Opportunities in the big leagues can be fleeting. Jackson Holliday of the Orioles came into this year considered the best prospect in all of baseball. Despite being just 20 years old, the Orioles called him up to the majors this year. But after just 10 games, during which he struck out in half of his plate appearances, he was sent back down to the minors.
Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic recently took an interesting look at the struggles of several young players, including Holliday, but also Colt Keith, Kyle Manzardo, Henry Davis, Jackson Chourio and Wyatt Langford. Several people in the game seem to agree that the gap in quality between Triple-A and the majors is widening.
There are various theories for why that might be happening. J.D. Martinez suggests that the new rules about smaller rosters in the minor leagues are squeezing out some veteran pitchers, reducing the overall quality of arms on the farm. Guardians manager Stephen Vogt views it similarly. Orioles general manager Mike Elias suggests that the scouting in the majors is so advanced that players will have their weaknesses attacked to a much larger degree than in the minors. Rays manager Kevin Cash told the Baseball Isn’t Boring podcast (video on X) that minor league pitchers might be more worried about developing their skills as opposed to results, whereas MLB pitchers will be the inverse.
The reality may be a combination of those factors and more. But whatever the cause or causes, there seems to be a growing consensus among people in the game that the jump to the big leagues is bigger than ever before. For a team like the Orioles that is in a battle in the American League East, this puts them in a tough position. Do you let a player like Holliday learn on the job, improving your team in the long run, even if there’s short-term pain? Or do you construct your roster for the best chance of success today?
For a rebuilding club, the choice is much easier. With a low chance of short-term success, the long-term play is the obvious one. This is one silver lining of not being a competitive club: there’s plenty of playing time for both prospects and former prospects.
This is perhaps something that will become even more important in the current era of baseball. With the recent introduction of the lottery system, rebuilding teams have less access to the top of the draft. For instance, the White Sox have the fifth pick in this summer’s draft. That means they can’t pick higher than tenth next year, even though they are one of the worst teams in baseball right now.
Which brings me around, finally, to the Athletics. Apologies to any inverted pyramid traditionalists who have been pulling their hair out to this point, but I thought all that preamble was interesting framing.
The A’s have been trading away all their best players in recent years and now are naturally giving a lot of playing time to their prospects, either the homegrown variety or the ones they traded for. But they’ve also given some playing time to several former prospects that have bounced around and struggled in other uniforms but are now finding success in green and gold. If these players can keep it up, they could be a part of the next good Athletics’ club or perhaps be traded for yet more prospects, good for the club either way. Let’s take a look at them…
Now 29 years old, Rooker was drafted by the Twins in 2017 and made his major league debut with that club in 2020. In April of 2022, he was traded to the Padres alongside Taylor Rogers in a deal sending Chris Paddack and Emilio Pagán the other way. The Friars mostly kept him on optional assignment and then flipped him to the Royals at the deadline for Cam Gallagher. The Royals also gave him more playing time at Triple-A than in the majors before putting him on waivers in November.
Rooker had continued hitting well at Triple-A but not in the majors. He had received 270 major league plate appearances through the moment he was put on waivers, scattered over three seasons and for three different teams, with a batting line of .200/.289/.379. But in 632 Triple-A plate appearances over 2021 and 2022, he hit 48 homers and walked at a 13.3% clip, leading to a .271/.383/.614 line and 149 wRC+.
The A’s put in a claim and have given Rooker plenty of playing time in the past year-plus. He has been making the most of it, to put it mildly. In 663 plate appearances since the start of last year, he has punched out at a 32.4% clip but also launched 40 home runs. His batting line of .253/.336/.509 translates to a 137 wRC+. He isn’t considered a strong defender, even in an outfield corner, but the A’s surely don’t mind as long as he keeps mashing like this. He plays designated hitter most of the time and has produced 3.5 wins above replacement since coming to Oakland, per FanGraphs.
He came into this year with a service time count of two years and 59 days. He will qualify for arbitration for the first time this winter, and the A’s can control him through 2027, their planned final year in Sacramento. They could keep him around and in the lineup for that time or they could trade him whenever they get an enticing offer, depending on how their view the timeline on their return to contention.
Toro, now 27, was drafted by the Astros back in 2017 and was up in the majors with them by 2019. The trilingual Québécois infielder got limited playing time in Houston and was traded to the Mariners in 2021 alongside Joe Smith, with Kendall Graveman and Rafael Montero going the other way. He got regular playing time with Seattle in 2022 but struggled. Prior to 2023, the M’s flipped him to the Brewers with Jesse Winker, acquiring Kolten Wong and cash in return. The Brewers mostly kept Toro in the minors, only putting him into nine major league games last season. He was traded to the A’s in November of last year.
At the time of the deal, Toro had strong results in the minor leagues, slashing .294/.387/.480 on the farm from 2021 to 2023 for a 119 wRC+. But he had produced a line of just .211/.282/.354 in 934 major league plate appearances.
However, in 165 trips to the plate for Oakland this year, he’s hit four home runs while slashing .288/.339/.444 for a wRC+ of 130. He’s also stolen a couple of bases while bouncing between the three non-shortstop infield positions. He already has 1.0 fWAR on the year. He qualified for arbitration this past winter, making $1.275MM this year, and has two more passes before he’s slated for free agency after 2026.
Nevin is just a couple weeks away from his 27th birthday. He was drafted by the Rockies in 2015 but never made it to the majors in Colorado. In 2020, the Rox acquired Mychal Givens from the Orioles, sending Nevin, Terrin Vavra and a player to be named later to Baltimore. He got bits of playing time with the O’s in 2021 and 2022 but didn’t do much.
He was designated for assignment by Baltimore and flipped to the Tigers for cash, just before the calendar flipped over to 2023. He didn’t hit much in the majors for the Tigers and spent most of the year on optional assignment, exhausting his final option year in the process. That left him out of options going into 2024, which caused him to ride the transactions carousel for a bit. He was designated for assignment by the Tigers in January of this year and flipped back to the Orioles for cash. He didn’t make Baltimore’s Opening Day roster, which put him into DFA limbo again, this time getting claimed by the A’s.
Nevin’s output this year hasn’t been quite as strong as that of Rooker or Toro, but it’s a similar step forward from a guy who has always hit in the minors and is now improving in the majors. From 2022-23, Nevin hit 22 home runs in 576 Triple-A plate appearances, also drawing walks at a 10.2% clip. That created a combined batting line of .315/.394/.522 and a 134 wRC+. But his major league work over those same two years resulted in a line of just .198/.302/.282.
Oakland has given him 130 plate appearances so far this year, and he’s launched four home runs. His 8.5% walk rate is just a hair below this year’s 8.6% league average. His .235/.315/.365 batting line leads to a 103 wRC+, indicating his offensive output has been 3% above league average overall. As mentioned, it’s not as emphatic as the jump from Rooker or Toro, but it’s still miles ahead of what Nevin did in the last two years. He’s also provided the club with some flexibility, having lined up at all four corner spots, allowing them to rotate their prospects into the lineup with ease. Nevin came into 2024 with just over a year of service time, meaning he still won’t be arbitration-eligible after this year and can potentially be retained through 2028.
The A’s have also needed plenty of innings covered on the pitching side, and there are interesting developments there as well. The 33-year-old Adams has been bouncing around the big leagues for years. He debuted with the Nationals back in 2017 and has since pitched for the Mariners, Padres and Diamondbacks. Apart from his 2021 season in San Diego, he’s never topped 32 innings in the majors.
That’s partly due to injuries but also due to a significant lack of command. He finished 2023 with 114 1/3 major league innings under his belt with a 4.17 earned run average. He had always been able to punch guys out, carrying a 33.1% strikeout rate into the season — but also a 14.6% walk rate. Additionally, he’d plunked 31 batters, garnering attention in 2021 when he somehow hit 24 batters, leading the league despite throwing far fewer innings than dozens of starting pitchers.
Adams was outrighted by the Diamondbacks at the end of last year and elected free agency. He initially landed with the Mets on a split deal, holding a roster spot for a few months before they outrighted him. Since he had less than five years of service time then, rejecting the outright assignment would have meant forfeiting the remainder of the money on his contract, so he stayed. The Oakland bullpen took a hit when Trevor Gott required Tommy John surgery, so they sent cash to the Mets for Adams just a few days before the season started.
So far, the move to Oakland is working out brilliantly. Adams has a tidy 1.23 ERA through 19 appearances, striking out 32.8% of opponents. More importantly, his 8.2% walk rate is a bit lower than average and much better than his previous career work. He’s also getting ground balls on 51.6% of balls in play. He won’t be able to strand 84.2% of baserunners forever, but his 2.23 FIP and 2.31 SIERA suggest he would have been posting good results even with neutral favor from the baseball gods. With Mason Miller locking down the closer’s role, Adams has become a key setup arm, with 11 holds already this year.
Adams is making just $800K this season, per the Associated Press, which is barely above the $740K league minimum. He came into this year with four years and 150 days of service, meaning he’s slated to finish the season at 5.150, just shy of the six-year mark required for automatic free agency. That means he can be retained for 2025 via arbitration, which could increase the attraction for a club looking for bullpen upgrades at the deadline.
It might be a stretch to call Erceg a “journeyman” in the common use of the word, since he only played for one other club before coming to the A’s. He was drafted by the Brewers in 2016 and was with them until May of 2023. But he has nonetheless taken a circuitous route to where he is today.
He was initially drafted as a third baseman but didn’t hit much in the minors and transitioned to pitching. His first official action on the mound was in 2021, pitching in Double-A. He threw 47 2/3 innings with a 5.29 ERA. As one would expect for someone new to pitching at a relatively high minor league level, control was an issue. Erceg walked 16.4% of batters faced that year, but his 21.1% strikeout rate was reasonable and he also induced grounders at a strong 56.8% rate.
In 2022, he tossed 61 1/3 innings between Double-A and Triple-A with a 4.55 ERA. His 13.1% walk rate and 24.4% strikeout rate were both gradual improvements over the prior season’s marks. He started 2023 back at Triple-A and was posting similar numbers when the A’s traded for him in May, sending cash to the Brewers. Oakland added him to the roster just a couple days later, and he stayed up with the big league club the rest of the season. Erceg logged 55 big league innings with a 4.75 ERA, 27.1% strikeout rate and 14.3% walk rate in 2023.
He seems to have taken a big step forward so far in 2024, with a 3.18 ERA through 17 appearances. His 11.4% walk rate is still high but better than what he showed last year. He’s also punched out 34.3% of batters faced, a huge jump, while keeping 44.4% of balls in play on the ground. He’s earned a couple of saves and seven holds already this year. His fastball has been averaging 98.5 miles per hour, and he’s also thrown a changeup, sinker and slider.
What to do with Erceg will be an interesting decision for the A’s. On the one hand, he came into this season with less than a year of service time. That means he’s still nowhere near arbitration and can be retained through 2029. He also has a full slate of options.
They could hold onto him to be a part of their next competitive window and part of the team that debuts in Las Vegas. On the other hand, his unusual path means that he’s now 29 years old, with an uncertain future on account of his strange circumstances. Given the volatile nature of relievers and the fact that Erceg has essentially just been a windfall for them, they might be tempted to make him available in trades and try to secure players with more stable paths forward.
Kelly, 31, was drafted by the Padres way back in 2011. Since then, he has bounced to the Orioles, Astros, Phillies and Guardians, mostly in the minor leagues. He was also in indie ball in 2019 and missed the 2020 pandemic year, before resurfacing in affiliated ball in 2021.
He was a starter for most of the early parts of his minor league career but transitioned to the bullpen more recently. In the Astros’ system in 2021, he tossed 50 innings between Double-A and Triple-A with a 2.70 ERA. He struck out 29.5% of batters while walking 8.6%.
Kelly was with the Phillies in 2022 and had a 5.29 ERA in 51 Triple-A innings, but he still struck out 29.1% of batters faced along with a 10.6% walk rate. He got to make a brief major league debut with Philly that year, tossing four innings in June and July before being outrighted off the roster.
He signed a minor league deal with Cleveland last year and ended up having a fine season: 16 2/3 innings of major league work resulted in a 3.78 ERA, 22.5% strikeout rate and 12.7% walk rate. Those walks were obviously on the high side, but Kelly didn’t allow a home run in that time. He also threw 39 2/3 innings in the minors with a 3.40 ERA.
Nevertheless, Kelly was designated for assignment in November and claimed by the A’s. He’s tossed 24 innings for Oakland so far this year with an ERA of exactly 3.00. His 16.2% strikeout rate is well below average, but he’s limited walks to a 7.1% rate and kept 42.3% of balls in play on the ground. He also seems to be doing a good job of limiting damage done by opponents. Per Statcast, his average exit velocity, barrel rate and hard hit rate are all in the 92nd percentile or better. He’s thrown his sweeper more than 50% of the time both this year and last year. It’s not leading to huge strikeout numbers, but hitters seem to be struggling to square it up.
Kelly came into this season with less than a year of service, meaning he can be retained well into the future. He still has a couple of minor league options as well, meaning he can be easily sent down to the minors if his results take a turn. The A’s could potentially just hang onto him for years to come but would also likely be open to trades, given Kelly’s age and that he was just a waiver claim.
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Small-sample caveats need to apply to all of this, as we’re still quite early in the season. But for the rebuilding A’s, it would be a nice victory if even a few of the names in this group could maintain their strong starts. The club traded away Matt Olson, Matt Chapman, Chris Bassitt, Sean Manaea, Sean Murphy and others in recent years, with most of the players coming back in those deals having been fairly unimpressive thus far. If they hit the jackpot on a couple of guys in this group from waiver claims and small trades, that would soften the blow of whiffing on those bigger deals. As previously mentioned, rebuilding is mostly painful — but giving shots to journeymen like this is one silver lining, and the A’s have seen some positive results there so far.
Martinez is correct regarding smaller rosters squeezing out experienced pitchers who these prospects can learn from, but the automatic-K zone is a big issue as hitters get a false sense of pitchers and the strike zone. Some teams have been limiting their better prospects in AAA, jumping them more quickly from AA. MLB needs to standardize the environments. Right now there’s a huge difference and it’s hurting hitters and this MLB.
Not sure this is really true. Roster sizes were smaller prior to minor league contraction in 2021 were smaller than post contraction. Pitching staffs in AAA swelled from 12 or 13 to 15 to 17. They haven’t, to my knowledge, dropped to or below pre 2021 numbers. I don’t really buy Martinez’ reason.
Holliday mentioned that mlb pitches that would be balls in minors automated ball strike tool were getting called strikes in mlb. some umps are just bad… that appeal system might be next pending any shakeup at the ump level…
I’d like to see an appeal system to start as opposed to the complete elimination of the human element. There is a skill to pitching. Expanding the strike zone has been a pitcher’s art for 100+ years, enabled by the triumvirate interaction of catcher, umpire and pitcher.
The A’s are like the chubby Kid getting bullied for his lunch Money. They always have players, but they’re so pathetic and frugal. They never build a good team around said players.
It really is the way they have traded for the past few years when dealing those guys. Often the chose to take MLB ready players over upside. The reaility is that you need a timeline when making those trades. This year trade for the lottery tickets, and next year go for the guys that are almost ready for the high minors- and if you are still selling the last year you want mlb ready guys…. at that point everyone reaches the bigs about the same time- instead they were always trading for cost controlled but no real upside.
If you live in Nevada they’re taking your lunch money for a new stadium.
I believe Elias is correct here. The conception that a guy who has never played in the Majors before has no scouting report is silly. Unless you’re Sidd Finch, the other team knows who you are, and in the current age, it’s easier than ever to know what weaknesses to exploit in a batter.
Most of the Angels infielders and bullpen pitchers are the same kind of journeymen.
This feels like the Os rebuild from a few years ago…. They ended up finding diamonds in the rough all over the place.
Ramon Urias won a gold glove (and is a solid utility guy on a contender now). Mateo is a great utility all over the place guy (those 2 are most of their bench). Santander was a rule 5 pick, and now a heart of the order guy.
The pitching got them a ton of interesting bullpen arms- not so much in the rotation. But Bradish was the “other guy” in a trade, and so was Cano.
The A’s are horrible and they are lucky that their division has been so bad. Most of their players wouldn’t crack a 26 man roster of a contender. Outside of Mason Miller, Sears, and Rooker, everyone else is a Triple-A or lower level player. If you have to rely on Seth Brown to bat cleanup and Ryan Noda is supposed to be their hidden surprise then this whole team is in trouble. They’ll be fighting it out with the Angels all year for that 4th place spot by seasons end
The A’s are 4-11 against Division opponents. They are 15-16 against all other teams. Not sure how they have been lucky due to their division. Seems quite the opposite.
Don’t confront him with logic and facts. It’s scary.
How about Blackburn, Adams, Ruiz, Toro, Bleday, Langeliers, Davis, Stripling, and Gelof? Are they at or below AAA?
“Cleanup hitter” Seth Brown has hit 4th in the order exactly zero times this season. Noda’s been sent down for like two weeks now. 15-17 against non-division. Make it make sense.
Adams and Toro were mentioned in the piece.
I know. That was in response to Tigers3232 saying that only Sears, Miller and Rooker were major-league level players.
LFGMets only likes to demote and NEVER has an alternative suggestion. If the league were as he sees it there’d be 55 MLB players and everyone else would be fired.
The exposure of Jackson Holliday helps Jackson Holliday and Baltimore work on some things. We should expect him back up in August/September to be a key piece in their playoff run.
Speaking of the A’s, any update on J.T. Ginn after leaving his AAA start last night after facing 2 batters in the third?
Ginn? He’s 25 and has a 4.24 ERA in the minors four years after being drafted out of college.
The Mets look smart for trading him for a year of Chris Bassitt.
There’s your update.
Michael Kelly link is to wrong player.
Thanks. Should be fixed now.
Dumpster Diving, for career minor leaguers, also helped the A’s find Geronimo Berroa, Chad Bradford, Matt Stairs, Brandon Moss, Stephen Vogt, Jesse Chavez.
But for every one that pans out, there are 10 that don’t.
It;’s just part of that sorta theory “moneyball” created by the A’s master of all trades Billy Beane with the team being the real-life underdog by using innovative player analysis while paying less to those almost ”no one” wants to give a chance to prove themselves.
Billy, and his top lieutenant David Forst, along with a brilliant operation scouting staffs, often say they do what they can with what they have… In other words, if current A’s owner billionaire John Fisher whose family also owns chain stores like Gap and Old Navy, don’t put money down to hire star players then the A’s front office needs to be creative with what they are given… It’s just their reality… Viva Las Vegas,,,
Excellent column
This is an excellent article with a lot of detail about an interesting team that very little has been written about, aside from ad nauseum articles concerning the relocation of the franchise. Nice job!
Ladies and gentleman, I believe we have our new team mascot, the Las Vegas JourneyMen. The Vegas JMs.
Colt Keith had 4 hits last night vs. the D-backs. He’s getting there.
If the insinuation that this article makes is true, then please tell me how guys like Jackson Merrill, Herrera, Ortiz, etc are doing so well.
MAYBE..the the top rookies are actually struggling because they’ve got HUGE amounts of media pressure on them to come up and perform right away, which takes them out of their normal approaches.
Sometimes, the simplest reason is the correct reason.
And how much money are these guys’ agents giving MLBTR to write this puff piece and goose their trade market to get them out of Oakland? Or help them a better contract next offseason? There is no transaction news or rumor here. It’s just some stats regurgitated from publicly available sites to say “hey, my guy is good, let me try and get him an extension or more arb money.”
Just like the recent infusion of ad posts here, a shameless attempt to get dough. Or yet another weak attempt by MLBTR to be like Fangraphs.
Stay in your line: you’re a transactions site, not a stats site. There is nothing novel about this article: “ohhhh so-and-so is good, here are some stats I found that anyone would see if they check is page on Statcast.” How about telling us where would make sense as landing spots for these players and what it might take to get them? Now THERE is unique content. Not this tripe which belongs on an A’s fan blog.