A's Draft Plans May Involve a Wrinkle

The 2025 MLB Draft is just days away, set to take place on Sunday, July 13 at 3 p.m. (PT), and the Athletics have the No. 11 overall pick in this year's draft. They ended up with the 11th pick since they have held lottery selections the past two seasons (Jacob Wilson and Nick Kurtz) and are also revenue sharing recipients.

The Chicago White Sox finished with a worse record than the A's last season, and since they picked in the lottery in 2024 and pay into revenue sharing, the best spot they could pick was No. 10, which is where they landed.

The subsequent rounds of the Draft will be in the order of where each team finished, so Chicago will have the first selection in the second round (No. 44) while the A's will be picking fifth (No. 48).

The A's also forfeited their third round selection (No. 80) by signing Luis Severino, and traded their Competitive Balance A pick (No. 42 overall) to the Tampa Bay Rays in the Jeffrey Springs/Jacob Lopez deal.

So with the landscape set for the MLB Draft, here is what A's GM David Forst had to say about their plans for Sunday night.

When asked on A's Cast who they'd take, Forst joked, "somebody who will be right next to Nick Kurtz and Jacob Wilson a year from now. Aspirational I guess."

Now, this was meant as a joke, but as we've written recently, the A's will not have too many opportunities to select this high in the Draft in the coming years if things go as planned, so taking more pieces to solidify their core group this year (and likely next) may in fact be the plan.

This is the same reason that we feel the A's may be looking to add a pitcher in the first round for the first time since 2016 when they took A.J. Puk out of Florida.

To that point, Forst did make it sound as though they could be looking at adding some pitching depth with their first pick. "For a long time, baseball teams would have said 'no way we're drafting for need.' These guys won't be here for three, four, five years and you don't know what your needs are.

"That's not necessarily the case anymore. We're looking for the best player or best pitcher--it's been a little while since we've taken a pitcher in the first round. We're still looking for the best guy, and if he gets here in a year, we'll figure it out." The A's biggest need is pitching.

Now, it's tough to expect that any player selected will be on the same trajectory as Wilson and Kurtz had in the minor leagues, but what the A's are doing in the draft room has been working of late. They could absolutely target a college arm that they feel can move through the system quickly and become a back-end piece of the rotation in a year's time with some upside.

At the same time, they'll be getting Ken Waldichuk back in some role before long, Luis Medina should be ready for 2026, and Gage Jump, Luis Morales, and Kade Morris are all promising arms in the minors right now.

One player that the team has been linked to has been right-hander Tyler Bremner out of UC Santa Barbara, according to both The Athletic and Baseball America. His fastball sits at 95 and touches 98, and he has a terrific changeup that could even be a 70 on the 20-80 scouting scale. If the A's feel confident that he can develop his slider into a legitimate third pitch, he could be their guy.

Bremner is also ranked by MLB.com as the No. 18 prospect in the Draft, which could lead to a slightly below slot deal being reached if the A's were to select him, and they could use that savings a little later in the draft to make a bit of a splash, given that they have fewer picks.

Forst was also asked how they have their boards laid out during the draft, and he said that they typically set up two boards, totaling 120 players, in order of where they have them ranked. "From there, we go to positions. We go like right-handed pitcher board, left-handed pitcher board, but we line up the first 120 guys in order of just how we like 'em."

This may be reaching, but for him to mention two types of pitchers when reaching for any position on the baseball diamond, it seems as though they could be targeting some arms early in the draft. With multiple outlets hearing the A's connected to Bremner and his ranking below where the A's are set to select, he should be available for them at No. 11--if they're looking for a pitcher.

We'll have to wait and see how everything plays out.