A's Top Prospect Leo De Vries Set For Surgery, Long Layoff

Athletics top prospect Leo De Vries has been dealing with injuries throughout the course of the 2026 campaign, and on August 24, it was reported that he was at the team's complex in Arizona rehabbing, and was shut down from throwing for four weeks, effectively ending his season.

The A's have high hopes for the shortstop, who ranks as MLB.com's No. 2 overall prospect.

Today Bill Moriarity of A's Farm is reporting that De Vries will be undergoing shoulder surgery on his anterior labrum on Sept. 13, with the expectation being that he'll be out of action for around eight months. The original injury appears to have been suffered while sliding into a bag, and he'd been playing through it for months. 

The hope is that he'll be back on a baseball field sometime in May, given that timeframe. While a lockout is expected at the MLB level, the minor leagues will continue forward in 2027 regardless of the big-league situation, as their CBA doesn't line up with the MLB-MLBPA version. 

That would mean that a delay in the MLB season could push games later into the year, and still provide De Vries a chance at having an impact on the A's roster in 2027. That would also mean that he would have to hit the ground running when he started playing games again.

That may be unfair given that he'll be recovering from shoulder surgery, and the aspect of his game that the organization has been looking for him to improve could be impacted, at least initially.

It's also worth noting that the A's said earlier this year that they were looking for more power from De Vries as he continues to develop, though the expectation was that he'd be finishing this season in Triple-A Las Vegas before the injury.

De Vries finished the season batting .290 with a .378 OBP, hitting 13 home runs and stealing 34 bases as a 19-year-old in Double-A Midland. While those numbers are great overall and he showed that he can play at the level, it seemed as though the A's may have been hoping that he would dominate a little more, given the initial performance he had in 2025.

The A's called him up to Midland in mid-August of 2025, and he went on to hit five home runs while holding a .910 OPS in 21 games. His OPS across 93 games this season sat at .836.