The division reports debuted last year. The goal of this article series is to provide a quick overview of all dynasty-relevant information from each division. Each team has multiple levels each containing plenty of impactful prospects which can feel impossible to keep up with. This article series, which will be updated once per month, will help dynasty managers stay up to date on performances, injuries, promotions, and more. New this season is the inclusion of tiers in the rankings. Next to their rank, each prospect is assigned a tier. The tier range is 1-5.
- Tier 1: A potential difference-making dynasty prospect. Somebody who would rank in the top-20ish prospects for dynasty baseball
- Tier 2: A still very good dynasty prospect who holds plenty of value. This prospect would typically rank in the 21-75 range
- Tier 3: A mid-tier prospect who could be valuable but has questions and concerns present in his profile ranking in the 76-150 range
- Tier 4: A prospect who is worth knowing, but is reserved for deeper leagues. This prospect would rank 151-250
- Tier 5: The rest of the prospects fall into Tier 5
The Athletics have seen several young players emerge to the big leagues over the course of the last few years — Lawrence Butler, Jacob Wilson, and most recently, Nick Kurtz. This article details all of the changes dynasty managers need to know on prospects from the Athletics. The goal is to help dynasty managers stay updated on the latest information with in-depth looks at each specific team! Each division will come with a monthly update that readers can look forward to.
This list features prospects not currently in the Majors. As a result this farm may feel a bit thin, but make no mistake that this org has plenty of young talent.
AL West
Notable Prospect Performers:
- Wei-En Lin, P – Lin is a 19-year-old lefty arm from Taiwan in the Athletics system. He’s appeared in four Single-A games thus far, tossing 17 innings in total. He’s only allowed four runs, but more impressive are the strikeout numbers. Lin has sent down 27 hitters on strikes, and his K-BB rate is an incredible 43.5%. He is yet to walk a batter. Those are impressive numbers, and Lin has become one to officially keep an eye on. This system isn’t the strongest right now, especially if you take Wilson and Kurtz out of the rankings as we did here, and a few more dominant performances from Lin could certainly catapult him to atop of this list. It’s also interesting to note how Lin has been used thus far — in his first four outings, Lin appeared in relief twice – though he went three innings in one of those appearances and four in another. This probably means nothing, especially given Lin’s age and proximity (or lacktherof) to the majors, but for peace of mind we’d like to see him start games a bit more regularly.
- Henry Bolte, OF – We need to take note of Bolte right now — he was frequently discussed in this series last season as a player that possessed some of the best power and speed in the minors, but struck out way too often. In 2024 between High-A and Double-A, Bolte went down on strikes nearly 35% of the time. Not surprisingly, it was higher at Double-A, where he went down at a 38.8% clip. That’s too high to have any success at the MLB level. But this season? Bolte is only striking out 23.3% of the time. It’s still early and this strikeout rate can climb, but if Bolte holds his strikeout rate to a reasonable level his stock is going to soar. Last year in 123 games he had 15 home runs and 46 steals, and in 22 contests this season he has three homers and six steals.
Notable Prospect News:
- Nick Kurtz, 1B – As you likely already know by now, Kurtz, the top prospect in the Athletics‘ system, got the call to the big leagues. He still maintains prospect eligibility (for now) but for the purposes of our rankings, where we we do not include players currently in the MLB, he has been removed. The slugger appeared in 20 Triple-A games before getting the call, triple slashing .321/.385/.655 with seven home runs. That type of start led to the prospect community clamoring for his promotion, and the community finally got its wish with the first baseman making his MLB debut on April 23. Kurtz has been a little slow out of the gate — he’s hitting .250, but all four of hits are singles and he is striking out 40% of the time. He will turn things around, but I did note in Dynasty Buy or Sell article last week that his promotion was the prime sell opportunity despite Kurtz being a good prospect.
- J.T. Ginn, P – Similar to Kurtz, Ginn is technically on the MLB roster so he doesn’t make our rankings above. If he did, he’d probably be ranked somewhere around fifth. Unfortunately, Ginn was placed on the 15-day IL with elbow inflammation. We never want to see elbow inflammation tied to a pitcher and its a guessing game on how long he will be out. To start the year, Ginn had made two Triple-A starts and three MLB starts. The results were mixed.
