That spring training results mean little, yes. That the A\u2019s are having a terrific spring training so far because no one has gotten majorly hurt, yes. But there must be some significance in some of the play on the field, no? The answer to that is an emphatic and resounding maybe.<\/p>\n
What we\u2019ve seen so far that could be meaningful unless it isn\u2019t:<\/p>\n
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Max Muncy<\/strong><\/p>\n Two things stand out with regard to Muncy so far in spring training. One is that it really does appear that 3B is his job to lose. He is tied for the team lead with 21 at bats and has been frequently a starter at 3B.<\/p>\n The other is that true to his profile, the bat seems to be ahead of the glove. There are many aspects of Muncy\u2019s hitting to like so far, from how hard he is hitting the ball to his 4 walks in 25 PAs, helping him to a .286\/.400\/.524 line so far. But he continues to throw erratically and to play 3B very much like someone still learning on the job \u2014 or someone for whom defense just doesn\u2019t come naturally.<\/p>\n It looks like 3B is not a position where the A\u2019s are going to emphasize defense first, most likely handing Muncy the keys and trusting that his bat will be good enough to overcome shakiness with the glove \u2014 and also hoping Nick Kurtz can save many of Muncy\u2019s low and wide throws.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Luis Morales & Jack Perkins<\/strong><\/p>\n Morales and Perkins have in common that their stuff plays and their upside is significant, but they are also wild cards with regard to how ready they are to be consistent at the big league level.<\/p>\n So far both have shown that up-and-down combo with Morales giving up a 6-spot in one start, then pitching great his last time out until he ran out of gas in the 4th and walked 2 before exiting, and Perkins flashing good stuff but having trouble throwing enough strikes.<\/p>\n It\u2019s fair to say that the A\u2019s fortunes in 2026 will rest largely on the shoulders \u2014 that is arms \u2014 of their young pitchers and so far the group has generally looked raw. These are also tiny samples early in spring training, so they barely count for anything other than reinforcing what we already know.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The exception has been Gage Jump, who has arguably been the best of the bunch and might have accelerated his ETA from mid-season to more like May. And we haven\u2019t yet seen Jacob Lopez, whose continued success would be pivotal to enhancing the A\u2019s rotation.<\/p>\n Tyler Soderstrom<\/strong><\/p>\n Again, spring results are not terribly meaningful even if 9 for 20 with 2 HR is a mighty nice way to begin the year. What might be meaningful, though, is that these are Soderstrom\u2019s first 20 at bats since signing an extension and if nothing else, it\u2019s fair to say he has not come out pressing or trying to do too much as we may have seen with Lawrence Butler.<\/p>\n It\u2019s great that the A\u2019s scored 4 players in the top 100 recently suggested by MLB Rank, but how was Soderstrom not one of them? He is poised to make that list look silly.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Leo De Vries<\/strong><\/p>\n Who knows how quickly the 19 year old wunderkid will reach the big leagues? Once thought to be positioned for a call up maybe late in 2026, De Vries is proving that he may be even closer than that. He has been anything but over matched by his elders, 7 for 19 to start the Cactus League.<\/p>\n Granted 6 of the 7 hits are singles but no one really questions his power or whether he can spray doubles from line to line. He has consistently been patient and gotten into hitter\u2019s counts and just seems to have that natural feel for the pace of the game, the strike zone, you name it.<\/p>\n De Vries isn\u2019t on the cusp of the big leagues as a teenager because his ST batting average is .368, but he is on the cusp based on how well matched he looks so far on both sides of the ball playing against big leaguers.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Overall Pitching<\/strong><\/p>\n If spring training stats are meaningless in general then spring training team ERA is even more so. You have the desert air and wind playing tricks with fly balls, A ball scrubs tossing the last 3 innings, so many reasons why results just don\u2019t tell you a whole lot, especially on a team level.<\/p>\n That being said, the A\u2019s pitching was a weakness in 2025 and their team ERA so far in the Cactus League \u2014 whether it\u2019s meaningful or not \u2014 stands at 6.51. You can take solace that one of the 4 teams worse in MLB happens to be Seattle (7.68), more proof that spring training team stats don\u2019t mean squat. But what you can\u2019t do is celebrate that A\u2019s pitchers so far are having a ton of success.<\/p>\n So there are some observations about things that mostly don\u2019t matter or are utterly misleading, which is what happens when fans are forced to write about the team they love at a time when the players are just getting stretched out physically and working on their craft without much concern about the results.<\/p>\n In other words, it\u2019s time to fully panic and at the same time reserve your post-season tickets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That spring training results mean little, yes. That the A\u2019s are having a terrific spring training so far…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":638795,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[1936,33684,20403,65147,261670,8327,1266,61551,2086,62,272031,170848,1278,7950,75858,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-638794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-getty-images","tag-jack-perkins","tag-jacob-lopez","tag-lawrence-butler","tag-luis-morales","tag-max-muncy","tag-mlb","tag-nick-kurtz","tag-seattle","tag-sports","tag-spring-results","tag-spring-training","tag-texas-rangers","tag-the-athletics","tag-tyler-soderstrom","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116188289927595468","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}