From amateur baseball to the pros, Tyler Soderstrom has always been considered a phenom. The best player on whatever team he was on. So when he encountered struggles in his first taste of big league action this past season, the lack of immediate success wore on him.
“The biggest thing I’ve got to work on is keep my confidence,” Soderstrom said on Sept. 10. “Learning to be confident all the time, no matter if it’s going bad or good. I know I’m a great player and I know I’m going to play in this league for a long time. That’s my mindset, and I’m just going to keep going with it.”
Soderstrom was called up to the Majors along with Zack Gelof on July 14. Rated the club’s Nos. 1 and 3 prospects by MLB Pipeline at the time and viewed as future potential franchise cornerstones of the A’s, the duo’s arrival on the same day felt like the beginning of a new era for Oakland.
Both were thrust into everyday roles with the A’s. But while Gelof took off and soared as one of MLB’s top rookies over the second half and finished with an .841 OPS over 69 games, Soderstrom’s lowly .472 OPS in 45 games was magnified. At one point, Soderstrom’s offensive woes led to a demotion back to Triple-A on Aug. 21, before getting called back up in September. In all, Soderstrom hit .160 with three home runs, seven RBIs and 43 strikeouts in 138 plate appearances.
While the numbers were underwhelming, the A’s remain steadfast in their belief that Soderstrom will emerge as a game-changing talent.
“It’s not fair at all to Tyler to be compared to Zack just because they came up on the same day,” A’s general manager David Forst said. “One guy was a college guy out of the Draft, another a high school guy. Also, not a lot of young players take Zack’s trajectory. To hit the ground running like he did and not have these ups and downs is sort of rare and speaks to what a special talent Zack has a chance to be. But Tyler’s trajectory is more common.”
