Joshua Kuroda-Grauer wasn't supposed to be the story of the Athletics' season. He got the call to Oakland-in-Sacramento (or wherever this version of the A's calls home this week) because Jacob Wilson landed on the IL with a thumb injury, a corresponding move, nothing more. Sixteen games later, he's the one everybody's talking about.
The Rutgers product, drafted 75th overall back in 2024 and ranked as just the A's No. 9 prospect coming into the year, has been an absolute machine at the plate since he got the call from Triple-A Las Vegas. According to Codify Baseball, he's racked up 25 hits in his first 16 big league games, more than any Athletic in franchise history has managed that early in a career.
Codify Baseball laid out the number that's turning heads: 25 hits in 16 games, a franchise record for the A's.
Joshua Kuroda-Grauer has had 25 hits in his first 16 big league games and no Athletic in all of history has had more!
For context on how absurd that pace is: this is a guy who wasn't even a top-100 prospect nationally, bouncing between second, third and short while he adjusts to the big leagues on the fly. He came up hitting bombs down at Triple-A too, leading all of Minor League Baseball in hits at the time of his promotion, so the bat-to-ball skills were never really in question. What's happening now is just that translating immediately and violently.
And it's not like he's been playing it safe out there either. Kuroda-Grauer took a foul ball directly off the groin mid-at-bat against the Diamondbacks, the kind of thing that ends most guys' nights, and just walked it off and slapped a base hit anyway.
Jomboy Media caught Kuroda-Grauer fouling one off himself, shaking it off, and still coming away with a hit.
That's kind of become the whole vibe with this kid: nothing rattles him. Two strikeouts total since he arrived, a batting average that's been sitting in Ted Williams territory, and now a franchise record before most rookies have even settled into a big league clubhouse. The Rookie of the Year race in Oakland was already thought to be tighter than expected, and every game Kuroda-Grauer keeps this up, he forces his way further into that conversation.
The obvious question now is regression. Nobody hits like this forever, and once Jacob Wilson is healthy the A's will have a real roster decision on their hands. But for a guy who only got his shot because of someone else's thumb injury, Kuroda-Grauer has made himself impossible to send back down. Worth watching whether the front office finds him an everyday spot no matter what happens with Wilson.