The Active A’s: Tyler Soderstrom Earns Contract Extension

Extending Soderstrom this offseason made all the sense in the world. Another year similar to 2025 would only raise his price and perhaps push him and his agent towards playing out his team control and testing free agency in a few years.

Instead, the A’s realized they are building something special and decided to invest in one of their young core pieces. A player that they drafted, developed, moved around the diamond, and finally found a home in the outfield.

A player with the type of offensive upside that does not come around every draft and one that you need to help propel your team out of the depths they have been in for the better part of the past five seasons.

The biggest questions surrounding Soderstrom, as a prospect, was where he would play defensively and if the swing and miss would hamper his value. Well, he’s already won a Gold Glove in left and has cut down on his swing-and-miss in each of his first three seasons.

The improvements we have seen year over year, small sample or not, are exactly the type of improvements you want to see from a young, developing player. Soderstrom has done everything the A’s have asked him to do, and then some. The best part? I think there’s still another level that he can reach.

Soderstrom’s trajectory has been on the rise which led many to believe his fate with the A’s would be like many before him. Put up great numbers, play out an arbitration year or two, and be shipped off for cheaper prospects. Sean Murphy, Matt Chapman, Matt Olson, and several others have all been examples of this in the past.

But, the A’s are finally starting to operate like a team that wants to win.

What This Means for the Athletics

For the A’s, they have cemented another piece of their core going forward. With Soderstrom locked up, they now have Rooker, Butler, Wilson, Kurtz, and Soderstrom under contract or team control for the foreseeable future.

In fact, the only piece that remains in question is Shea Langeliers, who is another extension candidate.

The moves not only gives the A’s stability, but cost certainty as the move forward building towards the playoffs. A team that has had to monitor their budget more closely than others now has an exact number that they can plug into their budget which will help them have a clearer picture of what is available to address other needs.

Let’s not overlook the obvious. The way that baseball fans view the Athletics is truly starting to change. For years fans have plucked a name or two from the A’s roster and inserted those players in mock off seasons. Well, those days might be over.

That’s not to say the A’s have completely shed the cheap allegations from years prior, but they are certainly making steps in the right direction.

Although the moves they have made so far this winter improve the team, more must be done. We are still talking about a team who has won more than 70 games once in the past four seasons. The pitching staff still lacks high-end talent and depth and the bullpen is a mixed bag. But, the lineup is one of the more interesting ones in the American League.

I do think the way ownership treated the final few years in Oakland was an example of sabotaging the team in order to make the best case as to why Oakland was no longer a fit for a professional team. Hell, the A’s aren’t the first professional team to flee Oakland, for better or for worse.

Ridding that identity would not be easy and in order to start fresh they had to show change was truly going to happen. So far, they have.

Final Thoughts

As the A’s continue to inch towards Vegas and distance themselves from Oakland change is the only thing that can convince fans that they will not see the same old A’s only now with brighter lights. The moves over the past year or so were necessary steps in redefining what this organization can be, but still only the first step.

The Athletics have drafted and developed better than most teams over the past five seasons and now they need to show they can add talent and round out a team in more ways than one. Showing agents and players that winning is once again the priority certainty helps.

In order to truly change years of incompetence into hope moves like a Soderstrom extension need to not be a surprise, but a standard.