Cotuit, Mass. – The Cape Cod League is one of America's best summer ball leagues, so it’s no surprise that few dominate when they get to the Island. However, Tanner Thach (UNC Wilmington) has put together an incredible first half of the season thus far, being in the top five in home runs, RBI, OPS and runs scored.
“This is the best amateur summer league in the world, very few come in and just take over the game,” says Cotuit head coach Mike Roberts. “Tanner has been kind of the key to our offensive run production over the last week or two, without a doubt. He’s been the catalyst, bar none. He wasn’t swinging the bat great at the beginning of the year, but we did some work and now he’s on a tear.”
The Success that Thach has had with Cotuit is outstanding, but it’s nothing new to the first baseman. His freshman season with the Seahawks stands as one of the best in program history as he set the UNC Wilmington record for most home runs (15) and RBI (68) for a first-year player. Earning Freshman All-American and All-CAA Rookie Team honors.
Following his freshman year, he took his talents to Cotuit and performed well for a 19-year-old kid. Batting .260 with three home runs and 13 hits over 17 games with the Ketts.
Sky was the limit for Thach going into his sophomore season in Wilmington for not only him but the team as well. Several experts had predicted the Skyhawks to host an NCAA regional and win the CAA.
Thach did his part, batting .324 with 27 home runs, a UNC Wilmington record. While also drove in 75 runs with 39 extra-base hits as he took home the CAA Player of the Year and was named a Third Team All-American.
“When you’re a kid, you can only dream of playing at this level in high school, college and the Cape Cod League,” says Thach. “It’s truly a blessing to play like I have and all of the hard work you put in as a kid is starting to pay off, but the work isn’t finished yet.”
Seeing the kind of player that Thach has become, you would automatically assume that he was a highly recruited player coming out of high school, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. The North Carolina native had just a single Division I offer coming out of high school and it’s also the school he signed with, UNC Wilmington.
One of the biggest deciding factors of Thach’s recruitment was that he wanted to go somewhere that would give him the chance to play as a true freshman. Coach Randy Hood gave him that opportunity and ever since the first baseman stepped on campus, he hasn’t looked back at all.
“I love the campus, the coaches, just everything about UNC Wilmington,” says Thach. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be than with that team. They’ve trusted me the whole way through, I’ve played every single game since my freshman year, and I appreciate that opportunity from them. There’s not another school in the country that I’d rather play for.”
After his first two seasons in Wilmington, the hard-swinging lefty had gained respect from a lot of people, including scouts and draft experts. He came into the summer of ’24 ranked as the No. 78 prospect in the 2025 MLB Draft, according to futurestarsseries.com. It can often be harder for players in mid-major schools to get noticed due to being at a smaller school where the narrative is that they don’t play great competition. However, Thach believes that he’s proven himself amongst those claims
“There’s always going to be doubters and I believe I’ve proven myself, but I use it as fuel to try and keep working harder,” Thach says. “We can always improve in every aspect of the game, but you’ve got to look at every day as a blessing that God has given us. We’re playing a child’s game so it’s also important to have fun while you’re playing and not get too high or too low.”
In the early stages of the summer, Thach was struggling mightily at the plate as he wasn’t even batting over .200. But just like so many Cotuit batters, He worked with Roberts about his hand placement and tried to make his swing comfortable and more fluid.
Thach says that his bat was becoming flat in his stance, so he worked on keeping the barrel up and moving his hands down so that when he swings the bat, it doesn’t drag. Creating a much swifter swing, allowing him to have more control over the bat.
It definitely helped the rising junior put up impressive numbers. Since the change, Thach is batting .414 with four home runs, seven extra-base hits and eight RBI, making him one of the hottest hitters in the CCBL.
As Roberts said, Thach has been the catalyst and a go-to guy if the team needs a run or hit, and more times than none he has delivered. Just on Wednesday, he came up to the plate in the eighth inning with the Ketts down 5-4 and a runner on with darkness on the rise at Lowell Park.
Once again, Thach played hero and crushed a long home run over the right field fence. Flipping his bat and admiring the moon shot that put his squad up on the Orleans Firebirds and eventually led to the 6-5 win.
For the summer, Thach is batting .263 with eight long balls, 18 runs scored, 19 RBI and a 1.014 OPS. All of which besides batting average, are first amongst all CCBL first basemen. He is also a plus defender, constantly making great plays on scoops or doing the splits at first base and has only recorded one error this season.
Probably the most interesting thing about the star slugger is he’s a man of faith who runs a Christian YouTube channel, the One Name Podcast. He constantly wants to shine God’s glory, even in the rough parts of baseball, and says that without God, he wouldn’t be the player he is.
“Even when you’re struggling it’s still fun because you know that not everyone has the opportunity to be out here,” Thach says. “Faith is a huge part of my life and it’s a huge part of this game. Ultimately if it wasn’t for my faith, I don’t believe that I’d be where I am in the game of baseball today. God isn’t affected by how we play, but I want to shine his glory and gospel and that’s what makes the game so much more fun, it’s so much more than just baseball.”
