Eric Thames has been, undeniably, the hottest hitter on the planet over the first month of the season.

Fresh off a three-year stint in the Korean Baseball Organization, the 30-year-old has shown off his new swing and approach, smashing 11 homers to go along with 27 runs, 19 runs batted in and a remarkable .370 batting average through the Brewers’ first 23 games. This puts him roughly on pace for 77 HR, 189 R and 133 RBI across 511 at-bats.

While no one with an ounce of baseball knowledge believes it is humanly possible for him to maintain that pace, Thames can still be incredibly valuable at a slower pace. However, it’s important to note just how much he can slow down and still finish with a top-flight power/average combination.

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How Sustainable is This?

With 11 long balls in 73 at-bats, Thames is currently going yard every 6.64 AB. For context, Barry Bonds homered every 6.52 AB in his record-breaking 2001 campaign, and only Bonds, Mark McGwire and Babe Ruth have ever finished a season under 9.00.

Thames would need to hit 40 long balls in those 511 at-bats in order to surpass Mark Trumbo’s league-leading 13.04 AB/HR mark from year a ago (40 HR in 511 AB = 12.78 AB/HR). That would mean he hits 29 HR in 438 AB the rest of the season, giving him a 15.1 AB/HR rate over that span.

Among the eight 40-HR hitters from a year ago, Nolan Arenado led the way with a .294 average. For Thames to hit .294 at season’s end, he would have to total 150 hits, collecting 123 in those remaining 438 AB— .281 average from here on out.

The MLB player to most closely mirror those numbers (15.1 AB/HR, .281 AVG) in 2016? Yoenis Cespedes, who homered every 15.5 at-bats and hit a respectable .280.

If Thames ends up as the best power hitter in baseball by last season’s standards — which is a long shot — he would be as productive as Yoenis Cespedes the rest of the way. Make no mistake, anyone who drafted Thames this season would have been absolutely thrilled to get Cespedes-like production, but that’s obviously more than a step down from what he is doing right now.

Cespedes’ preseason ADP was 49 on Yahoo!, where you can see Thames being dealt for consensus top-20 players or packages consisting of two or three incredibly valuable pieces.

All of this is without mentioning that a whopping eight of Thames’ 11 homers have come against a weak, inexperienced Reds pitching staff. It also doesn’t mention that he sits 81st in baseball in average exit velocity (88.8 mph) and 55th in average batted ball distance (199 feet)— only two of his home runs have sailed more than 401 feet.

Don’t expect a nonexistent second half and sell Thames just for the sake of selling, but if you can net a huge return for a guy with just three and a half weeks of Major League success under his belt, it’s a no-brainer. There's no time like the present to make a move -- the hamstring injury shouldn't be an issue-- and even two more weeks could see his trade value slip.