Once upon a time, the A’s built a reputation for spotting what everyone else missed. Two decades after the 2002 Athletics became the basis for a movie, the same organization is now producing hitters who, as the source material puts it, would be great a cyber crime because they are elite hackers.
That over-aggressive approach has shown up in the lineup all season, and it helps explain why the offense has often looked better on paper than it has in the box score. Even when the group has been healthy, it has still landed in the middle of the pack offensively because too many at-bats have been short, impatient, and easy for pitchers to navigate.
One of the biggest ripple effects has been on opposing starters. In a number of recent games, A’s hitters have let starting pitchers cruise at around 12 pitches per inning, which matters because the earlier you knock out a starter, the sooner you get into the weaker part of a bullpen.
Instead, by hacking early and often, the A’s have too frequently allowed starters to reach six or seven innings. That gives managers a chance to lean on their best relievers to finish games and also keeps starters out of those “high stress” innings that can wear them down.
The walk numbers tell part of the story, too. On the surface, the A’s are near league average in walks, but that 17th-place ranking out of 30 teams is misleading.
A lot of the club’s respectable walk rate is being propped up by one bat: Nick Kurtz, whose 434 plate appearances came with an 18.2% BB rate. The rest of the lineup has been far less patient.
Jacob Wilson checked in at 3.6%, Alika Williams at 3.6%, Colby Thomas at 3.3%, Tommy White at 2.7%, and Joshua Kuroda-Grauer at 1.6%, with just one walk in 62 plate appearances - and that one came against a position player.
The bigger problem is what happens when hitters don’t walk and don’t lay off the wrong pitches. The at-bat becomes easier for the pitcher, and too often the hitter ends up doing the pitcher’s job for him.
Wilson is the clearest example. It wasn’t only the lack of walks that hurt him in 2026; his chase rate sat in the 4th percentile, which meant he was constantly getting himself out.
In 2025, when his chase rate was in the 22nd percentile, he hit .311/.355/.444 with a 116 wRC+. This year, with the chase rate cratered to the 4th percentile, those numbers dropped to .266/.298/.388 with an 83 wRC+.
Max Muncy has at least managed a usable 7.5% BB rate in 2026, but that doesn’t erase the fact that he’s swinging at so many bad pitches that the strikeouts pile up when the walks aren’t there. He’s striking out at a 32.6% clip this season. A perfect snapshot came in the bottom of the fifth last night, when Muncy saw five pitches, all outside the strike zone, swung at four of them, and struck out.
Tommy White has had the same issue in a different form. His chase rate is also near the bottom of the league, and while he has had two four-hit games, putting so many bad balls in play has limited the damage he can do. His average exit velocities are among the worst in the league, and the result is a .261/.279/.331 line with a 61 wRC+.
The question hanging over all of this is whether the coaches are preaching patience and discernment or whether the hitters simply aren’t taking it in. Either way, the organization’s old philosophical shift matters here.
The source notes that “Moneyball” described a rule in which a hitter had to show a 10.0% or better BB rate before earning a promotion. That standard doesn’t seem to have been applied very strictly to several of the current hitters.
Thomas moved up from A+ after posting a 4.6% BB rate, then from AA after a 6.5% mark. Wilson was promoted to AAA after a 2.2% BB rate at AA, and then had a 7.8% BB rate in AAA.
Tommy White reached the majors from AAA while walking just 4.8% of the time, with prior BB rates ranging from 6.2% to 8.5%. Kuroda-Grauer posted a 5.8% BB rate across AA and AAA this season.
Kuroda-Grauer is the one exception worth noting, because he came up and took the league by storm, so there’s a case that his current approach is working for him. Wilson’s 2025 and 2026 seasons, though, are the warning sign. The source’s view is that Kuroda-Grauer will either show more plate discipline in 2027 or see his numbers fall the way Wilson’s did.
Injuries have also played a role, especially as the season has gone on. But the offense was having trouble scoring away from SHP from the beginning, and the swing decisions are the place to start if you want to understand why.
Lawrence Butler stands out as the counterexample. Since the All-Star break, he has put together some of the A’s best plate appearances by working deep counts and taking pitches just off the edge. That approach has fueled a .288/.379/.508 line and a 141 wRC+ in the second half, along with a 13.0% BB rate.
The bottom line is simple: “Swing hard, early and often” is not a winning plan. Sometimes a hitter misses a slider because the spin wasn’t picked up.
That’s baseball. But going to the plate with a “swing first, ask questions later” approach is something else entirely.
The A’s have plenty of reasons their offense hasn’t matched the talent on paper, but the most obvious one is sitting right there in the swing decisions: too many hitters are not committed to hunting hittable strikes and spitting on the rest.
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