Altoona Manager Explains Tahnaj Thomas’ Development Plan (+)
ALTOONA- On Nov. 14, 2018, the Pittsburgh Pirates traded Jordan Luplow and Max Moroff to the Cleveland Guardians for Dante Mendoza, Erik Gonzalez, and Tahnaj Thomas.
Thomas is the only piece of that trade left in the Pirates system, and he has been through quite a change since coming from the Bahamas as a young aspiring baseball player.
Thomas, when he signed with Cleveland, was originally an infielder, and after a few years, he then switched to a pitcher with the potential to throw 100 mph and flashed a fairly decent slider.
Since the switch to pitcher, Thomas has had his moments of brilliance and his moments of frustration.
Thomas’ main issues coming through the system have been his control and lack of a third pitch, which is why the Pirates started to transition him from a starter to a bullpen arm.
In 2022, Thomas started the season on the Pirates Double-A team in Altoona, and he finished in Altoona.
Flash forward to 2023, and Thomas is one of many repeats in Altoona with something to prove. After talking with Thomas back in April, it seems the Pirates will begin to use him in more high-leverage situations.
Thomas also expressed to me that he’s added a sinker to his arsenal, which seems to be the norm with Ben Cherington’s regime.
In his first 15.1 innings pitched in ’23, Thomas has struggled mightily with an ERA of 7.04 and has opponents hitting .250 against him.
In his last game, Thomas pitched one inning with two hits, one earned run, one walk, and no strikeouts. As a result of his rough patch, the Pirates decided to place him on the development list on May 27.
Sunday night, I spoke with Altoona Curve manager Callix Crabbe on Thomas’ recent placement, and Crabbe gave a very detailed explanation.
“The plan is to get his sequence back up,” said Crabbe. “He had a really good bullpen session [Sunday] with Cale, and I was actually out there for it. They have a really good plan to try and get the torso to rotate more cleanly and change the way that his trunk is set up. What was happening was too tall in it, and as he was rotating, he was just spinning off of the ball. By having his spine and his trunk more tilted, it’s going to allow him to get that slot to a better spot, and it’s going to create more movement and get more sweep on his slider.”
Crabbe continued.
“He was just too upright, so it was just a yank slider, and it would run to the right side when he was trying to throw his sinker. They were also messing around with some grip stuff [Sunday], and it was cool to see the increase in shape and the increase in the two-seam action he had.”
Crabbe mentioned that the plan is to have Thomas on the development list for two weeks to get everything working right.
The way Crabbe worded it, it seemed like this kind of side work was going to help Thomas be more effective in a high-leverage bullpen role.
“That’s what we want,” said Crabbe on placing Thomas in a high-leverage role. “The issue is when your stuff isn’t playing the way we know it is capable of doing, it’s difficult to place him in those high-leverage situations, and it isn’t going to bear the fruit that we want it to. We believe in the arm, we believe in the major league talent. We all agree, not just as a staff, but people in leadership agreed to pull him out of competition so that there’s no difficulty in trying to make new adjustments while playing the game.”
Allowing Thomas to “hyperfocus,” as Crabbe put it, is probably the best thing for him. You can have him work on specific things without the pressure of competition.
Thomas is an interesting pitcher, and if he can figure out the control issues and ramp up the strikeouts, he should be able to rise through the system quickly.
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