{"id":694565,"date":"2026-05-09T18:12:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T18:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/694565\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T18:12:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T18:12:17","slug":"athletics-nick-kurtz-leads-one-of-best-young-cores-in-mlb-for-very-fun-reason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/694565\/","title":{"rendered":"Athletics’ Nick Kurtz leads one of best young cores in MLB for very fun reason"},"content":{"rendered":"

Athletics’ Nick Kurtz leads one of best young cores in MLB for very fun reason<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While the Athletics<\/a> might have gone through some tumultuous times lately, there is one massive positive about the franchise right now: their future.<\/p>\n

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At 20-18, the Athletics<\/a> are atop the AL West right now, but the main talking point for this team isn’t their record right now, but rather the future of this team being so bright.<\/p>\n

As Kerry Miller of Bleacher Report<\/a> highlighted, the Athletics’ young core, led by Nick Kurtz<\/a>, is one of the best in baseball.<\/p>\n

“3. Athletics. Core Four: Nick Kurtz (23), Jacob Wilson<\/a> (24), Tyler Soderstrom<\/a> (24), Lawrence Butler<\/a> (25),” Miller writes.<\/p>\n

Miller ranked the A’s young core as the third-best in all of baseball, and it’s thanks to Kurtz and company being great young sluggers. This well-deserved ranking is even more fun when considering that these A’s players are actually the future of the team.<\/p>\n

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Why the young Athletics core is a very fun group<\/p>\n

While there are plenty of reasons why this young core for the Athletics is a fun group, one of the main reasons is that nearly all of these players have already signed long-term deals with the team.<\/p>\n

Butler signed his deal a year ago, while Wilson and Soderstrom just inked extensions for at least the next seven years.<\/p>\n

The only one the A’s are waiting on is Kurtz, and even though he’s not signed yet, he’s under club control for the next five years.<\/p>\n

This young core for the Athletics is actually going to be on the roster for the foreseeable future and is under contract at realistic rates.<\/p>\n

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Some of the other teams around MLB have good young cores, but there might be trade speculation about them now or in the near future. That’s not the case with this young A’s core.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a05 reasons to believe in Jordan Walker’s breakout for Cardinals<\/a><\/p>\n

This kind of situation doesn’t happen often. The A’s have a few very good players, 25 years old and under, who are under club control for a while.<\/p>\n

If these players can continue to develop, and the A’s can find some better pitching, it would not be a surprise if the Athletics were back in the postseason in the near future.<\/p>\n

But what makes this even more impressive is that Leo Ve Drives, the top prospect they got from the San Diego Padres<\/a> in the Mason Miller<\/a> trade, has yet to make his big-league debut. He could make things even better for the A’s in the very near future as well.<\/p>\n

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It’s not been said for some time, but as things currently stand, the future of the Athletics is looking bright, and it’s thanks to this young core of 25-and-under players.<\/p>\n

More MLB news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Athletics’ Nick Kurtz leads one of best young cores in MLB for very fun reason originally appeared on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":585034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2391],"tags":[537,5,1950,4679,2601,4810,1101,4,3226,459,89,793,18,1949,544],"class_list":["post-694565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-athletics","tag-athletics","tag-baseball","tag-jacob-wilson","tag-jordan-walker","tag-kerry-miller","tag-lawrence-butler","tag-mason-miller","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-athletics","tag-nick-kurtz","tag-red-sox","tag-roman-anthony","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-the-athletics","tag-tyler-soderstrom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116545974693288921","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=694565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/585034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}