Soderstrom becomes the latest core offensive tackle signed by the A’s to a long-term deal. They extended Brent Rooker And Laurens Butler on $60MM and $65.5MM guarantees respectively last winter. Soderstrom surpasses this by a considerable margin, becoming the largest contract in club history. Their three-year, $67 million free agent deal Luis Severino had been that highlight before.
The left-handed Soderstrom was a first-round pick in 2020. He has been an excellent offensive player since high school. The biggest question was where he would fit on the other side of the ball. While Soderstrom was drafted as a catcher, most scouts believed he should be moved from the position. That’s essentially been confirmed, as his only 15 MLB starts behind the dish came during his rookie season of 2023. The fallback for bad defensive catchers is generally first base, and that is indeed where Soderstrom spent the early part of his big league stint.
Soderstrom struggled over a 45-match streak as a rookie. His .233/.315/.429 batting over 213 plate appearances in 2024 was an important step forward, but still didn’t put him next to Rooker, Butler and Shea Langeliers as clear members of the core of the A. Soderstrom came into this year with some pressure in the form of the fourth overall pick for 2024 Nick Kurtza college first baseman who was expected to make his way to the majors very quickly.
While Kurtz would do just that, Soderstrom’s breakout campaign in ’25 meant the A’s couldn’t afford to take him out of the lineup either. The 24-year-old was one of the league’s best hitters in the opening weeks of the season. Before the end of April, he hit nine home runs with a .284/.349/.560 slash. Soderstrom tied for fourth in the MLB (behind only Aaron Judge, Cal Raleigh And Eugenio Suarez) in home runs through the first month of the season. By the time Kurtz made his way to the majors on April 21, Soderstrom was in the middle of Mark Kotsay’s batting order.
That presented the A’s with a positional dilemma. Rooker is an everyday designated hitter. The 6-foot-2, 240-pound Kurtz wouldn’t be able to play anywhere other than first base. Despite his background as a catcher/first base, Soderstrom is a solid athlete and an average runner. The A’s immediately threw him into left field, even though he had no professional experience there. They probably expected to have to live with some defensive growing pains to keep his bat in the lineup.
Soderstrom dramatically exceeded these expectations. He rated 10 runs better than an average left fielder, as measured by defensive runs saved. Statcast rated his range five plays above average. Soderstrom finished the season as a Gold Glove finalist at a position he had never played five months earlier. He joins Butler as core players in the outfield, ideally in a corner tandem flanking the defensive specialist Denzel Clarke in the middle.
The increased defensive responsibility didn’t affect Soderstrom’s rhythm at the plate. He struggled between May and June, but rebounded with a .305/.359/.530 over the final four months of the season. Soderstrom finished with an overall batting line of .276/.346/.474 while ranking fourth on the team with 25 home runs. He improved his contact rate by six percentage points, holding up against same-handed pitching (.270/.315/.423) while hitting off right-handers (.278/.356/.491). The outbreak also wasn’t the result of the A’s playing half of their games in hitter-friendly Sutter Heath Park. Soderstrom had an OPS north of .800 both at home and on the road.
There was speculation last summer that the A’s might trade Soderstrom for a controllable starting pitcher. The extension firmly takes that off the table and puts him alongside Kurtz, Rooker, Butler and Jacob Wilson in an excellent attacking corps. The first three are signed through at least 2029. Kurtz and Wilson are under team control for five seasons. Langeliers still has two seasons of arbitration rights.
Soderstrom had been under club control for four seasons. He was a year closer to free agency than Butler was at the time of his extension, which explains why the price was just over $20 million higher. Soderstrom tops the $57.5 million guarantee for the Royals third baseman Michael Garcia received in the same class of service, but that deal only extended KC’s control period by two seasons.
The A’s have postponed the extensions of Rooker and Butler, with the highest salaries corresponding to their planned move to Las Vegas in 2028. The salary breakdown for Soderstrom’s deal has not yet been reported. The A’s had a projected payroll of around $87 million before today, as calculated by Grid source. That’s $12 million more than where they opened the ’25 season. General manager David Forst told Martín Gallegos of MLB.com last week that the team was looking to upgrade a rotation that ranked 27th in ERA and 25th in strikeout rate.
Image courtesy of Charles LeClaire, Imagn Images.
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