Athletics announce signing of 20 draft picks

Oakland signed all but one of their draftees

The Oakland Athletics officially announced their signing class for the 2024 MLB Draft, and as expected they landed all but one of their draftees. The A’s had a huge bonus pool to work with and got three major talents at the top of the draft, most notably fourth overall pick Nick Kurtz. Kurtz is a well-rounded first base prospect who figures to advance quickly and slot well into Oakland’s lineup, where he could be a middle-of-the-lineup for many years.

Overall I am a fan of this draft and signing class. The main trio at the top of Kurtz, Tommy White, and Gage Jump are all players I am higher on than consensus — especially Jump. Jump was terrific for the LSU Tigers in his first season back from Tommy John surgery, and I am a huge fan of these undersized pitchers with carrying fastball shapes and flat vertical approach angles as their fastballs are often underrated by traditional scouting. All in all he has a deep arsenal that I am confident will fit in the middle of a big league rotation and I feel he is immediately Oakland’s second-best pitching prospect.

Looking deeper in the draft there are a handful of picks I’m a huge fan of past the day one portion. Oakland has done a great job at recognizing high-level athletes with hit tool questions that they feel will develop better in a professional system and Rodney Green could be the next of that crop. The swing and miss is scary, but his combination of power and speed is tantalizing out of a fourth round pick, hit bat speed is above average, and Oakland should have a pretty easy first adjustment by quieting the hitch in his swing.

Two rounds later Oakland took Josiah Romeo, and I’m a bit of a sucker for the athletic, multi-sport prep pitchers. Often once they settle down and play one sport and on one side of the ball their traits go through the roof, and Romeo has all of the tools to be a big league starter. I’m a bit more on the fence about fifth rounder Sam Stuhr, though I do appreciate a lot of his traits. He has a big arm and a mix of pitches that I think can translate into being a middle-of-the-rotation starter, but his command is poor and Oakland hasn’t had a ton of success in teaching command. Stuhr struggles to stay consistently on line with his front half, so most of his issues are mechanical which would be relatively fixable as command issues go.