As the season winds down it’s time to give an updated look at how some of the key young A’s players are looking going into the off-season — and hopefully coming into 2025 with a vengeance…
The historical caveat is “don’t fall in love in March or September,” suggesting this month’s stats and performances may be tainted, but with the recent rule change shrinking 40 man rosters to 28, and with so many teams still playing for something down to the wire, it’s less of an issue.
Tyler Soderstrom
Certainly, Soderstrom has made progress from his maiden at bats in which he seemed interested only in hacking at the wrong pitches and getting himself out.
I still see somewhat of a mixed bag, but with more of his reputed hitting skill showing up. Without question the ball comes off his bat loud and has that natural carry you want to see in a slugger. Anytime he squares a ball he is dangerous and regardless of how good he becomes you can always expect quite a few extra base hits from him.
His plate discipline, probably the single marker for his ultimate success or failure, is improving if only a bit. Soderstrom still makes routine outs early in the count too often (such as two bouncers to 2B last night) but overall he is more often taking the right pitch and more often swinging at the right pitch.
Keeping his OBP over .300 might be more challenging for Soderstrom than getting his slugging to .500. In that regard he is a bit of a Jeff Francoeur — Francoeur had impressive exit velocities before the term was in style but hacked his way to pedestrian numbers. Soderstrom has a lot more pop than Francoeur, so “Frenchie” is his low floor, but time will tell as to whether we can ever use “discerning” and “Soderstrom” together.
In the field, the once-and-future-catcher has made a pretty solid transition to 1B. His arm plays and he has some range on pop ups, he has “made all the plays” on ground balls he can get to — and his range is nothing to write home about. Overall he rates slightly below average at 1B, but given how new he is to the position it’s fair to project him as “solidly average” down the road if 1B is where he stays.
Zack Gelof
Talk about an enigma. Unstoppable in 2023, voted “Most Likely To Strike Out” by the stats in 2024. And as brutal as a year as it has been for Gelof, he still has 24 stolen bases (in 27 tries), 17 HR, and steady defense at 2B.
In the off-season Gelof simply needs to rediscover a shorter and less violent swing so that he can at least make contact with strikes. It would also allow him to see pitches that split second longer so as to be less prone to chasing balls even my dog concludes are too far away to bother to fetch.
When he does swing less violently Gelof is fantastic. Last night’s single to LF on a Josh Sborz breaking ball he followed with the bat and still lined hard was a classic example, as are the balls he shoots hard into RF and right-center with “easy power”.
The A’s aren’t going to give up on Gelof any time soon as he can truly impact a game with his glove, his bat, his speed, his base running. He is, essentially, a 5-tool player with about 1.2 tools sharpened.
Gelof’s leash is lengthened by the fact that no one vying for 2B time is breathing down his neck. Darell Hernaiz looks overmatched by big league pitching and his swing is loopy and weak. Nick Allen can’t hit RHP, period. Cooper Bowman proved that not everyone hits well at AAA Las Vegas (.218/.284/.308). And Max Schuemann is a useful utility infielder but not an every day starter on a good team.
Getting Gelof back to his 2023 form would go a long way to legitimizing the 2025 A’s, but it’s going to require Gelof to make an actual change to his swing because the one he brought to 2024 isn’t going to do it.
Lawrence Butler
2 years ago I proclaimed he was going to be a star and a few months ago I proclaimed I was quite the idiot, but since July 1st Butler has been “all that” and the question is: will he only get better, will he pull a Gelof and revert something fierce — who is he, really?
Since returning from AAA mid-season Butler is batting .311/.358/.584, with 13 HR and 12 steals (in 12 tries) — in 57 games, which is about 1/3 of a season. If he could perform like that over the full 2025 season, it would put him in MVP conversation (non-Judge division).
That’s probably not going to happen, but there are some indicators that his offensive production is not just a small sample aberration. Butler’s exit velocities are elite, his BB rate (7.5%) and K rate (18.8%) are impressive, and he has shown he can more than hold his own against LHP (.284/.310/.531, 139 wRC+). Also, that he can drive the ball to RF, but can also hit for slugging to the off field, and also can use the whole field to spray the ball around, all speak to the potential for sustaining success.
So I imagine Butler will continue to find success as a hitter, even if it’s with less gaudy numbers than he has enjoyed these 57 games. His speed/power combo is valuable and he should remain an “impact player” in the lineup.
However………Lawrence Butler really needs to improve as an outfielder. Probably best suited to LF but likely in RF for the long haul, Butler gets an initial pass for all the fields he played on for the first time.
We’re past that point and one can only attribute so much to wonky field dimensions and unfamiliarity, wind, sun, mercury being in retrograde…at some point right field is right field and you need to get good reads, good jumps, take good routes, and make good decisions.
Butler is prone to freezing before figuring out where a fly ball is headed. His routes are sometimes arc like and meandering and often he forces himself to try to outrun mistakes. Many of the “great catches” he makes are the result of poor jumps, reads, or routes on fly balls that should have been caught more routinely.
And as we saw repeatedly in the Yankees series, Butler has a tendency to take his eye off of base hits as he charges them and has made bobbling them an art form. Fangraphs charitably concludes Butler has only been -2 DRS in RF this season, basically “a tick below average”.
The Eyeball Scout is not so kind: the current iteration of Lawrence Butler is more of a liability in RF and much work is left to be done to refine his skills. The good news is that where I highly doubt Esteury Ruiz has it in him to become a good outfielder, Butler has a track record of learning, growing, adjusting, developing, and he has the athletic skill set to mold himself into a good fielder. Let’s hope it happens because at the plate and on the bases, this guy is fun to watch.
Your thoughts on these 3? Next I will take a look on some of our many young pitchers on whom many of our 2025 hopes rest…