A month before Nick Kurtz put the exclamation mark on his Rookie of the Year campaign when he became the youngest player ever to homer four times in a game, Athletics slugger Brent Rooker already knew what he was witnessing was unlike anything he had seen from a 22-year-old.
The Athletics returned home from a road trip to host an Astros team that employed two of Major League Baseball’s most overpowering late-inning relievers in Bryan Abreu and Josh Hader. On June 16, Rooker was standing on first base in a tie game in the bottom of the ninth inning when Kurtz pulverized a slider from Abreu, pulling it 111.7 mph off the bat and 447 feet out to right field at Sutter Health Park for a walk-off home run.
Three days later, Kurtz walked off Hader in a similar manner, taking the Astros closer 416 feet out to dead center.
It was one of just two home runs that Hader allowed to a left-handed hitter all year, and it came off the bat of a player who was less than a year removed from his last college game.
“I think a lot of our eyes were opened,” Rooker told me months later, “to just kind of how special he is.”
It was around that time that Kurtz transformed from an intriguing prospect into the best hitter in Major League Baseball. From June 15 through the end of the season, Kurtz led MLB in both OPS (1.112) and wrC+ (200), hitting 100% better than league average and posting numbers that topped even what Yankees star Aaron Judge accomplished over that time. It was one of the best second halves ever, a remarkable feat for any player, let alone one who was drafted the season prior and had played in only 32 minor-league games.
“There’s obviously a little bit of pressure added on top of that because, ‘He moved up fast, is he ready, is he not?’” Kurtz told me in September, a day before the A’s put up 17 runs on the Angels. “That’s kind of why you do it, you know? Yeah, it’s tough, but it’s what makes it fun and kind of the challenge of it all. All right, how good can I be with all that pressure?”
Nick Kurtz hit some highlight-reel HRs all season long (Getty Images)
Historically good, as it turns out.
Kurtz wasn’t called up until April 23, yet he still produced one of the greatest rookie seasons of all time, launching 36 home runs with a 1.002 OPS. The only other rookies to reach those numbers in the last 100 years were Judge in 2017 and Albert Pujols in 2001.
The circumstances could’ve overwhelmed Kurtz. Instead, the quick ascension — and the doubters that came with it — served as extra motivation.
“You think I’m not as good as I am? I’m going to try to prove you wrong,’” Kurtz said. “Then there’s also going and proving people right.”
‘He’s Years Advanced’
It’s easy now, considering Kurtz was crowned the unanimous Rookie of the Year on Monday, to forget that it took some time for his raw power to manifest as a big leaguer.
For much of the year, Kurtz’s teammate, Jacob Wilson, was the odds-on favorite to win MLB’s top rookie honor. While Wilson racked up hits in bunches, Kurtz had a .558 OPS 23 games into his career.
The 2024 No. 4 overall pick didn’t hit his first home run until his 17th game, and after he finally went deep, he then went hitless over his next six games. Kurtz struck out in 31 of his first 77 at-bats.
And yet, by season’s end, he still led all rookies in home runs, runs, RBI, walks, slugging and OPS.
“The mental fortitude he has at 22, I was nowhere near that,” said teammate Shea Langeliers. “He’s years advanced.”
The A’s have a bright future with Jacob Wilson and Nick Kurtz. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)
Langeliers, a 2019 first-round pick who was also an A’s top prospect when he debuted at 24 years old, could relate more than most to Kurtz’s situation. During Kurtz’s slow start, he encouraged the phenom first baseman to take a step back and think about the incredible situation he found himself in, living out his lifelong dream.
The early growing pains were understandable for a player in Kurtz who was playing college baseball just a year ago. Suddenly, the pitches were moving more, and he was no longer seeing the same mistakes he was making at the lower levels with the same frequency.
“It can be overwhelming,” Langeliers said. “It feels like you’ve got to be the best player on the field at all times.”
The biggest change Kurtz had to make was more mental than mechanical.
Entering the big leagues, he always thought he should be able to get a hit off anybody in any at-bat. He would learn that’s not always possible.
“Just being OK with failure,” Kurtz explained. “Being OK with, ‘I can’t hit a homer off this guy today, what else can I do to get on base? How can I provide value?’”
His A’s teammates helped him gain that perspective.
“I’m talking to Shea, I’m talking to Rook, I’m talking to guys that are like, ‘This is what they’re doing to you, you got nothing to hit that at-bat, move on,’” Kurtz said. “… A lot of it is like, OK, what do I do now? What do I need to change? I got a hit off that last time. What should I look for next time?’”
Kurtz is prone to swing and miss, but he doesn’t chase out of the zone, and he’ll take his free passes. He always has. In just three seasons at Wake Forest, Kurtz set the team’s single-season and career records for walks. Even when Kurtz’s power wasn’t translating early on with the A’s, his teammates saw that same quality of at-bat and advanced approach and believed it was only a matter of time until everything clicked. They would relay those words of encouragement to the 22-year-old slugger.
“‘Hey man, you’re obviously super talented,” Rooker would tell him. “Just keep doing what you’re doing, keep doing the right things, the production’s going to come.”
“‘You made it, just enjoy the moment, be in the moment,’” Langeliers recalled telling Kurtz. “And just something along the lines of, ‘Be yourself. You don’t have to be anything more. You’re here for a reason. You are that good. Just believe in that.’”
Darren Bush, the team’s director of hitting, encouraged Kurtz to be a good hitter first and the home runs would follow. Over a 43-game stretch after the early slump, Kurtz blasted 22 homers.
Mechanically, nothing significant had changed.
“He was drafted last year, and he’s in the big leagues,” Bush said. “You’re not going to make a whole lot of changes. You have to learn how to adjust. You have to learn how to face big-league pitching and understand what they’re trying to do, and you have to learn how to continue to do what you do well and not allow them to alter you off of what you do well. That takes time.”
Yet after the slow start, Kurtz somehow seemed immune from the peaks and valleys most young players experience.
While his average dipped down the stretch, his OPS for each individual month from May through the end of the year was above .850. He could hit any type of pitch, slugging over .500 against fastballs, breaking balls and offspeed pitches.
By year’s end, he was one of just three players along with Judge and Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani to finish the season with an OPS over 1.000 in more than 400 at-bats. Seeing his name alongside those MVPs elicited a grin.
“Obviously I know it’s there, I have Instagram,” Kurtz said. “I see that kind of stuff.”
He tries not to let it impact him.
“I really just like being where my feet are,” Kurtz said. “Today, let’s worry about today. Today sucked? OK, let’s worry about tomorrow. That’s how I kind of deal with failure, moving on. Baseball’s not life or death.”
Homers and Standing Ovations
That mindset, even going back to Wake Forest, has always served Kurtz well.
Kurtz had an OPS over 1.100 all three years in college, but through his first 19 games of his junior season, he was hitting .231 with only three home runs.
He then mashed 14 home runs over his next 10 games.
His ability to withstand the ups and downs of a season, Wake Forest head coach Tom Walter believes, is both the result of Kurtz’s exceptional decision-making at the plate and his personality. Even when Kurtz was getting pitched around late in his college career, he didn’t let that frustration bleed into his performance or force him out of the zone.
“It’s not a ‘ride the emotional rollercoaster,’” Walter told me. “He takes a mature and professional approach to the game, and he understands that there are going to be stretches where you’re struggling, and there are going to be stretches where you’re really going good, and over time those are going to kind of even out.”
That’s how it played out in his first year with the A’s.
Kurtz, who describes himself as a streaky power hitter, hit four home runs over a four-game stretch and seemed to be picking up steam in late May when he strained his hip flexor. He returned on June 9. A week later, he delivered the walk-offs against Abreu and Hader.
Suddenly, the home runs started coming in bunches.
His prodigious power was evident in his bat speed (sixth highest in MLB this year), his barrel rate (seventh in MLB), his 18 home runs that traveled more than 400 feet and the way he sprayed his homers across all fields. From July 8-21, he launched six in 10 games, setting the scene for the most memorable game of his captivating rookie year.
On July 25 in Houston, Kurtz went 6-for-6 with four home runs, a feat accomplished only one other time in MLB history, when Shawn Green did it in 2002. Three of his four home runs went the other way into the Crawford Boxes in left field. It was such an extraordinary power display that it even earned an ovation and hat tips from Houston fans.
The rest of the year, Kurtz would continue to inspire awe with his feats of strength.
In the middle of September, he hit such a breathtaking grand slam that his teammate Lawrence Butler, who was standing on second base, just turned around and stared at the ball with his mouth agape. The mammoth shot to center, a 493-foot blast that cleared the batter’s eye at Sutter Health Park, was the longest home run by any player since Ohtani hit one the same projected distance two years prior.
“The way he handled the failure, this kid gets it,” Langeliers told me. “A lot of guys — I would say most guys — struggle with that when they first get here just because whatever your hole is, they’re going to find it, and they’re going to expose you.”
Only time will tell how Kurtz might need to adjust again. His breakout year came despite struggles against lefties and the seventh-highest strikeout rate among all players with at least 400 plate appearances. In addition, poor defensive grades at first base limited his overall value. Those deficiencies might also demonstrate the ceiling still untapped in the preternatural 22-year-old, who is part of a fascinating nucleus of offensive standouts in Sacramento.
The A’s only won 76 games this year, but their offense ranked eighth in OPS. And with the emergence of Kurtz and Wilson, who became the first set of teammates to finish first and second in AL Rookie of the Year voting since 1984 (Mariners duo Alvin Davis and Mark Langston), they can envision a more prosperous future — one that their 35-29 record in the second half might indicate is not far away.
“It’s visible that we’re building toward something special,” Langeliers said. “We have that core group here, guys that are performing and only getting better.”
Added Kurtz: “This team could be as good as we want to.”
Rowan Kavner is an MLB writer for FOX Sports. He previously covered the L.A. Dodgers, LA Clippers and Dallas Cowboys. An LSU grad, Rowan was born in California, grew up in Texas, then moved back to the West Coast in 2014. Follow him on X at @RowanKavner.
