The A’s optioned righty Joey Estes to Triple-A yesterday, thinning the field of pitchers vying for spots on the big league staff. Estes seemed like a long shot to make the club after being summoned to the majors for only 11 innings last year and otherwise pitching to a 5.51 ERA in 15 Triple-A starts (and two relief appearances). He tossed only 2 2/3 innings in formal Cactus League play.
Estes, 24, came to the A’s alongside Shea Langeliers, Cristian Pache and Ryan Cusick in the trade sending Matt Olson to Atlanta. Estes has now pitched in parts of three major league seasons but been tagged for a 5.51 ERA (matching last year’s Triple-A mark) with just a 16.3% strikeout rate in 148 1/3 big league innings. He has good command (career 5.4% walk rate), but he’s an extreme fly-ball pitcher who doesn’t throw hard or miss bats. As such, he’s been far too susceptible to home runs. Estes has been used primarily as a starter to this point in his career, but he’s entering his final minor league option year, so perhaps the A’s will want to see what he’d look like in a bullpen role.
Entering camp, there were two spots up for grabs in manager Mark Kotsay’s rotation. Kotsay acknowledged back when pitchers and catchers reported that Luis Severino, Jeffrey Springs and free agent signee Aaron Civale had spots locked down, while the other spots would be sorted out in camp. Hard-throwing righty Luis Morales hasn’t exactly dominated this spring (eight runs in 16 hits and seven walks with 10 strikeouts in 12 innings), but Martin Gallegos of MLB.com writes that Morales is more or less a lock to open the season in the rotation.
Morales’ middling spring showing hasn’t emphatically earned that spot, but he’s coming off a rookie showing in which he tossed 48 2/3 innings with a 3.14 ERA. He averaged 97.3 mph with his four-seamer, struck out a respectable (albeit slightly below average) 21.6% of his opponents and issued walks at a 9% clip. Prior to that solid debut, he’d pitched in 23 games (14 starts) between Double-A and Triple-A and notched a combined 3.73 ERA, 29.2% strikeout rate and 9.6% walk rate.
Morales still has a full slate of three minor league option years remaining, so if he struggles badly in the final weeks of camp or is hit hard early in the season, he can be sent down without first needing to pass through waivers. The A’s can control him for at least six full seasons.
Gallegos writes that lefty Jacob Lopez might be the favorite for the fifth and final starting gig on Kotsay’s staff. The 28-year-old southpaw was acquired in the same trade that brought Springs to the A’s. He pitched 92 2/3 innings of 4.08 ERA ball with a strong 28.3% strikeout rate and a 9.3% walk rate last year. Seventeen of his 21 appearances were starts.
Lopez was slowed by a forearm issue early in camp but made his spring debut a few days ago. It didn’t go especially well (three runs in two innings), but he’ll have two more weeks to show that he can be trusted with a rotation spot to begin the season. Lopez still has one minor league option year remaining, though the A’s presumably prefer not to burn that unless his performance makes it absolutely necessary.
One name not to sleep on entirely: top prospect Gage Jump. The 22-year-old lefty hasn’t yet pitched in Triple-A, but Baseball America’s Ian Cundall writes that Jump has already seen his average fastball climb 1.6 mph this spring. He’s sitting 96 mph and topping out around 98.5 mph — up from last year’s average of 94.4 mph and max of 97 mph.
Jump, 23 next month, was the No. 73 pick in the 2024 draft. He dominated in High-A and Double-A last season, combining for 112 2/3 frames with a 3.28 ERA, 28.4% strikeout rate, 7.4% walk rate, 41.8% ground-ball rate and just 0.56 homers per nine frames. He’s widely regarded as one of the game’s 100 best overall prospects and is more specifically one of the very best left-handed pitching prospects in the sport.
Though Jump isn’t yet on the 40-man roster, he doesn’t necessarily face fierce competition. His ceiling is as high or higher than anyone else in the Athletics’ rotation at the moment, and the final two spots haven’t been claimed in convincing fashion. Jump has pitched 6 2/3 spring innings and allowed a pair of runs on five hits and three walks with four punchouts. The A’s technically don’t have to add him to the 40-man roster until the 2027-28 offseason (when he’d need to be selected to be protected from the Rule 5 Draft), but a 2026 debut seems likely, so long as Jump can remain healthy and pick up where he left off last season. It’d be a modest surprise if he broke camp with the club, but doing so would position the A’s to potentially pick up a future draft pick through MLB’s prospect promotion incentive program.
