A's Pitcher From Lucas Erceg Trade Struggles in MLB Debut

At least year's Trade Deadline, the A's traded away setup man Lucas Erceg to the Kansas City Royals for a package that included relief pitcher Will Klein, outfielder Jared Dickey, and right-hander Mason Barnett. It was Barnett that immediately stood out from this group, as he would finish off the 2024 campaign with a 2.61 ERA in seven starts with the Double-A Midland RockHounds.

Heading into this season, Barnett was among the A's top prospects, currently ranking No. 10 on MLB Pipeline, and was seen as someone that could be part of the A's rotation this season. He's struggled a bit in Triple-A Las Vegas this season, though the Pacific Coast League is notoriously a hitter's league.

Batters have hit him a little better this season with a .264 average against, while his strikeout has gone from 28.5% last year to 22.8% this year, and his walk rate has also gone in the wrong direction, up from 8.7% to 11.9%. This has all lead to him holding a 6.13 ERA through 25 games (23 starts).

Barnett was set to be Rule 5 eligible this offseason, and to avoid that the A's were going to have to add him to the 40-man roster in the coming months, so when the injuries in the rotation began adding up, they just made room for him to make his MLB debut, which came on Saturday night against the Texas Rangers.

Barnett was touching 97 in the first inning, needing just 12 pitches to get through the frame clean. In the second, the Rangers got three singles from their first four batters, leading to the first run of the game. Then with runners on first and second and two away, Michael Helman doubled to center to bring home two more, putting Texas up 3-0.

In the third, Texas would get singles from Wyatt Langford and Rowdy Tellez, then with two outs, another double was delivered, this time from Josh Jung, making it 4-0. The A's answered back with solo homers from Lawrence Butler and Brent Rooker, making it 4-2 after three.

Mason Barnett's A's Debut

Barnett worked a clean 1-2-3 fourth inning and recorded his first MLB strikeout, getting Helman with a high fastball. He'd go back out in the top of the fifth, giving up a leadoff homer to Langford, and that is when manager Mark Kotsay went to the bullpen. Barnett's final line would be 4 innings, 8 hits allowed, 5 runs, no walks, and one strikeout.

Kotsay said of his performance, "For a debut, you just go into it not knowing how it's gonna go. He attacked the strike zone. He got beat with pitches in the middle of the plate and up. Early it looked like his fastball had some life and was getting some pop ups, but I think they picked up the release point and stayed on the breaking ball pretty well.

"I think we tried to mix the gameplan, coming in a little bit, [but] Langford ended up turning on that ball. Overall, it's encouraging that he's pounding the strike zone. We just gotta work on getting some deception or just executing pitches better."

Barnett used his fastball 58% of the time, and while it hit 97 in the first, it also dipped down to 92.5 mph at a point, giving him an average of 94.6 mph on the heater for his debut. To Kotsay's point about Texas picking up his release point, the Rangers swung at 19 of the 38 fastballs they saw, and only whiffed twice in 19 tries.

The hope here is that the A's can get him a few more starts before the end of the season to set him up for the 2026 campaign.