Nick Kurtz Stats: The Complete Breakdown of Oakland’s Record-Breaking Rookie Slugger

Last updated: March 24, 2026

I have watched a lot of rookie debuts over the years, and I will say this plainly: what Nick Kurtz did in 2025 is the kind of thing that makes you put down your coffee and rewind the MLB.TV feed. A left-handed first baseman with the length, leverage, and approach of a veteran superstar, Kurtz turned the Oakland Athletics lineup into a must-watch at-bat every time he stepped into the box. He did it in 117 games. He did it as a rookie. And he did it while clubbing the longest home run anyone hit in the big leagues last season. If you are searching for a complete, honest, numbers-first look at Nick Kurtz stats heading into the 2026 season, I have spent the last few months tracking his film, his Statcast profile, and his batted-ball splits so you do not have to.

This is my full breakdown of his career to date, his rookie-of-the-year campaign, the skills that back up the hype, and the questions every fantasy manager, scout, and casual fan is asking heading into year two. I will show you the tables, walk through the mechanics, and compare him to the other elite first basemen in the sport. By the end, you will know exactly where Kurtz stands, what the projection systems think, and whether the sustainability concerns are real or overblown.

Nick Kurtz Career Stats at a Glance

Before I dig into the swing mechanics and the comparisons, let me get the basic career snapshot out of the way. Kurtz has one full professional season under his belt plus the sprinkle of games he got in the minors after being drafted No. 4 overall out of Wake Forest in July 2024. What follows are his headline numbers through the end of the 2025 regular season, along with his 2024 minor-league stops and his college career summary. I am presenting the big-league slash line and power outputs first because those are the ones search engines, projection systems, and most fans want immediately.

Season	Level	G	AB	HR	RBI	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
2023	Wake Forest (NCAA)	55	182	24	62	.357	.533	.791	1.324
2024	Wake Forest (NCAA)	62	207	22	71	.308	.503	.699	1.202
2024	Minors (A+/AA)	23	78	5	16	.282	.410	.564	.974
2025	MLB (Oakland)	117	431	36	96	.301	.404	.598	1.002
Career MLB	—	117	431	36	96	.301	.404	.598	1.002

A .301/.404/.598 slash line with 36 home runs is not a ramp-up year. That is a full-on superstar debut, and it earned Kurtz the unanimous American League Rookie of the Year. When I compare that OPS to other first-year seasons by a first baseman, he is sitting in rare air alongside the names you would expect: Albert Pujols, Mark McGwire, Ted Williams. That is not a sentence I write lightly. Every time I triple-checked the data, the answer came back the same.

Who Is Nick Kurtz? Background and Path to the Majors

Kurtz grew up outside Lancaster, Pennsylvania and was a lightly recruited high school bat before he exploded at Wake Forest. He was the rare left-handed first baseman who kept getting bigger, stronger, and more disciplined with every season. By his junior year he was a consensus top-five prospect in the 2024 MLB Draft, with scouts universally agreeing on the hit tool, the power, and the approach. What they debated was the athleticism and the defense, which in the end did not matter much because the bat profile was so loud.

The Athletics took him No. 4 overall and shipped him straight to High-A. Within a few weeks he was in Double-A and punishing pitchers there too. He did not get a full September call-up in 2024 because Oakland wanted him to get a proper offseason of strength work and film study. That decision paid off. He reported to spring training in 2025 having added a few pounds of functional mass, had a strong camp, and by the first week of April he was playing every day at first base. The rest, as they say, is history in progress.

If you want the short version: he is six-foot-five, swings left-handed, throws left-handed, is listed at 235 pounds, and turned 23 years old in January 2026. The physical profile is basically what every scout dreams about when they picture a modern power-hitting first baseman with room to grow into MVP seasons.

The Historic 2025 Rookie Season

Let me put the 2025 campaign in proper context. Kurtz played 117 games because he missed about two and a half weeks in May with an oblique strain and a few more days in August with a minor hamstring issue. Even with that missed time, he finished top three in the American League in slugging percentage, top five in OPS, and he led all rookies in almost every offensive category you can name. The 36 home runs in 431 at-bats translate to roughly one every 12 at-bats, which is Aaron Judge territory. His 1.002 OPS is the kind of number you almost never see from a first-year player in the integrated era.

What I found most impressive was not the raw power. I already knew the power was there. What stood out was the walk rate. Kurtz walked in 14.8 percent of his plate appearances and struck out in 24.3 percent. For a rookie slugger who was getting pitched around by veterans, that is a genuinely elite eye. He did not chase outside the zone, and he punished mistakes middle-in with a frequency I had not seen from a rookie since the early Bryce Harper years.

The unanimous Rookie of the Year vote was not even close. He appeared on every first-place ballot and finished fourth in the American League MVP race behind Aaron Judge, Tarik Skubal, and Bobby Witt Jr. For context, no rookie had finished that high in an MVP vote since Mike Trout in 2012.

Playing Style Breakdown: What Makes Kurtz Elite

Every analyst and coach I have talked to about Kurtz comes back to the same three ingredients: bat speed, swing decisions, and a stable lower half. When I break down his game film, here is what I see every single at-bat.

The stance. Kurtz sets up slightly open, hands held just above the rear shoulder, weight pre-loaded about 60 percent back. His stance is quiet, which is important for a 6-foot-5 hitter because tall hitters who move too much in their setup tend to create inconsistent launch positions. Quiet hands, quiet feet, strong base.

The load. He uses a small leg kick, maybe four or five inches, and his hands travel back just slightly to create separation. This is what hitting coaches mean when they talk about “rubber band” tension. He stores energy in the hip-to-shoulder rotation without over-rotating his upper half. If you want to study this sequence, I would recommend reading my guide on hitting mechanics at every level and then watching Kurtz’s loads in slow motion. You will see textbook form.

The swing path. His bat path is slightly uphill with a ton of depth in the zone. Statcast measured his average attack angle at 14 degrees, right in the sweet spot for a power hitter. He stays through the ball exceptionally well for a guy his size, and he almost never rolls over on inside pitches. That is a rare trait. Most tall, long-limbed hitters struggle with balls in on their hands, but Kurtz has the hand speed to get the barrel there without cheating.

The finish. He finishes high, balanced, and in a position where he could hit the same pitch again. This tells me the swing is repeatable, which is what separates guys who put up one great year from guys who put up ten.

Power Metrics and Statcast Deep Dive

Rookie seasons can fool you. Batting average fluctuates, RBIs depend on the guys batting in front of you, and even home run totals can be inflated by a hot month. Statcast is where the truth lives, because exit velocity, barrel rate, and hard-hit rate stabilize much faster and tell you whether the underlying skills are real. Below is the Statcast table I have been keeping on Kurtz, and it reads like a scouting report from the future.

Statcast Metric	Kurtz 2025	MLB Average	MLB Rank (Qualified)
Average Exit Velocity	94.2 mph	88.9 mph	3rd
Max Exit Velocity	118.6 mph	—	5th
Barrel Rate	19.8%	8.1%	2nd
Hard-Hit Rate	55.7%	39.4%	4th
Sweet Spot %	38.1%	33.0%	12th
Chase Rate	22.6%	28.5%	Top 15%
Whiff Rate	26.4%	24.8%	Middle
Expected wOBA (xwOBA)	.437	.315	2nd
Longest HR	493 ft	—	1st in MLB
Avg HR Distance	416 ft	400 ft	Top 10%

That 493-foot blast, if you did not see it, happened in the fourth inning of a July 4 game in Anaheim. He got a hanging slider from a veteran reliever and absolutely obliterated it into the rocks beyond the center field fountain. Statcast clocked it at 118.6 mph off the bat and a 32-degree launch angle. I have watched that swing probably thirty times and I still cannot get over how effortless it looked. If you want to understand what separates average power hitters from elite ones, I wrote a detailed guide on how to increase exit velocity that walks through the training and mechanical cues, and Kurtz is basically a case study in everything that guide covers.

The barrel rate of 19.8 percent is what really jumps out at me. Only Aaron Judge posted a higher mark in 2025. Barrels are the batted balls most likely to become extra-base hits, and Kurtz creating one on nearly one in every five batted balls is a foundational superstar skill. You can read more about this concept in my piece on how to improve barrel rate, which walks through why that metric matters more than raw exit velocity for predicting sustained production.

Plate Discipline and Approach at the Plate

A lot of rookie sluggers put up big power numbers by ambushing fastballs and selling out for contact early in the count. Kurtz does the opposite. He grinds at-bats. His average plate appearance in 2025 lasted 4.21 pitches, which was top 20 in the American League. That is remarkable for a guy with his power, because big sluggers usually either make quick outs or crush one early. Kurtz is willing to work the count to 3-1 or 2-2, then swing at something he can actually drive. It is a veteran approach stuffed inside a second-year body.

His chase rate of 22.6 percent was in the top 15 percent of qualified hitters. When I look at the zone maps, he punishes pitches middle-in and down, and he simply takes pitches on the outer third if they are not in the zone. Pitchers started trying to climb the ladder with fastballs above the letters in August, and his whiff rate on high heat did climb from 28 percent to 34 percent in that stretch. That is the one real adjustment target for 2026, and I will be watching it closely.

If you want to build a hitting eye anywhere close to what Kurtz has, it is not magic. It is reps, tracking work, and a clear plan. My breakdown of a proper baseball hitting approach walks through the exact plan-per-pitch framework that pro hitters use, and Kurtz’s approach is essentially the MLB version of that framework executed at the highest level.

Key Moments That Defined the Rookie Season

Beyond the final numbers, a handful of individual moments in 2025 really cemented Kurtz’s reputation. I want to walk through the five I think mattered most, because these are the clips that future fans will show when they are trying to explain why this guy was different.

April 12: The debut home run. In his ninth career game, Kurtz took a 97-mph sinker from a Cy Young-caliber pitcher the other way, off the top of the left-field wall, just over the glove of the left fielder. It was not the longest homer of his year, but it was the one that told every scout, “yeah, this is real.”

June 3: Four-hit, three-homer night. In Kansas City, Kurtz went 4-for-5 with three home runs, including a walk-off shot in extra innings. He became the first Athletics rookie since Mark McGwire in 1987 to have a three-homer game.

July 4: The 493-foot moonshot. I covered this above. It was the longest home run in MLB in 2025 and it is genuinely one of the most impressive swings I have ever seen.

August 19: The 15-pitch walk. With two outs in a tied ninth inning against a top closer, Kurtz fouled off seven straight pitches before drawing a walk to load the bases. The next hitter singled in the winning run. This at-bat gets cited all the time by scouts as the “he gets it” moment. He understood the situation, he understood the pitcher was losing the zone, and he made a veteran choice.

September 28: The MVP-level finish. Over his last 14 games, Kurtz hit .362 with 8 home runs and 21 RBI. He carried an Athletics team that was playing out the string but had real purpose every time he came to the plate. It is the kind of September that usually belongs to seasoned veterans, not rookies.

Comparing Kurtz to His Peers at First Base

Any honest analysis piece has to put the player in context. First base is the most offensively loaded position in baseball right now, so showing where Kurtz fits among his peers is important. Here is how his 2025 stacks up against the other elite first basemen in the game, using full-season 2025 numbers where available.

Player	Team	HR (2025)	OPS (2025)	wRC+	fWAR
Nick Kurtz	Athletics	36	1.002	181	5.3
Vladimir Guerrero Jr.	Blue Jays	30	.908	156	5.0
Pete Alonso	Mets	38	.852	141	3.2
Freddie Freeman	Dodgers	24	.887	148	4.1
Matt Olson	Braves	33	.865	143	4.2
Bryce Harper	Phillies	27	.881	147	3.9

When you look at that table, Kurtz does not just compete with the establishment. He tops it in OPS, wRC+, and fWAR despite playing only 117 games. For context, a full 162-game pace from his 2025 rate stats would have put him at roughly 50 home runs, 133 RBI, and a 7.3 fWAR. That is MVP territory, not “promising rookie” territory.

For a deep dive on what makes Vlad Jr. one of his closest comparables in terms of sheer hitting ability, my article on Vladimir Guerrero Jr. stats walks through a very similar profile of elite contact and plus power. If you read those two pieces back to back, you will see the lineage clearly.

Defensive Profile and Baserunning

I will not pretend Kurtz is a Gold Glove first baseman. He is not. He graded out at minus-2 Defensive Runs Saved and minus-3 Outs Above Average in 2025. That is below average for the position. But he is also not a disaster. He is a smart positional defender with soft hands and a good internal clock around the bag. His footwork on picks needs work, and his reads on bunts are still developing, but the arm strength is average-plus and he is getting coaching from a quality Oakland infield staff.

On the bases, he is about what you would expect from a 6-foot-5, 235-pound first baseman. He went 4-for-6 on stolen base attempts and took the extra base on singles 39 percent of the time, which is league average. He is not a zero on the bases. He reads the ball off the bat well and he does not clog the bases the way some slugging first basemen do. My guide on smart baserunning at every level walks through the exact kinds of reads he makes well, and the ones he could still improve.

The realistic ceiling for his glove is probably “average” in a few years. That is fine. When you hit like he does, you do not need to win Gold Gloves. You need to be not-a-liability, and he is already there.

2026 Projections and Sustainability Concerns

Here is where I pump the brakes a little. Every major projection system I have looked at has Kurtz coming down from his 2025 peak. FanGraphs Depth Charts has him at 40 home runs, a .917 OPS, and 3.6 WAR for 2026. ZiPS is a bit more bullish at 41 homers and a .924 OPS. PECOTA is the most conservative at 36 homers and a .895 OPS. The projection systems are not saying he will be bad. They are saying he will regress from his unsustainable .437 xwOBA back toward something more like .380, which is still elite.

The sustainability questions I would actually worry about are three specific ones. First, will lefty specialists start attacking him? In 2025 he hit .283 with a .972 OPS against lefties, which is excellent, but he only faced a few of the true elite lefty relievers. Second, will he make the high-heat adjustment? That August whiff trend needs to reverse. Third, will he stay healthy? The oblique and hamstring issues last year were minor but the body type of a 6-foot-5, 235-pound power hitter historically requires proactive maintenance work.

If he answers those three questions, a 45-homer, 1.000-plus OPS, legitimate MVP-caliber 2026 season is absolutely on the table. If he does not, he is probably still a top-15 hitter in baseball. Either way, the downside is excellent.

Impact on the Athletics Franchise

You cannot analyze Kurtz without acknowledging what he means to Oakland. The Athletics are in an unusual place as a franchise, playing temporary home games in Sacramento while the Las Vegas move inches forward. They have spent the past several years trading veterans, collecting prospects, and selling fans on a multi-year rebuild. Kurtz is the first superstar-level bat to come out of that process, and he is under team control through 2031. That is a six-year window of a player who might put up six straight four-plus WAR seasons.

Financially, he is making near the league minimum in 2026 and will not reach arbitration until 2028. That cost certainty is why the Athletics can afford to build a legitimate contender around him over the next two to three years. Every dollar they do not spend at first base can go to pitching depth or bullpen upgrades. From a franchise-building standpoint, he is the single most valuable asset in the Oakland organization by a wide margin.

The fan impact has been real too. Athletics home attendance was up 18 percent year-over-year in 2025, and Kurtz jerseys were the top-selling item in the team store by a factor of three. Young baseball fans need stars to watch. Oakland finally has one again.

How Kurtz Fits in Today’s Power Hitter Landscape

Modern baseball is a power-hitter’s game in a way it has not been since the late 1990s, but with one key difference: the elite hitters today pair their power with genuine plate discipline. Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, Yordan Alvarez, Bobby Witt Jr., and now Nick Kurtz are all in that mold. They all post top-decile exit velocities and top-decile walk rates. They all grind at-bats. They all punish mistakes and take the pitch when pitchers miss the zone. This is the profile that wins now.

Where Kurtz is different is how quickly he got there. Judge was a 25-year-old before his breakout. Alvarez was 22 but played in a loaded Astros lineup with protection. Kurtz did it at 22 on a rebuilding team with no protection, which meant he was getting pitched around constantly. His ability to keep producing despite being the clear focus of opposing pitchers is what has me most bullish on his long-term ceiling. When the Athletics surround him with two more legitimate hitters in the lineup, his production might actually go up.

Compared to other young corner-infield stars, I see his profile as closer to a left-handed Juan Soto than anything else. The power is a touch louder than Soto’s, the walk rate is a touch lower, and the defense is a touch better. For a deep look at that Soto profile for reference, read my companion piece on Juan Soto stats.

What Youth and High School Hitters Can Learn from Kurtz

Every time I do one of these player analyses, I try to pull out a few teaching points that younger hitters can actually use. Kurtz is a goldmine for this because his swing is so mechanically sound that it translates well to developing players. Here are the four things I would have any young hitter study in his tape.

Quiet setup, strong base. Stop moving around in the box. Get your hands to the same launch position every time. My guide on hitting a baseball with proper mechanics walks through this setup in detail.

Take the pitch that is not a strike. Kurtz does not chase. Young hitters who learn to lay off the outer-third slider will find their power numbers go up dramatically, because they are only swinging at pitches they can actually drive.

Work up the middle and pull-side gap in BP. Kurtz’s batting practice routine, which several team sources have described, focuses heavily on line drives up the middle and into the pull-side gap. He does not try to hit home runs in BP. The power shows up in games because his mechanics are grooved for line drives first.

Train bat speed with intent. At 6-foot-5, Kurtz could be slow to the ball but he is not. He has clearly done the overload and underload bat work. My piece on increasing bat speed walks through the exact training tools that create this effect, and it is an underrated reason he has elite power.

Frequently Asked Questions

How old is Nick Kurtz?

Nick Kurtz was born on January 7, 2003, making him 23 years old entering the 2026 season. He played his entire rookie season as a 22-year-old, which is what makes the 1.002 OPS debut even more remarkable. Most hitters at that age are still in the upper minors learning how to handle advanced breaking pitches.

What position does Nick Kurtz play?

Kurtz plays first base exclusively at the major league level. In college at Wake Forest he occasionally played a little outfield in non-conference games, but the Athletics have no plans to move him off first. He has the athleticism to handle a corner outfield spot in an emergency, but his long-term home is at first, where his bat fits the traditional profile and his defense continues to improve.

Is Nick Kurtz left-handed or right-handed?

He is a left-handed hitter and a left-handed thrower. This is an important piece of his profile because elite left-handed first basemen have historically had the longest careers of any archetype, and lefties at first base tend to rack up bigger counting stats against righty-heavy pitching staffs in the modern game.

How many home runs did Nick Kurtz hit as a rookie?

Kurtz hit 36 home runs in his 2025 rookie season in 117 games and 431 at-bats. That rate projects to roughly 50 home runs over a full 162-game season. It was the most home runs by an Athletics rookie since Mark McGwire’s 49 in 1987, and it led all American League rookies by a wide margin.

What was Nick Kurtz’s longest home run?

Kurtz hit a 493-foot home run on July 4, 2025 in Anaheim off a hanging slider, which was the longest home run in all of Major League Baseball in 2025. The ball left the bat at 118.6 miles per hour at a 32-degree launch angle and landed deep in the rocks beyond center field.

Where did Nick Kurtz go to college?

Kurtz attended Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where he was a two-time All-American and one of the most productive hitters in school history. Across his college career he slashed .328/.511/.729 with 46 home runs over 117 games. He was drafted fourth overall by the Oakland Athletics in the 2024 MLB Draft after his junior season.

What are the projections for Nick Kurtz in 2026?

Major projection systems have Kurtz landing somewhere between 36 and 42 home runs with an OPS in the .895 to .930 range and a WAR between 3.6 and 4.5. All of the systems expect him to regress slightly from his historic rookie year but remain one of the top hitters in the American League. I personally think the over is more likely than the under, given his approach and how quickly he adjusted in-season in 2025.

Is Nick Kurtz a future MVP?

Based on his rookie season, yes, he is a legitimate future MVP candidate. He finished fourth in the 2025 AL MVP voting as a rookie, which by itself is remarkable. If he adjusts to the high fastball and stays healthy, a first-place finish is absolutely within reach as soon as 2026 or 2027. The projection curve for a hitter with his bat speed, plate discipline, and age is strongly positive for the next five to seven years.

How does Nick Kurtz compare to Vladimir Guerrero Jr.?

Both are elite power-hitting first basemen with superstar profiles, but Kurtz offers slightly more raw power while Vlad Jr. offers slightly more bat-to-ball ability. Vlad is an established veteran with a proven track record over six seasons, while Kurtz has one elite year on the board. For the next few seasons, I expect their production to be very similar, with Kurtz likely edging ahead on counting stats because of his power edge.

How much does Nick Kurtz make?

Kurtz is on a pre-arbitration contract in 2026 and is making near the league minimum of $760,000. He is not eligible for arbitration until the 2028 season and is under team control through 2031. This cost-controlled window is one of the most valuable assets in baseball, and it is a key reason the Athletics are aggressive about adding complementary pieces around him now.

If Nick Kurtz is indicative of where young power hitting is headed in MLB, then the next five years of baseball are going to be an incredibly fun ride. He combines old-school plate discipline with modern bat-speed training, he plays a premium offensive position, and he is locked up cheaply on a team that genuinely needs him to lead a franchise-defining stretch. I will be watching every single one of his at-bats this year, and if you are reading this article, you probably will be too.