{"id":371621,"date":"2025-12-25T20:29:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T20:29:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/371621\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T20:29:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T20:29:06","slug":"as-sign-tyler-soderstrom-to-seven-year-extension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/371621\/","title":{"rendered":"A’s Sign Tyler Soderstrom To Seven-Year Extension"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Athletics and Tyler Soderstrom<\/a> have agreed to an extension, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN<\/a>. It\u2019s a seven-year deal worth $86MM, the largest guarantee in franchise history. There\u2019s an eighth-year club option and the deal can max out at $131MM including that option and some escalators.<\/p>\n

Soderstrom becomes the latest core offensive piece whom the A\u2019s lock up on a long-term deal. They extended\u00a0Brent Rooker<\/a> and\u00a0Lawrence Butler<\/a> on respective $60MM and $65.5MM guarantees last winter. Soderstrom tops those by a decent margin, becoming the largest contract in organizational history in the process. Their three-year, $67MM free agent deal with\u00a0Luis Severino<\/a> had previously been that high-water mark.<\/p>\n

The lefty-hitting Soderstrom was a first-round pick in 2020. He\u2019d been an excellent offensive player dating back to high school. The biggest question was where he\u2019d fit on the other side of the ball. While Soderstrom was drafted as a catcher, most scouts felt he\u2019d need to move off the position. That has essentially been borne out, as his only 15 MLB starts behind the dish came during his 2023 rookie season. The fallback for poor defensive catchers is generally first base, and that\u2019s indeed where Soderstrom spent the early part of his big league tenure.<\/p>\n

Soderstrom struggled over a 45-game sample as a rookie. His .233\/.315\/.429 slash across 213 plate appearances in 2024 was a significant step forward but hadn\u2019t yet put him alongside Rooker, Butler and\u00a0Shea Langeliers<\/a> as clear members of the A\u2019s long-term core. Soderstrom entered this year with a little pressure in the form of 2024 fourth overall pick\u00a0Nick Kurtz<\/a>, a college first baseman who was expected to hit his way to the majors very quickly.<\/p>\n

While Kurtz would do just that, Soderstrom\u2019s breakout \u201925 campaign ensured the A\u2019s couldn\u2019t afford to take him out of the lineup either. The 24-year-old was one of the league\u2019s best hitters in the first few weeks of the season. He connected on nine home runs with a .284\/.349\/.560 slash before the end of April. Soderstrom was tied for fourth in MLB (behind only\u00a0Aaron Judge<\/a>,\u00a0Cal Raleigh<\/a> and\u00a0Eugenio Su\u00e1rez<\/a>) in homers through the season\u2019s first month. By the time Kurtz forced his way to the majors on April 21, Soderstrom was locked into the middle of Mark Kotsay\u2019s batting order.<\/p>\n

That presented the A\u2019s with a positional dilemma. Rooker is an everyday designated hitter. The 6\u20195\u2033, 240-pound Kurtz wasn\u2019t going to be able to play anywhere other than first base. Despite his catching\/first base background, Soderstrom is a solid athlete and average runner. The A\u2019s threw him into left field on the fly even though he\u2019d had no professional experience there. They presumably expected to live with some defensive growing pains to keep his bat in the lineup.<\/p>\n

More to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Athletics and Tyler Soderstrom have agreed to an extension, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN. It\u2019s a seven-year…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85,20541],"class_list":["post-371621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-tyler-soderstrom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}