Elephant Rumblings: Youngsters Garnering Attention

Wilson, Thomas and Who’s at your dinner table?

Greetings Athletics Nation friends. Happy day-before-Thanksgiving to everyone. (more on the holiday in a moment). While a few lesser name free agents have signed already, there likely won’t be much serious movement until Juan Soto signs. As always, rumors are flying and there is great speculation on where he’ll decide to play and what the contract will look like. His team announced that this week will be a time to collect offers. It’s fascinating to read how without even knowing what he has in hand and what he’ll receive that his OPT-OUT clauses are already being discussed.

Let’s move on to talk about two youngsters with bright Athletics futures.

Colby Thomas

The A’s drafted Colby Thomas in the third round of the MLB amateur draft out of Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. On July 29, 2022, The Athletics signed him and then assigned him to the Atlantic Coast League Athletics. He has produced at all levels of the minors in his two years. In just more than one thousand at-bats he’s slugged forty-nine homers, driven in 174 runs, and stolen forty bases.

(This story was excerpted from Martín Gallegos’ A’s Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here.)

After performing as arguably the top overall hitting prospect in the entire Athletics organization in 2024, Colby Thomas took his talents overseas to represent his home country.

Representing Team USA in the Premier12 tournament — a competition featuring the top 12 men’s national baseball teams as determined by the WBSC’s ranking system at the end of 2023 — Thomas flexed his impressive power while donning the stars and stripes. The 23-year-old outfielder homered in back-to-back games earlier this week during the super round at the Tokyo Dome against Japan and Chinese Taipei.

Jacob Wilson Preseason Honors

On the latest edition of the MLB Pipeline Podcast, Jim Callis and Jonathan Mayo filled out their hypothetical ballots for the year ahead, selecting the players they believe could take home the Rookie-of-the-Year (ROY)hardware next season.

Thanksgiving Dinner

This morning on “X,” MLB posed the following question. If you have three empty seats at your dinner table, which current MLB players are you inviting to Thanksgiving dinner? Post your answer in the comments below.

Rest in Peace-Rico Carty

Rico Carty played parts of two seasons with the Oakland A’s. Carty played for fifteen major league seasons and won the batting title in 1970 with the Atlanta Braves hitting .366. He died on Saturday at the age of 85.

A’s Coverage:

• Chaos Reigns Supreme In Manfred’s World Of “Expansion”
• Athletics 2024 Season in Review: Ross Stripling
• Athletics 2024 Season In Review: Brandon Bielak
• Rays’ stadium drama will sound familiar to fans abandoned by the A’s ($)
• A’s non-tender righty reliever
• No. 7 prospect Thomas making an impact for Team USA
• Why J.T. Ginn could have an inside track at a rotation spot in 2025
• Former New York Mets prospect signs with A’s
• A trade with the St. Louis Cardinals the Athletics need to make
• A’s should make this former New York Yankee their top target this winter

MLB News & Interest:

• Teams Expected To Make Offers To Juan Soto This Week
• Latest On Rays’ Stadium Situation
• Yankees Interested In Walker Buehler
• What Would It Take To Extend Tarik Skubal?
• Red Sox Reportedly Considering Moving Rafael Devers Off Third Base
• Rico Carty Passes Away
• Today in Baseball History

Best of X: