Fifth-round picks don't usually generate buzz, but Alex Hernandez isn't a normal fifth-rounder. The Athletics grabbed him at No. 143 overall in this year's draft, and instead of haggling him down or watching him lean on a return-to-school threat, they just paid him what the pick was worth.
Jim Callis broke the signing, running down why the Athletics were fine writing full slot for a two-way college bat.
The number is $516,300 — full slot value for the 143rd pick, no discount, no games. For a team that's spent years living off a shoestring farm system in Las Vegas limbo, locking in a bat this productive without a fight is a good problem to not have to solve.
And Hernandez was productive. Across two seasons at Georgia Tech he hit .359 with a 1.064 OPS, 29 home runs and 126 RBI in 114 games, bouncing between the outfield and first base while also handling second and third when Georgia Tech needed him there. He broke the school's freshman RBI record with 69 in 2025, a mark previously held by Matt Wieters, and took home ACC Freshman of the Year and first-team Freshman All-America honors for it.
This past season he kept it rolling, hitting .343 with a 1.033 OPS and 13 homers in 55 games before the draft came calling. Callis's report also flagged what makes evaluators dream a little bigger: as a freshman, Hernandez touched 93 mph off the mound, giving the Athletics a bat with a real arm attached to it, not just a corner-outfield profile with no defensive value.
None of this makes Hernandez a household name yet — he's a fifth-round college performer, not a bonus-baby headline. But full-slot college performers with strong swing decisions and a fastball in their back pocket are exactly the kind of low-cost, high-probability picks a rebuilding farm system needs to stack. Oakland's system has been thin for a while; a bat like this is a quiet step toward fixing that.