With apologies to any youth ballplayers tearing it up in the early days of spring, it's safe to safe there isn't a hotter hitter on the planet than James Tibbs III.
The Dodgers' No. 10 prospect went deep three times and matched a career-high with four hits for Triple-A Oklahoma City, which fell, 8-5, to Las Vegas on Saturday night at Las Vegas Ballpark. Tibbs' three jacks pushed his total to seven in his first eight games, the most in organized baseball.
The 23-year-old slugger isn't just leading the world in homers, he's outhomering entire teams. Tibbs has cleared the fences more times himself than 15 other Triple-A clubs have done so collectively.
The Atlanta native got his evening started innocently enough, grounding a single in the opening frame. But it was just the appetizer to a hearty entree for Tibbs, who connected on a 450-foot homer in his second plate appearance in the third, before cracking his shortest long ball of the game -- 426 feet -- in the fifth. Tibbs completed the trifecta in the seventh with another booming tater landing 427 feet away.
Although he was retired in the ninth, the Florida State product scalded the ball all evening, tallying exit velos that registered no less than 104 mph on each of his balls put in play. For context, there have been only eight instances of Major Leaguers (in the Statcast Era) having five balls register 104 mph or greater five times in one game, a group that includes names like Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge and Juan Soto.
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The remarkable performance continued an offensive onslaught through his first week-plus of competition. Tibbs has hit safely in all eight games and is slashing .514/.564/1.286 with 12 extra-base hits, 15 runs and 13 RBIs. The 2024 first-rounder is nearly halfway to the personal-best 20 homers he hit last year ... which came in 123 contests.
Despite his status as first-round Draft pick, Los Angeles is Tibbs' third organization. The 5-foot-11, 201-pounder was traded twice in a six-week span last year, moving from San Francisco to Boston in the Rafael Devers trade and then coming west once again as part of a package for Dustin May.
What can best be described as a tumultuous summer didn't seem to faze Tibbs' production, as he finished with a strong .802 OPS between High-A and Double-A in what was his first full-season campaign. But all of that seems like a lifetime ago for a player who has begun the season in historic fashion.
As the second week nears its conclusion, Tibbs didn't just put together a big night, he left a mark -- literally and figuratively. Three swings, three statements and a reminder that right now, there is no one swinging it better than him -- a remarkable statement from a twice-traded slugger who is making every ballpark look awfully small.