earlier last month. I would love to see an outfield full of Cody’s. We need one more.
Maeda is pitching himself into the bullpen!
We could use him there.
I think that already happened a couple of years ago. It is only now coming to pass, Cassidy. Maeda was never a very reliable starter. This year, I think he’s given up a HR in every game.
Austin Barnes is 3-34 since April 9. He, at the present, is not a quality offensive catcher. CT3’s offensive game is horrible right now and I am “officially” in the worried about JT’s offense camp. He did get a dropped fly ball double RBI so far but he’s not right.
Norcal,
Mark told us that Barnes would have a breakout year. Don’t you believe him? How can you think otherwise? Martin will also win MVP! As for Taylor, Mark is also convinced he will breakout. I must admit, he can’t play any worse!
But this is not cause for alarm. Like Mark, I also said that the Dodgers don’t need big offense from the catchers. They have many other bats that produce and Taylor is not a starter any longer. Next season, there is a very good chance we will see a new catcher at the plate. Who, I can’t tell you, but it won’t be Grandal. Taylor is also becoming more of a liability at this point, but he is not really an important part of the Dodgers, at this point.
No team is perfect but the Dodgers have an awful lot of talent. It is still the pitching that is losing games for us. We need to see what the final look will come down to before calling for heads. Ferguson’s head may not be long for the BP. He’s had problems since ST. There will be more auditions for the BP coming. It is a work in progress. I refuse to worry about JT unless he is really hurt.
9 games 0 runs 14 strikeouts for Sheffield in RC.
Time to bump him a level qnd see what we have