There’s been a trend in baseball recently where teams will promote a guy to the show within the year of drafting him. We saw the Angels do it with both pitcher Ben Joyce and first baseman Nolan Schanuel in 2023, the latter being promoted 40 days after getting taken in the 2023 draft. “Can’t-miss” pitcher Paul Skenes, the 2023 first overall selection, was called up to Pittsburgh the following May. Finally, in 2024, the Reds drafted Chase Burns 2nd overall before calling him up in June 2025 and the Athletics drafted Burns’ Wake Forest teammate Nick Kurtz 4th overall in the same draft, calling him up after just 32 minor league games in April 2025.
Some players, like Skenes, are simply ready for the highest level of baseball. Usually, players will struggle in their first taste of the bigs–especially when they’re called up so soon after being introduced to professional pitching. Nick Kurtz is unusual. He’s 6’5” and 240 pounds swinging from the left hand side with the ability to spray the ball across all fields for power. In 3 years of college ball, Kurtz hit 61 HR in 784 PA and totaled a 1.234 OPS. He hasn’t lost that talent and it feels like he’s been in the bigs for years. He’s shown no need for an adjustment period to Major League pitching and the numbers show that.
Nick Kurtz’s 2025
So far through 107 games and 450 PA, Kurtz’s line looks like this:
.294 BA/.388 OBP /.616 SLG, .420 wOBA, 169 wRC+, 32 HR, 80 RBI, .322 ISO, 13.1 BB%, 30.4 K%
He played college baseball last year.
Is this just the era we live in now? The one where college programs are introducing technologies advanced enough to help a player need virtually no preparation for big league baseball? Maybe! But that’s another conversation for another time. Let’s get into the nitty gritty of Kurtz.
First off, let me get this out of the way: Nick Kurtz is not known for his defense. He plays perhaps the least important defensive position, first base, and he ranks 63rd out of 66 qualified first basemen in Baseball Savant’s defensive metric, Fielding Run Value. Therefore, our main analysis will center around his bat.
In terms of league ranks among hitters with at least 450 PA, Kurtz sits 12th in BA, 7th in OBP, 2nd in SLG, 5th in ISO, 2nd in wOBA and 3rd in wRC+. He’s 17th in BB%, but it’s worth noting he’s got the 5th worst strikeout rate.
On July 25, Kurtz shocked the world with a 6-for-6 night that included 4 home runs. He became the first rookie and the first Athletics player to do so. It made him a reality for the MLB, but it also changed the way that pitchers pitched to him. Prior to July 25, Kurtz was raking to a 182 wRC+, and notably, a 10.3 BB%. Since that night, Kurtz, still raking, has put up a 151 wRC+ while walking 17.3% of the time. It’s a sharp increase and it’s because pitchers do not want to pay the price for putting one down the heart of the plate.
Knowing that, Kurtz overall ranks in the 92nd percentile in BB% and the 4th percentile in K%. His Chase% is 88th percentile, while his Whiff% is 2nd percentile. He’s disciplined. Pitchers aren’t as aggressive in the zone against him, and he’s patient as a result, not chasing balls out of the zone. However, he’s prone to swing and miss when he does choose to attack.
The results are there, though, because Kurtz’s batted ball ability is special. When he gets the barrel to the ball, he does damage. With his bat speed that ranks in the 98th percentile, Kurtz flaunts a 17.9 Barrel% and 51.4% Hard Hit%. The high barrel rate (optimal combination of exit velocity and launch angle) explains his ability to slug, as he ranks 9th in the MLB behind some of the game’s best sluggers. His hard hit rate (95mph+ EV) shows consistent hard contact and ranks top 20, tied with the likes of Ronald Acuña. To top it off, his average launch angle is 15.6 degrees, consistent with line drives and fly balls.
Outside of… not throwing hittable pitches, pitchers don’t seem to have a way to beat him. Kurtz doesn’t have kryptonite in terms of pitch type. He sees mostly fastballs (53%) and rakes against them to the tune of a .663 SLG and .450 wOBA. Breaking and offspeed pitches don’t seem to make much trouble for him, either, as he’s put together wOBAs of .386 and .383 against them. This is one of the reasons we could be looking at one of the next great sluggers in baseball.
So, is he for real?
Yes, strikeouts are scary… but strikeouts are outs, same as groundouts and flyouts.
I would rather have a hitter that punishes the baseball for sniffing the strike zone while striking out a third of the time because he was trying to punish the baseball for sniffing the strike zone than a hitter who strikes out less but hits for weak contact. That’s just me. Baseball is a slugger’s game these days, and you need guys who produce.
Is he due for some regression? Perhaps. His .370 BABIP would lead us to believe that’s the case. However, it’s rare that a hitter connects with the baseball like Kurtz. It’s special. His expected statistics tell us so, as provided by Statcast and Baseball Savant (Expected Statistics like xBA, expected batting average, bases off likelihoods that certain batted balls will land for hits). Here is how Kurtz’s lines match up with the expected statistics:
.294 BA | .256 xBA
.616 SLG | .548 xSLG
.420 | .382 xwOBA
Still really solid. So, maybe regression’s coming, but maybe this is just his profile: A slugger that uses the whole field for power.
It’ll be worth keeping an eye on how Kurtz performs against lefties going forward, as well as how, if at all, he alters his approach at the plate to avoid strikeouts and continue to hit the ball hard. It’s not like he needs to alter anything as of now.
Why should he? He’s virtually guaranteed to be voted AL Rookie of the Year, following in the footsteps of other rookie sluggers like Ryan Braun, Jose Abreu, Pete Alonso, Cody Bellinger, and Ronald Acuña. We’re talking about an Athletics rookie putting up a season up there like a 23 year old Reggie Jackson or a 21 year old Jimmie Foxx, both of whom hit 500+ career home runs.
I’ll be keeping up with this kid as he continues to grow, and you should too.
Inner Half 