Last Chance to Buy Low on A’s Bats?

Some like it hot. And the A’s are certainly some. Since their move to West Sacramento, A’s hitters have finally been treated to a friendly home park. But that park is much friendlier when the weather warms up.

In this case, timing is a proxy for expected weather. Put simply, since we expect it to be hotter in the summer, especially in Sacramento, we expect offense to increase as the hitting environment becomes more favorable.

In case you need more proof, here’s how the A’s hit last season when the temperature got to 80 degrees or above.

Clearly, the A’s hit more home runs when it’s warmer at Sutter Health Park. And in Sacramento, temperature maps pretty well onto the time of year. 

With the calendar marching towards June, you may be running out of time to bet on some struggling A’s bats. 

This season, the A’s have just 54 plate appearances as a team with the temperature being 80 degrees or above. Using last year as a model, we could assume they have something like 1,000 plate appearances of warm weather coming over the next few months. 

So which A’s can you target, particularly as relative buy lows?

First things first, let’s make sure all of the fantasy relevant A’s hit this well last summer.

Clearly, the A’s best bats took advantage of their home park last summer. 

But to start this season, not all of the A’s are running hot. 

If you bought low on Nick Kurtz during his slow start to the season, kudos to you. But as Ben Clemens told us last week, the sophomore season for Big Amish has been more strange than bad. And even still, he has an .841 OPS. If you happen to be in a league with an owner who’s frustrated that Kurtz isn’t just Barry Bonds again, then go ahead and float an offer. 

The same goes for Brent Rooker. The elder statesman of this A’s lineup, Rooker battled injuries to start the season and couldn’t seem to find his footing, hitting just .111 over 15 games in March and April with an uncharacteristic 34.9% strikeout rate. But since the calendar flipped to May, he’s been back to himself, slashing .289/.386/.939 with 3 homers. He’s fine. Like Kurtz, if you happen to be in a league where Rooker’s manager is asleep at the wheel, the time is certainly now. 

For the rest of us, Kurtz and Rooker probably are in the same untouchable category in trades as Shea Langeliers, who’s just continuing to build on an impressive season last year, with 12 homers and a Kurtzian 1.037 OPS to begin this season. He’s probably just Cal Raleigh without the switch hitting and strikeouts. And maybe with just a little dumper?

At this point, Carlos Cortes may be in a similar category, though certainly a tier below due to a lack of track record. What we do know points to a successful, if unorthodox, hitter, as pointed out by Michael Baumann. The summer should only help him access his power. In his first cup of coffee in the majors last season, he hit .309 with four home runs in the second half. If you were lucky enough to snag him early on, it certainly seems worth holding him, unless someone really wants to overpay. 

With Jacob Wilson suffering a dislocated shoulder on Tuesday, that leaves a handful of interesting regulars left to target.

We’ll start at the top with Tyler Soderstrom.

Last season, he actually didn’t need the heat in Sacramento to hit home runs. His hot summer was prefaced by an even hotter start to the season. As Ben Clemens pointed out at the time, Soderstrom began last season with a “lift and pull” approach, helping him hit .284 with 9 home runs through April.   

But this season, unlike Rooker, Soderstrom has not seen an improvement in May. On the year, he’s hitting just .201 with 5 home runs.

He’s not striking out more or walking less. He’s swinging just as hard. He’s making the same amount of contact on pitches in the zone. 

But he’s taken the “lift and pull” approach to another level, and it hasn’t worked out thus far.

Last year, he sprayed the ball to all fields and had a healthy mix of line drives to go with his solid 18.9% HR/FB. In 2026, the line drives and ground balls that propped up his .276 AVG and .327 BABIP have been replaced by fly balls. And pop ups. His FB% has jumped 10 points, up to 43.9%, as his infield fly ball rate, up from 5.3% last season to 16.0%. 

He’s also seen his HR/FB dip from 18.9% to 10.0%, even as his pull air rate, which helped fuel his early success last season, has increased from 12.1% to 18.4%.

The summer heat could help some of these fly balls carry out of the yard, but there seems to be more going on here. Because last season, even as he found some success pulling balls in the air, adjustments throughout the season kept him balanced, spraying the ball, with power, all over the field. This apparent change in approach has seen his batting average and BABIP tumble, without enough power to show for it that it would be worthwhile. 

Dealing for Soderstrom now would be a gamble. On the one hand, the summer should help him turn some of his fly ball outs into home runs, especially at home. But if you’re looking for the version of Soderstrom that helped out in batting average, he seems to have left that approach in the past, which is something to keep in mind if you’re considering a buy low deal. 

Next up, Lawrence Butler. 

Another recipient of a long-term extension, Butler has had similar struggles to begin the year, hitting just .175 with 3 home runs. And like Soderstrom, Butler has seen his walk rate go up, his strikeout rate stay the same, and his average and BABIP drop dramatically since last year.

Dealing with injuries last year, Butler was unable to get back to his 2024 season, where a dominant summer helped him finish with a .228 ISO and 22 home runs plus a .262 AVG. 

And with the A’s really competing this season in a diminished AL West, Butler has not been given much slack. He’s primarily hit seventh or eighth this season, and with the level of talent ahead of him, he’s unlikely to make a jump into the upper third that would bring him more plate appearances and a chance at piling up counting stats. 

In shallow leagues, Butler can safely be left on the wire. In 15-teamers or AL-only, you could certainly bet on Butler to repeat his 2024 summer surge. Injuries limited his chances to do the same in 2025.

If his performance earns him the opportunity, he could see another productive summer. Last season, he performed well in the heat. But with greater pressure to perform than in past seasons, the A’s may not give him the runway to make it happen. Consider him a flyer, even in deep leagues.

Zack Gelof only had 32 plate appearances in Sutter Health Park when it was 80 degrees or warmer last season, and he hit just .161 with 18 strikeouts and one home run. 

That was part of a season that included plenty of poor performance and injuries that limited him to only 314 plate appearances between Triple-A and the majors. But while in the minors, he did hit .256 with 12 home runs. And importantly, he cut his problematic strikeout rate from a career 32.8% clip down to 25.4%, while bumping his walk rate from a career mark of 7.4% in the majors to 16.0%. Those gains were even further improved upon to begin 2026, where he walked 24.1% of the time, while dragging the strikeout rate down to 13.0%. Throw in the four homers and three steals in just 11 games at Triple-A, and you could see why he got the call when the A’s lost Denzel Clarke and Max Muncy to injury. 

Since the call-up, while splitting time between centerfield and third base, two new positions for the 26-year-old, he has shined, to the tune of a .258/.310/.455 slash with 3 home runs and 2 steals. And there seem to be real changes under the surface, though the sample size is still quite small.  

Gelof is unleashing on more pitches, with a fast-swing rate of 35.5%, compared to a 13.4% career mark, though that metric isn’t available for his breakout 2023 rookie year. His squared-up contact and squared-up swing rates have both increased by 10 points, and he’s upped his pull rate to 55.1%, compared to a 47.4% mark for his career. 

The pull rate increase is backed up by a change in intercept point, as he’s connecting with the ball 4.9 inches closer to the pitcher than he did as a rookie. He’s also moved up in the box 4.2 inches since his rookie season, another signal of a change in approach oriented towards pulling the ball. 

Perhaps most interesting though is his improved plate discipline. He’s doing a much better job on pitches in the zone, bringing both his zone and out-of-zone contact rates back up to levels near what he put up during his rookie season, while cutting his chase rate to the best level of his career. 

Even compared to his rookie season, Gelof seems to be particularly dialed in on punishing strikes on the inner half that he can pull, which should help him reach more of his power.

Though expected stats don’t love him (.223 xBA, .381 xSLG), he has clearly found success with a new, more patient approach that is oriented around pulling flyballs to get to power. And with his speed, the ballpark, and the incoming summer heat, his lift and pull profile should allow him to continue beating the peripherals, as he did in both 2023 and 2024. 

Like Butler, Gelof can still mostly be left alone in shallower formats. He is hitting primarily in the lower-third of the A’s lineup, limiting his counting stats. And there will be lots of competition for him, despite his ability to play multiple positions. Veteran Jeff McNeil can certainly play around the infield and outfield, and the A’s just called up Henry Bolte, who was perhaps the hottest hitting prospect in the game prior to the promotion. If and when Clarke and Muncy return, this will be a roster in flux. 

But if you’re in a deep format with daily lineups, Gelof could provide sneaky value, especially given his positional eligibility. His profile certainly lends itself more to Roto, and since the spiked walk rate from Triple-A has not carried over to the majors yet, he is not geared for points formats.