Nick Kurtz Named American League Player and Rookie of the Month

For most of the 2025 season, it was looking like A's shortstop Jacob Wilson was going to run away with the American League's Rookie of the Year award. He was second in the league in batting average behind Aaron Judge for most of the year, and was voted as the starting shortstop in last month's All Star game.

Then, his teammate Nick Kurtz caught fire. It was announced today that he not only won the AL Rookie of the Month award, but he also won MLB's Player of the Month award. Hard to argue with the numbers he put up, which included a four-homer performance against the Houston Astros. That led him to recording nearly a 1.000 slugging percentage over the month. Not OPS--just slugging.

Nit too long before he had his historic night in Houston, we wrote that he is charging his was to being the best offensive first baseman in baseball, and he just keeps adding accolades that make that harder to argue.

Here is the full press release from the team on his achievement.

WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A’s first baseman Nick Kurtz has been named the American League Player and Rookie of the Month for July. This is the third consecutive month an A’s player has won AL Rookie of the Month and the second straight month Kurtz has won the award. Shortstop Jacob Wilson won Rookie of the Month for the month of May. This marks the 12th time that a player has won both awards in the same calendar month.

In July, Kurtz hit .395 with a 1.433 OPS, 13 doubles, 11 home runs, 27 RBI, and 25 extra-base hits. For the month, he led the American League in average, on-base-percentage (.480), slugging (.953), OPS, doubles, RBI, extra-base hits, and total bases (82).

Additionally, he was tied for first in home runs, tied for second in runs scored (24), and ranked second in hits (34). On July 25 at Houston, Kurtz went 6-for-6 with six runs scored, a double, and four home runs, becoming the 20th player and first rookie in Major League history with a four-homer game. 

Kurtz becomes the 10th player to win both Player of the Month and Rookie of the Month in the same calendar month, joining Ryan Braun (July 2007), Buster Posey (July 2010), Mike Trout (July 2012), Yasiel Puig (June 2013), Jose Abreu (April and July 2014), Gary Sanchez (August 2016), Aaron Judge (June and September 2017), Aristedes Aquino (August 2019) and Wyatt Langford (September 2024). 

In June, Kurtz hit .264 with a .926 OPS, seven home runs, 17 RBI, seven walks, and 10 extra-base hits. For the year, he is hitting .304 with a 1.030 OPS, 23 home runs and 61 RBI. He leads all rookies in home runs, RBI and OPS (min. 100 PA). Since his Major League debut on April 23, his OPS ranks second in the majors, behind only Aaron Judge (1.138) and ahead of Shohei Ohtani (1.004). 

Prior to the 2025 season, the last A’s player to win a monthly award was Mason Miller who was named Reliever of the Month for March/April 2024. Before this season, the last A’s player to win AL Rookie of the Month was Zack Gelof in August 2023.