Coming off the heels of the A’s taking the top two spots in the AL Rookie of the Year voting with Nick Kurtz winning it, and Jacob Wilson coming in second, the Athletics could be in a good position to repeat in 2026.
Over at MLB.com, the prospect team got together and assembled a list of the minor-leaguers from each organization that would be the most likely to win the Rookie of the Year award in 2026. For the A’s, they chose left-hander Gage Jump.
They say of Jump: “After the success Nick Kurtz had in 2025 coming out of the 2024 Draft, it was tempting to pick the A’s first-rounder in 2025, lefty Jamie Arnold, but we’ll go with the “other” southpaw in Jump, who spent most of his first full season in Double-A.
“He led the organization in xFIP, WHIP, K-BB%, K/9 and K% and has the advanced pitchability that could land him in the A’s rotation early.”
The southpaw out of LSU was selected by the A’s in 2024 with their Competitive Balance B pick (No. 73 overall). Now ranked as the team’s No. 3 prospect behind Leo De Vries and 2025 first rounder Jamie Arnold, Jump soared in his pro debut season in 2025.
Beginning the year in Hi-A Lansing, he made six appearances (five starts) and held a 2.32 ERA across 31 innings pitched. He struck out a ridiculous 37.1% of the batters he faced, while walking just 4.1% as a member of the Lugnuts.
For comparison, only three MLB pitchers (all relievers) struck out more than 37% of the hitters they faced this past season—Mason Miller (44.4%), Edwin Diaz (38%) and Aroldis Chapman (37.3%). Obviously this is a small sample size for Jump, but that stat is impressive, even in the low minors.
After pitching like Chapman, the A’s promoted Jump to Double-A Midland, where he would finish out the season. He would continue to cruise until August, entering the month with a 1.87 ERA in Double-A, but he would run into some trouble down the stretch, holding a 7.87 ERA over his final seven appearances in the regular season.
To be fair, most of that damage down the stretch was done in the final three outings, where he gave up 18 runs in 10 1/3 innings of work. Before that point, he still held a 1.89 ERA across 71 1/3 innings with Midland. He ended up finishing with a 3.64 ERA over 81 2/3 innings with the RockHounds, striking out 25.3% of the batters he faced and walking 8.5%.
This can likely be explained away by this being Jump’s first professional season, which can take some getting used to. Not only are players going from high school or college to the minor leagues, but they’re also playing more games than ever with no days-long breaks in between. It’s a grind that first season.
Athletics on SI asked GM David Forst about where the team plans to start some of their key prospects in 2026, and he indicated that the expectation is for Jump (and Braden Nett) to begin in Triple-A Las Vegas.
How quickly the A’s turn to Jump in 2026 will be dependent on three factors. The first is the most obvious, and that is what other moves the team makes this offseason. If they add more pitching, the makeup of the roster could be a bit more crowded, making it more difficult for Jump to break through.
The second and third factors will be how well Jump is pitching in camp, and to begin the season, along with the health of the pitchers ahead of him on the depth chart. Ken Waldichuk is one name in particular that will be interesting in this case, since the left-hander hasn’t pitched in the big-leagues in two years, but was previously viewed as a top pitching prospect himself.
It would make sense if the A’s would want to give Waldichuk a chance returning from injury before rushing Jump up to the big-leagues.
As far as the AL Rookie of the Year goes, it’s tough to tell how he’ll fare, since we don’t know which other rookies will be in the mix, or when everyone will be making their debuts. Those are two pretty key pieces of information in this discussion.
But if we’re going solely on vibes, then Jump will leap the competition.
