As part of a weekly look-in at the independent baseball leagues across the streamed on FloBaseball, the Player of the Week series highlights the best of the best from indy ball over the week that was.

Thomas Dillard, a first baseman and left fielder for the Lexington Counter Clocks of the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball, takes this week’s honor. 

Here’s a look at Dillard’s week, along with his background and a peek into his independent

league season to date:

Career Look-Back

Dillard, who turns 26 in late August and was a fifth-round MLB Draft pick of the Milwaukee Brewers in 2019, couldn’t have asked for better preparation for the professional level. 

The Greenwood, Mississippi, native spent three seasons with his home-state flagship program in Ole Miss, playing college baseball in the most stacked league in America, the Southeastern Conference. 

On top of his time in Oxford—which included a combined 120 RBIs across the 2018 and 2019 seasons—Dillard spent two summers playing for the Cotuit Kettleers of the Cape Cod Baseball League, widely considered to be one of the best collegiate summer baseball leagues in the country and a hotbed for elite major-league prospects. 

Those two experiences resulted in enough attention for him to be drafted by the Brewers at 163rd overal. Dillard made it to as high as Double-A with the organization (even playing 121 games with the Biloxi Shuckers in 2022) and slugged .414 with 170 RBIs across 281 games in his minor-league career to date. 

Milwaukee released him this past December, leading him to sign with Lexington in advance of this year’s ALPB season as a free agent with plenty of room left to grow.

Standout Performances

The Counter Clocks struck gold signing Dillard, and though the team‌ has sputtered badly during a brutal 1-15 start to the second half of the ALPB schedule, Dillard is having no problems hitting. 

He’s up to a league-leading 30 home runs and 74 RBIs as of this writing. He’s been a one-man wrecking crew for much of the past week. 

In a game against the Lancaster Barnstormers last Thursday (on July 20), Dillard went yard three separate times in an 8-6 loss, blasting five RBIs in a futile attempt to try and get the Counter Clocks back into the game. 

Another narrow defeat Sunday against the Staten Island Ferry Hawks (by an 8-7 scoreline this time) saw Dillard smack multiple home runs, sending the ball to the stands twice for solo blasts in the first and eighth innings. 

To top the week off and seal his Player of the Week honor, Dillard on Thursday against the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs had another solo homer in the Counter Clocks’ 11-7 loss, upping his count to six homers in seven days.