2024 Season in Review: Ryan Noda

The A’s ran out of patience for the ever-patient walk machine.

It’s a new week and we got a new player review, this time for successful Rule 5 draftee Ryan Noda. In spite of a promising 2023 rookie season, 2024 was a very different story for the disciplined first baseman. After a feeble first month, Noda got stuck in Triple-A for nearly the whole rest of the season and is now headed south — both geographically and in the division, heh — to the Los Angeles Angels.

How Was He Acquired?

Following an almost league-worst 60-win season in 2022, the Athletics received the second pick of the Rule 5 Draft and used it to pry Noda away from the Los Angeles Dodgers’ minor league purgatory. He’d proven consistently to be a consistent source of patience and power throughout his career and just needed an opportunity to prove it at the major league level. Already 27 years old, the A’s were betting that he’d be ready to be a major contributor right away as he was entering his physical prime.

The pick was as much as you can hope for from a Rule 5 draft pick, something the A’s front office has repeatedly proven adept at, especially with first-baseman-outfielders — a la Mark Canha, Nate Freiman, Over 128 games and 495 plate appearances, Noda hit a strong .229/.364/.406 that was 18% above league average, buoyed by a very Noda-esque 15.6% walk rate. That ranked fifth-highest in the league for batters with more than 450 plate appearances, right above that year’s AL MVP Shohei Ohtani.

What were the expectations?

The A’s expected much of the same from Noda, who seemed like the definition of a high-floor, low-ceiling player. Even when he’s not making a ton of contact, his elite plate discipline, in theory, should sustain his value. As long as he’s hitting above the Mendoza Line, he should be contributing enough to earn his roster spot.

2024 Results

At the start of the season, the A’s made Noda the team’s starting first baseman, hoping he’d solidify himself as a keeper. Unfortunately, some much-publicized offseason swing tinkering led to a futile first month. In 96 plate appearances, the southpaw fumbled to a meager .447 OPS and only mustered one homerun, despite hitting 16 the previous season. That led to the A’s optioning him to Triple-A at the beginning of May, at which he seemed to rediscover his mojo, hitting a vintage .224/.391/.486 that was great even by Las Vegas’ hitter-friendly standards.

In spite of his seeming success, the A’s called up player after player whose names were not Ryan Noda. With Tyler Soderstrom finally hitting his stride before Seth Brown had a magical mojo rediscovery of his own, Noda got buried too far down the lefty first baseman depth chart to breathe any Oakland air. It wasn’t all the way until September 10 that he finally got the call back up, during he received a mere 11 at-bats before being optioned again just a week before the end of the season. The A’s had signaled clearly that they’d ran out of patience for the ever-patient walk machine and no-longer had him in their long-term plans.

2025 Outlook

Those signals turned into action in the offseason when the A’s designated him for assignment and the Angels claimed him. With Anaheim’s dearth of major league talent, Noda should be able to find plenty of opportunity to once again prove he belongs in the majors. Ironically, the roster spot the A’s opened up with Noda’s departure will probably be taken up by another Rule 5 draftee.

All in all, Noda’s Oakland tenure was surprisingly both brief and successful. He was not long ago considered a surefire member of the A’s next competitive core, but he’ll unfortunately end up being closer to a footnote than a cornerstone of this period of the franchise. He was personally one of my favorite bright spots on a 2023 roster that possessed very few of them and I wish the A’s had given him a longer leash as he’s exactly the type of undervalued player the franchise prides itself on finding. Nevertheless, he’ll likely be putting up consistent 3-WAR seasons over the next years for a division rival and I’ll be happy for him.