Athletics No. 1 prospect Nick Kurtz leads all Major League and minor league affiliate players with seven home runs to begin the 2025 season, according to the Top 30 rankings from MLBPipeline.com.
Kurtz hit his seventh homer on Saturday, April 12, against the El Paso Chihuahuas, Triple-A affiliate of the San Diego Padres, taking starting pitcher Wes Benjamin deep to right-center.
Nick Kurtz leads ALL pro hitters with seven homers.
His average home run has traveled 414 feet 😳
(🎥 @MiLB)
— Baseball America (@BaseballAmerica) April 14, 2025
Despite his hot start, Kurtz is not currently ranked in MLBPipeline’s Top 100 and is not on the Athletics’ 40-man roster. A corresponding move would be required for the Athletics to promote him. Tyler Soderstrom and Seth Brown are currently listed at first base on the Athletics’ active depth chart.
Around the league, Fernando Tatis Jr., Jazz Chisholm, Aaron Judge, Wilmer Flores, Tommy Edman, Kyle Schwarber, and Soderstrom each have six home runs to start the 2025 season. In Triple-A, Michael Chavis of the Oklahoma City Comets—affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers—also sits just behind Kurtz with six.
The 22-year-old left-handed slugger from Lancaster, Pa., was selected fourth overall in the 2024 MLB Draft by Oakland and signed on July 22, 2024, for $7 million after his junior year at Wake Forest University.
Kurtz was assigned to Triple-A Las Vegas on March 26 from Double-A Midland. Through 14 games with the Aviators, he is slashing .367/.409/.817 with 22 hits, six doubles, 22 RBI, five walks, and 15 strikeouts across 67 plate appearances.
Defensively, Kurtz has made 11 starts at first base this season, logging 97 innings with 91 total chances, 83 putouts, six assists, two errors, and 12 double plays, good for a .978 fielding percentage.
During spring training, Kurtz appeared in 14 games and batted .261/.452/.522 over 31 plate appearances, recording six hits, two home runs, five RBI, seven walks, and five strikeouts.
He also played in the 2024 Arizona Fall League with the Mesa Solar Sox, batting .353/.450/.608 with 18 hits, three doubles, two triples, two home runs, 11 RBI, nine walks, and 16 strikeouts in 60 plate appearances. He started 10 games at first base for Mesa, committing no errors and turning seven double plays over 86 innings.
In his first year as a pro, Kurtz split time in 2024 between High-A Stockton and Double-A Midland. He played 12 games total, batting .368/.520/.763 with 18 hits, three doubles, four home runs, 13 RBI, and 12 walks before a hamstring injury on August 25 landed him on the 7-day injured list.
In his three seasons at Wake Forest, Kurtz played in 164 games and batted .333 with 784 plate appearances, collecting 189 hits, 35 doubles, two triples, 61 home runs, 182 RBI, 11 stolen bases, 189 walks, 130 strikeouts, and a 1.235 OPS before heading out west.
On Tuesday, April 15, Kurtz went 0-for-4 in Las Vegas’ 6-5 walk-off win against the Sugar Land Space Cowboys. He struck out looking in each of his first two plate appearances, flew out to right field in the fifth, and grounded out to shortstop in the seventh. Daniel Susac hit a game-winning home run in the bottom of the ninth to give Las Vegas the victory.
The (11-5) Las Vegas Aviators will continue their three-game home series against the (7-9) Sugar Land Space Cowboys, Triple-A affiliate of the Houston Astros, on April 16 at 9:35 p.m. EDT. The game will be available to stream at Bally Sports.
(AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
