Do the A's Have the Next Julio Rodríguez in Their Farm System?

The Athletics farm system has seen a big bump in talent thanks to recent draftees like Jamie Arnold (No. 11 in 2025) and Gage Jump (No. 73 in 2024), in addition to landing MLB's No. 3 overall prospect Leo De Vries in the Mason Miller trade at the Trade Deadline.

And that's to say nothing of Nick Kurtz (No. 4 overall in 2024) or Jacob Wilson's (No. 6 in 2023) emergence at the big-league level. The A's are just collecting so much talent of late, that there are some players that aren't even mentioned among the top-top prospects, but the A's are fairly high on internally.

In his recent newsletter, MLB.com's Martín Gallegos wrote about the emergence of A's minor-league outfielder Junior Perez, a player that ranks outside of the team's top 30 prospects on both MLB Pipeline and FanGraphs. Perhaps that will change following the season.

Within the newsletter, A's manager Mark Kotsay is quoted as comparing Perez to Seattle Mariners superstar Julio Rodríguez. "He’s accomplished and more polished [than Perez], but Julio Rodríguez is a guy. It’s a really high comp, but he runs, plays good defense and he’s got pop. There’s a lot of swing-and-miss. Hopefully, we can clean that up. But there are some similarities."

How the A's acquired Junior Perez

Perez was acquired by the A's in the Jorge Mateo deal with the San Diego Padres as a player to be named later back in 2020. If he were to end up being J-Rod-esque, this wouldn't quite be the Houston Astros getting Yordan Alvarez from the Los Angeles Dodgers for Josh Fields, but it could be in that same realm.

Perez, 24, began the season back at Double-A Midland, where he spent 97 games in 2024, batting .220 with a .304 OBP and a .676 OPS. This season he made it into another 95 games with the RockHounds and batted .201 with a .318 on-base, and upped his home run total from eight last year to 14 this season.

On August 1 he was promoted to Triple-A Las Vegas, and he has really taken off. In 26 games thus far, Perez is batting .304 with a .439 OBP and has slugged 11 home runs, giving him 25 on the year. His eight stolen bases also ups his theft total to 24 on the year. He's completely turned a corner in his month with the Aviators.

He's even dropped his strikeout rate a touch, going from 28.6% in Double-A to 27.2% with Vegas.

Now, it's hard to compare Perez to Rodríguez, given that they're both 24 years old, and J-Rod has been an All Star in three of his four MLB seasons, in addition to being the 2021 Rookie of the Year. He's been doing it at the big league level. But in terms of tools, Perez does seem to line up pretty well with the Mariners star, which is more so what the A's manager was alluding to.

J-Rod has been a consistent 20-20 player, averaging 27 home runs and 27.5 stolen bases per season, which includes a 32-37 campaign in 2022. This year he could potentially add another 30-30 season, as he's sitting on 28 homers and 24 stolen bases. The A's would gladly add that kind of consistency.

Tough decisions will be made this offseason

Perez will be Rule 5 eligible this offseason, so the A's will have to add him to the 40-man roster in the coming weeks, which could lead to some interesting decisions being made with who stays and who is either non-tendered, DFA'd, or traded.

In addition to Denzel Clarke being the best defensive player in baseball in center, the club has also extended Lawrence Butler, and has been rolling with Tyler Soderstrom in left. There has been some chatter about moving Soderstrom to the hot corner during the offseason, which could open up an outfield spot.

The likely names on the short-term list would be veteran JJ Bleday or rookie Colby Thomas as a potential platoon, while Henry Bolte is another power/speed prospect that has been tearing up the minors. Bolte is in his age 21 season (turned 22 in August), and is batting .300 with a .404 OBP in 34 games with Vegas, adding two homers and 13 steals.

Bolte has totaled nine home runs and a whopping 44 stolen bases this season. As he continues to mature, there is expected to be more pop in his bat. The A's offense could be very intimidating before long with any number of combinations.