What’s Behind Tyler Soderstrom’s Hot Start for the A’s?

In the second half of the 2024 season, common baseball fans started to take notice of the Athletics. The team playing at a .500 level was part of it, but a number of young players breaking out caught plenty of eyes. Lawrence Butler and JJ Bleday blossomed into above-average players while first-rounder Jacob Wilson added excitement.

However, one player who did not get nearly the attention he deserved was Tyler Soderstrom. The A’s 2020 first-rounder and former top 100 prospect made major strides after struggling in his first major league stint in 2023. Soderstrom posted a 114 wRC+ across 61 games with nine home runs while improving his underlying metrics as well.

While not forgotten, Soderstrom did come into 2025 with less buzz than the aforementioned youngsters.

Don’t get me wrong, Soderstrom’s hot start is not out of nowhere or some huge surprise. If you watched him last season, you saw the talent that it takes to be a productive player. Now, in what will be his first full season, he is looking like one of the best power bats in the game.

Stats updated prior to first pitch on April 11.

Soderstrom Is Building Upon Last Season

Again, if you paid attention to Soderstrom last season, you could have seen a true breakout coming. I’ll try not to overreact to a 13-game sample size, but beyond the raw numbers are indicators that this is not just a hot start but a sustainable operation.

Let’s start by painting a picture of the type of player Soderstrom has been projected to be. A power-hitting lefty bat without a defensive position who will draw walks but also runs a high strikeout rate. We all know the type. Of course, in order to produce power, your batted ball data has to show impact:

Although 2025 is a small sample, you can see how his April batted ball data has tracked with last season’s. Now, if you combine those, we have over 250 plate appearances of legit, high-end, power output. From a 23-year-old!

If Soderstrom can sustain a barrel rate in the 12-15% range, which I think is doable, he would be in a similar range as Yordan Alvarez, Bobby Witt Jr., Vladimir Guerrero Jr, and other elite hitters in the league.

And I don’t see this as a flash in the pan. Soderstrom’s bat path is geared towards lifting the ball, and he has the bat speed needed to produce power to all fields. Last season, of his nine home runs, only one was to his pull side. This season? Four of his six have come to his pull side, with the other two being an impressive shot to center off Logan Gilbert and a drive to left field off Bryan Woo.

We aren’t talking about cheap home runs off mediocre pitchers. Not at all. Soderstrom already has long balls off Jeremiah Estrada, Michael King, Logan Gilbert, Bryan Woo, Chase Dollander, and Trent Thorton. That’s a collection of talented pitchers, but when a player is producing power in all parts of the zone, he’s tough to beat.

It’s still too early to draw too much from this, but Soderstrom has already produced power from more areas of the strike zone than he did last season. Four of Soderstrom’s 2024 home runs came middle-middle, while none came from the inside part of the plate. Not only power, but his advanced metrics all point toward Soderstrom protecting and producing much better on pitches inside.

For a power hitter, pulling the ball is key to optimizing your power output. Soderstrom eliminating, if it proves to be true, what was an inside cold zone could lead to a drastic uptick in power. If he starts turning on inside pitches and pulling the ball in the air, we could be looking at 35-plus home runs.

Another aspect that could help Soderstrom is playing in Sacramento instead of Oakland. Sutter Health Park is currently tied for seventh in Baseball Savant’s park factor metric, leaning heavily in favor of batters. Although only two of Soderstrom’s home runs have come in Sacramento, it will likely help boost his numbers as the season goes on.

What This Means for the Athletics

The A’s have completely overturned their roster over the past three seasons and now have a lineup with legitimate threats. Lawrence Butler, Brent Rooker, Tyler Soderstrom, Shea Langeliers, JJ Bleday, and Jacob Wilson make up a great core with a ton of power and an elite hit tool in Wilson.

If Soderstrom continues on this path, which I think he will, the A’s have their first baseman of the future. Or, at least their DH. But wait, didn’t they just sign Rooker to be the DH of the future? Here’s where things can get interesting.

Soderstrom, who came up as a catcher, moved from behind the plate due to his defensive limitations. Although I do not value first base defense very highly, Soderstrom has not graded out well there and might be better suited for the DH role. That could open the door at first base for 2024 first-rounder Nick Kurtz.

Kurtz is the type of player that catches your eye before you even see him play. The 6’5″ lefty is a massive presence with power to match. He hit four home runs in 12 games across two levels last season and already has six home runs in 11 Triple-A games this year.

A top-100 prospect with a ton of power from the left side and some strikeout concerns who plays first. Sound familiar?

For the A’s, an easy move would be to slide Rooker to left field and Soderstrom to DH, letting Kurtz take over at first. They will sacrifice some defense, but I think they can live with it. That’s a ton of power and a lineup that doesn’t have an easy out from one through seven.

Ok, enough hypotheticals. Let’s dig deeper into what this means for the A’s. I think it means the A’s have a system in place to build a winner. We’ve seen them do the whole tear down and build up thing before with success. Look up and down this lineup, and you see homegrown talent or trades that are now paying off.

I’m not going to praise the A’s as an organization, but I do think they deserve more credit for player development. Several of these producing players were cast-offs, while the others were identified, drafted, and developed by the A’s. If nothing else, I think A’s fans can feel great about this one aspect of the organization.

Soderstrom’s Hot Start: Final Thoughts

Being an A’s fan right now must be a confusing and difficult experience. All of the negativity around the team over the past few years is now being masked by a young and exciting core playing in a different city.

Regardless of where your fandom now stands, the A’s have built one of the more exciting young lineups, and Tyler Soderstrom is in the middle of it.

The improvements we saw from 2023-2024 were legitimate and a reason to buy in. Now that Soderstrom is getting more comfortable, attacking pitches on the inside of the plate, and improving his contact numbers, the sky is truly the limit.

The A’s are going to surprise some casual fans. But don’t be surprised when Tyler Soderstrom is at the All-Star Game later this summer.