Lawrence Butler’s 2026 season gave the Athletics something to build on, but it also left a clear offseason assignment: get the speed back.
The power was there when Butler finally got rolling. After a first half in which he hit under .196 and managed only five home runs, he turned himself into the Athletics’ most productive bat after the break.
Over that stretch, Butler led the team with 12 home runs and 40 RBIs, while hitting .280 with a team-best .853 OPS. That kind of finish is exactly why the optimism around him hasn’t gone away.
Still, the gap between Butler’s best version and the player he was for long stretches this season was hard to ignore. In 2024, he hit .262 with an .807 OPS and set a career high with 22 home runs.
He also ranked in the 91st percentile in baserunning run value. In 2026, that number crashed all the way down to the bottom 4th percentile.
That’s not a small dip. That’s a red flag.
And it showed up in the little plays that can quietly tilt games. Butler was caught stealing and picked off multiple times during the season, and those mistakes piled up into empty possessions and lost momentum.
On Sept. 20 against the Guardians, he was thrown out at second in a one-run game in the top of the seventh. Plays like that don’t just vanish; they linger in the margin between winning and losing.
The Athletics don’t need Butler to become a different hitter. They need the version who can pair the bat with real value on the bases.
His walk rate has climbed from 9.4% in 2025 to 11.3% in 2026, which means he’s getting on base more often. If he can combine that with better speed, he could score a lot of runs and give the middle of the lineup a much sharper edge.
That’s the next step. Butler has shown enough power to matter. If he can restore the speed that used to be part of his game while keeping the bat where it was after the break, he’ll be exactly the kind of player the Athletics want in the heart of their lineup.
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