Carlos Cortes was a quiet under-the-radar signing to a minor league deal. He put up pretty gaudy numbers in his late season stint with the A\u2019s. The question is, will he go the \u201cfleeting success\u201d way of another MiLB free agent with initials CC, Conor Capel? Or might he be a key cog in the 2026 outfield?<\/p>\n
The A\u2019s signed Cortes to a minor league deal in November, 2024, from the Mets\u2019 organization. Once a 3rd round pick, Cortes had some pedigree but had never reached the big leagues and was stalling in the minors with wRC+ under 100 three years running. He was 27 when the A\u2019s signed him, and had recently turned 28 when he debuted in July, 2025.<\/p>\n
What Were The Expectations?<\/p>\n
Mostly, Cortes was seen as AAA depth behind LH hitters Lawrence Butler and JJ Bleday. He was seen as a useful piece to have ready for a call up but undoubtedly expectatations were tempered about how much he would contribute.<\/p>\n
Cortes\u2019 call up could hardly have gone better. In his debut he recorded both his first major league hit and outfield assist and he didn\u2019t really look back. Certainly he had one of the A\u2019s single best plate appearances, a marathon battle that ended on something like the 312th pitch with a hit.<\/p>\n
Overall, in 42 games Cortes batted .309\/.323\/.543, 132 wRC+ and handled the outfield well (+1 DRS\/+1 OAA). He only walked 3% of the time but he did have numerous epic plate appearances that saw a lot of pitches and were impressive in their own right.<\/p>\n
Cortes\u2019 future with the A\u2019s is clouded by the unexpected success Tyler Soderstrom had moving to LF. That gives the A\u2019s not one but two COFers who bat LH and figure to play every day. A strong regression candidate with his .347 BABIP and .318 xwOBA against his actual .363 wOBA, likely Cortes will hang out at AAA in case one of Soderstrom\/Butler hits the IL.<\/p>\n
Or, Cortes might make a case for himself to be one of the back up OFers, perhaps in tandem with a RH batting true CFer like Junior Perez. Cortes could be a valuable pinch hitter to have as a card to play and the team doesn\u2019t have a natural LH alternative on the 40 man roster \u2014 Perez, Colby Thomas, and even Brent Rooker all bat RH.<\/p>\n
Do you believe in Cortes? Inquiring minds want to know\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carlos Cortes was a quiet under-the-radar signing to a minor league deal. He put up pretty gaudy numbers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[170488,179462,257,363,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-364618","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-as-commentary-and-analysis","9":"tag-as-news","10":"tag-general","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}