Disclosures of Value: Tyler Soderstrom | Baseball prospectus

Translated by Pepe Latorre

We return with the series for another year Revelations of value! As a reminder for this series, I’m going to profile some late-round hitters who far outperformed their draft position. Explain that I will be using the NFBC no-bid drafts for the preseason ADP and the NFBC Player Ratings tool as reference. FanGraph for dollar value earned classification. Let’s get started!

Tyler Soderstrom1B/J, Athletics
ADP: 269.1
Dollars earned in the ranking: 68

Probably the most impressive thing Soderstrom did in 2025 was adapt to left field (a position he had never played before) and immediately become a standout defenseman at that new position.

Thanks to the good manners he showed in left field, along with the rise of Nick Kurtz at first base and improving Shea Langeliers As a receiver, Soderstrom appears to have found his long-term defensive home. This could also mean we’re looking at his final year of eligibility for first base in fantasy leagues. Any chance that he could be considered as a catcher again is gone.

However, there are still reasons to be very excited about the 24-year-old’s future prospects.

Soderstrom started off strong this season, hitting two home runs on Opening Day. It was the first of his three (!) two-homer games in his first 17 games of the season. He struggled in May and June with a .235/.329/.352 batting line, five home runs and a wRC+ of 91, but Soderstrom bounced back, hitting .305/.359/.530 ​​with 11 home runs and a wRC+ of 143 the rest of the way. Soderstrom finished as the No. 18 outfielder and No. 12 first baseman in fantasy leagues. Not bad for a player who often went undrafted in 12-team leagues.

During his time in the minors, Soderstrom struggled hitting. His strikeout rate never dipped below 22.4% at any level and totaled 25.5%. These numbers aren’t alarming, but they can generally be expected to increase once a player reaches the Major Leagues, as was the case in his 2023 debut, when he struck out at a 31.2% rate. That figure fell to an acceptable 24.9% in 2024 and continued to decline in 2025 to 22.6%, just above the League average of 22.2%. Here is his strikeout rate based on 50 consecutive plate appearances.

Soderstrom also improved his contact rates during the season. He scored 23.4% in the first three months, but that percentage improved to 21.5% in the last three months. At the same time, his average exit speed over the past three months has been 150 km/h, compared to 150 km/h in the first three months.

In 2024, when Soderstrom posted a very good wRC+ of 114, along with a 49.6% hard hit rate and 14.6% barrel rate, almost all of his damage came against fastballs. The youngster hit .315 with a solid .620 slugging percentage and hit seven of his nine home runs against fast pitches. This helped offset his issues with slow and breaking pitches. In 2025, Soderstrom was slightly worse but still good against fastballs, hitting .296 with a .471 slugging percentage. However, it was his breakthrough against breaking (blue) and slow (green) balls that really helped him reach the next level.


The images above are from Baseball savant. For formatting reasons, I cut out some of the figures. But to further emphasize Soderstrom’s vast improvement on breaking and slow pitches, I’d like to add that he hit eleven home runs against breaking balls and six against slow pitches in 2025. This accounted for more than two-thirds of his 25 home runs. However, in 2024, he didn’t hit a single home run against a breaking ball and only two on slow pitches.

In addition, Soderstrom had a positive run value against all eight pitches he faced more than six times (his run value was zero against six pitches). In 2024, he only had a positive run value against three of eight pitches. His lowest wOBA against any of those eight pitches in 2025 was .339, against curveballs. By comparison, the three qualifying players who achieved a total wOBA of .339 in 2025 were Gunnar Henderson, Spencer Torkelson j Taylor district.

In other words, good luck attacking Soderstrom with… well, anything.

If you’re looking for Soderstrom’s downside going forward, you might want to consider his hitting profile. He hits the ball regularly, hitting 48.3% on ground balls in 2025 and 49.2% in his career. His strike angle in 2025 was only 7.9 degrees. Soderstrom, for a potential hitter, also doesn’t hit much on his natural side. Last season he shot well below average at 33.2% on his natural side, and his natural side fly ball percentage was consistently low, at just 12.1% in 2025. This figure ranked him 220th out of 251 qualified hitters.

His way of hitting the ball (with his Straight% and his Oppo% above average) reduces his home run potential. It probably means he will never reach 40, even with his excellent contact quality and a favorable home base hit.

That said, I think his hitting profile is positive overall. Soderstrom significantly increased his line drive percentage to 24.6% in 2025, right around league average and well above the 18.2% he posted in 2024. Additionally, he rarely flies the ball up, with a 3.6% flyball rate in 2025, well below league average. These qualities, combined with his improved strikeout rate, mean Soderstrom could remain an asset to the batting average in 2026.

I’m not sure anyone would have predicted this when he was a rookie, but keep in mind that Soderstrom has been very young for his level at every stage of his career. His all-field approach, the improvement in line drive speed, the reduction in strikeouts, the big strides against breaking and slow pitches… It all points to a young hitter reaching his full potential.

The Athletics’ temporary home, Sutter Health Park, was the second-best offensive stadium in 2025, behind only Coors Field (based on Park Factors rankings). Baseball savant). He ranked 6th in home runs. Soderstrom performed slightly better on the road, though, with a 33-point higher OPS and five more dunks, meaning he didn’t even take full advantage of his favorable environment.

Soderstrom has an ADP of 93.5 in early NFBC drafts. He is the No. 11 first baseman and No. 22 outfielder on the candidate list. You might be looking for someone with a little more speed at that point in your draft, but that’s the only reason you might pass on Soderstrom at that price after he finished as a top-70 player in 2025.