Nick Kurtz is Charging His Way to Being Baseball's Best First Baseman

The Athletics selected Nick Kurtz with the fourth overall pick in the 2024 MLB Draft, and after a total of 33 minor-league games, the 22-year old was called up to make his MLB debut. To say the first baseman has been impressive would be an understatement. He's well on his way to being the best offensive first baseman in the league.

We're dealing with small sample sizes, given that he's played in all of 61 MLB games in his career, but it's impossible to deny that he's a special talent. In those 61 games he's recorded 248 plate appearances and hit 18 home runs. That is one home run per 13.77 plate appearances. If he were to collect 600 PA's over the course of a season at that rate, he'd have a 44 home run year.

Again, he played a matter of weeks in the minor leagues and is far from a finished product. While pitchers will adjust to him and get a better idea of how to approach him, Kurtz was selected for his advanced approach at the plate, so he will be able to handle those adjustments in stride.

Nick Kurtz is averaging a home run per 13.5 plate appearances. Over the course of 600 plate appearances, that’s 44 bombs. He was selected by the A’s last year. Imagine how good he’ll be when he’s faced these guys more often.
— Jason Burke (@ByJasonB) July 20, 2025

It's also not like he's purely excelling, either. He's batting .275 with a .348 on-base, which are tremendous for a rookie, but he's also striking out in 32.66% of his plate appearances. Even with that high strikeout rate, he's producing, and strikeouts have never been a big part of his game. You have to figure those will drop a bit as he continues to gain experience.

Since he returned from a brief IL stint in June, Kurtz has been on an absolute heater, mashing 13 home runs in 139 plate appearances, which is one every 10.69 PA's. For context, MLB home run leader Cal Raleigh is averaging a home run every 11.34 plate appearances. Again, that's a small sample size for Kurtz, but shows some of the potential that he has, and gives A's fans something to be excited about for the future.

Among first basemen, Kurtz is tied for fourth in home runs, funnily enough with Matt Olson and Tyler Soderstrom with 18 on the year. Topping the leaderboard is Pete Alonso of the Mets with 21, while Detroit's Spencer Torkelson is right there with him. One back of that duo is Michael Busch of the Chicago Cubs.

Kurtz has played at least 30 games fewer than each of those players ahead of him, and given the pace he's on, he'd have 31 home runs if he'd played as much as Polar Pete. So home run wise, you could make an argument that Kurtz may have the most pop out of any bat at the position.

Entering Sunday's games, Kurtz ranked third in wRC+ among first basemen with at least 100 plate appearances, putting up a 150 (100 is league average). The two names ahead of him are Busch (160) and Alonso (151). His on-base being roughly 30 points below each of them plays a role here, and his strikeout rate is roughly 10% higher than both as well.

These both figure to be facets of the game that he'll be working on during the offseason.

In terms of WAR, which is more of a counting stat where more playing time means more chances to add to your total, Kurtz ranks No.11 in fWAR among first basemen with 1.5. This is the one stat that he'd still be behind in just a touch, even he'd he'd received more playing time. Over the course of 99 games (Alonso's total), Kurtz would be at 2.4 fWAR, with the leaders (Alonso, Olson, Busch) sitting at 2.8.

Olson's defense is what vaults him into that category, and should be another part of Kurtz's game that he works on a bit during the winter months.

All this is to say that Nick Kurtz is tremendous and is already becoming one of the bright young stars of not only the Athletics, but also of MLB. It wouldn't be surprising to see Kurtz participating in the Home Run Derby as early as next year, given that he can slug bombs with the best of them.