Landon Thome is heading into this weekend's MLB Draft as a likely early-round pick, with his name sitting at No. 33 on The Athletic's top-100 list of prospects. The 18-year-old has spent many mornings in a batting cage in his Chicago-area backyard, with Jim Thome throwing to him, working through soft toss, flips and tee work as the draft draws near.
That ranking puts Thome in the range where a team could take him in the first round or shortly after, depending on how clubs line up their boards. Keith Law has said he could grow into 25-homer power, a number that matters because draft rooms are not just asking who he is now, but what kind of hitter he can become.
The name carries weight, of course. Jim Thome hit 612 home runs over 22 years with six big-league teams and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2018, and Landon grew up around that history. He traveled to Cooperstown, N.Y., for the induction with his sister, Lila, and talked there with Ken Griffey Jr., Cal Ripken Jr. and other Hall of Famers in Cooperstown.
But family pedigree is only part of the story. Landon started going to Bracey Performance in Chicago as a freshman, then was invited by Kyle Bracey to train alongside major leaguers when he was a junior, working out with Steven Kwan, Jake Cronenworth and Alex Bregman. The daily repetition has given him more than swing ideas; it has given him a way to separate the lessons from his father from the noise that comes with a famous last name.
Landon said the knowledge he gets from his father is something he keeps in his back pocket, and he calls having Jim Thome as his hitting coach pretty awesome. Jim sees details in the game that most other dads cannot, Landon said, and his father said the two often look at each other and think, "This is so special." That is the pull and the pressure wrapped into one prospect: a player with a real path to the majors, but still one whose draft slot will say more about his present than the family name on the back of the jersey.
He is committed to Florida State, but first comes the draft, and that is where the next answer will arrive. Landon is expected to come off the board in the early rounds, yet whether he lands closer to the front end of that range or slides a bit deeper will shape the first step of a career he says he wants to spend as long as possible in the big leagues.
