A's Hoping to Advance Former San Diego Padres Prospect Quickly

The Athletics made a bold move at the MLB Trade Deadline, sending JP Sears and Mason Miller to the San Diego Padres in a deal that landed them the third-best prospect in all of baseball, Leo De Vries. In a recent conversation on A's Cast, Athletics GM David Forst said that De Vries "checks all the boxes" and has the potential to be a superstar player.

He's also 18 years old playing in Hi-A at the moment as part of the Lansing Lugnuts' roster. But Forst mentioned that he may not be there for long.

"It's not going to be this year, it may not be next year--there is a learning curve no matter where you are, but I'd like to think he gets his feet wet in Double-A [Midland] before the end of the year, starts there next year, and then he's off and running.

"When you're 18 years old in Hi-A, that's a pretty good sign of things to come. Every guy we've had that's seen this guy--whether it was as an amateur, pro ball, whatever--has said this guy has 'it.'"

How uncommon is it for an 18-year-old to reach Double-A?

There have been a total of 16 players that were in their age 18 season over the past ten years that have played enough to be a "qualified hitter" in the Midwest League, and the results have been a little mixed overall. There have been players like Fernando Tatís Jr., Gleyber Torres, Isaac Paredes and Dylan Carlson, but also some guys that never made it to the show.

In total, there have been 62 hitters to receive at least an at-bat in the league in their age-18 season.

Nine of those 16 qualified hitters have been members of the San Diego Padres farm system, so this also speaks to their own philosophy of being aggressive with their prospects.

Over that same span of years, Ethan Salas is the youngest player to make his debut in the Texas League (Double-A) at age 17 during the 2023 season. Injuries have slowed him down this year, and he has yet to make it up to Triple-A. There have been nine other 18-year-olds that have been in the league since 2015, and none have played more than 14 games (Tatís in 2017).

The Eastern League and Southern Leagues (also Double-A) have had a total of three 18-year-olds play over the past decade. One is Baltimore's top prospect, Samuel Basallo, who ranks No. 8 overall on MLB Pipeline. Jackson Chourio also made a brief appearance in 2022, and Angels' prospect Nelson Rada (No. 9 in their system) did the same last year.

For De Vries to be set to enter that group of players certainly bodes well for his future outlook. On the season in Hi-A, he's hitting a combined .241 with a .350 OBP and a .747 OPS, which includes eight home runs. Since joining the A's system, the shortstop is 7-for-35 (.200) through nine games with a .286 on-base.

This is obviously a small sample size, and he's just had a major life change, so there is no cause for concern at the moment. Part of the reason that he's struggling is that his strikeout rate has spiked to 33.3%, while his walk rate has dipped to 4.8%. Those are both a least 10% swings in the wrong direction, but again, it's an extremely small sample size.

The key takeaway here is that he's going to head up to the Midland RockHounds roster at some point in the coming weeks. The regular season ends for Midland on Sunday, September 14 on the road in Amarillo. Midland won the first half, so they'll also be playing in the postseason.

Right now, the runaway winners of the second half look to be Amarillo, so they will get an off-day on Monday, then play one game in Amarillo (if they hold on). The RockHounds will then get another day off, before taking on the second-half winner in Midland for game two and game three, if necessary. Amarillo is currently eight games up on both Midland and Frisco in the second half standings.