A's Assign Nick Kurtz to Triple-A Las Vegas

The Athletics are continuing to be aggressive with last year's fourth pick in the MLB Draft, Nick Kurtz. A week into his stay with the Stockton Ports after signing, he was promoted to Double-A Midland, skipping High-A Lansing altogether.

Kurtz played in seven games with the Ports, and then another five in Midland before a hamstring injury prematurely ended his regular season. In 12 total minor-league games, Kurtz hit .368 with a .520 OBP and clubbed four home runs (all in Stockton).

After missing the end of the year with the RockHounds, the first baseman got into another 13 games in the Arizona Fall League, where he continued to mash at roughly the same pace.

This spring, Kurtz, who was a non-roster invitee, received 31 plate appearances, batting .261 with a .452 OBP, two homers, and more walks (7) than strikeouts (5). According to Baseball Reference's spring tracker, he was facing roughly Double-A pitching in his time with the A's.

With Kurtz seemingly passing every test put in front of him, the A's are starting him off with an assignment in Triple-A as a member of the Las Vegas Aviators. His MiLB.com player page shows that he was assigned to Vegas from the RockHounds as of March 26.

This will be a good test for how quickly Kurtz will move up to the A's 26-man roster, since he is more or less jumping from college ball to Triple-A. That said, he'll be playing in the notortiously hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League in Las Vegas Ballpark, where the ball tends to fly.

If you're scouting through the box scores in Las Vegas, it will be more important to watch his strikeout and walk rates, and how those correlate to one another, than his home run or RBI totals, though the latter are more exciting.

The simple reason for this is because the ballparks in the PCL will help provide some inflated power numbers, which is why a tool like wRC+ over at FanGraphs can be useful. They strip away the park factors to tell you who the best hitters are at a more base level, which is what will matter more to the A's in their decision on when to promote him.

If advanced stats aren't your thing, then a quick glance at walks versus strikeouts should give you a glimpse into how he's doing as well. Those are more about the process a hitter has, and that is another facet of a prospect's game that the Athletics will be looking at.

Last year with Wake Forest, Kurtz walked a ridiculous 30% of the time, while striking out 16.2%. In simpler terms, he walked 78 times and struck out 42 times. So far in the A's organization, he has continued to walk more than he strikes out, with a 24/20 split in his 12 games in the minors, and a 22.6/16.1% split during spring training.

While it would be a bit much to expect that trend to continue in Triple-A, if we see his walk rate at something like seven percent, and his strikeout rate at 30%, then there is something flawed in the process, no matter how many home runs he has, so throughout the season keep an eye on those numbers.

The past two years the A's have called up top prospects for the first game out of the All-Star break. That would seem to be on the late end of when Kurtz could end up being ready to make his MLB debut.

When he does arrive, the question will immediately become what happens to Tyler Soderstrom, who is another former first round pick and is currently slated to man first. Left field could be an option, but the A's also have outfield prospects coming through the pipeline, and left field is the one real spot to let them play with JJ Bleday in center and the recently extended Lawrence Butler in right.

The roster is going to fluctuate throughout the year, and Nick Kurtz may be a catalyst for a flurry of activity.