During his introductory press conference, president of baseball operations Taylor Smith made player development a point of emphasis for the Athletics' future. 

This past season we saw the debuts of Henry Bolte, Tommy White, Joshua Kuroda-Grauer, Gage Jump, and Kade Morris on the A's roster. 

There are a few Athletics prospects who have already made their MLB debuts, like JKG and Morris, who are fairly assured of making it back to the A's big-league roster at some point in 2027, but that's not the direction we're headed today. We want to see which players will reach the A's roster for the first time. 

Taylor burst onto the scene in 2026, his first full season in pro ball, and hit his way to Triple-A Las Vegas by the end of the year after beginning the season in High-A Lansing. Taylor ended up hitting .308 with a .411 OBP and a 129 wRC+ (100 is league average) across all three levels, adding 23 home runs, 106 RBI, and 13 stolen bases.

When A's manager Mark Kotsay was asked which prospect excited him the most following the season, Taylor was his answer. 

The one immediate worry for his timeline will be his strikeout rate, which went from 22.8% in Lansing to 28.6% in Double-A Midland, and then to 36.8% in Vegas. His BABIP across all three levels also sat at .413, which is extremely high and suggests some luck was involved in his average. 

That said, he crushes the ball routinely, so if he cuts down on that strikeout rate, he'll make his way up to the big leagues fairly quickly. The toughest hurdle for him may be just finding a spot for him to receive regular playing time. 

While Taylor was the A's second-round selection in 2025, Arnold was the organization's first-round pick at No. 11 overall. The left-hander impressed in his first taste of pro ball, holding a 3.57 ERA (4.04 FIP) in 23 starts with Midland.

He finished May with a 5.21 ERA, but started to surge in June, posting a 2.31 ERA across 23 ⅓ innings, followed by a 3.54 ERA in 20 ⅓ July innings. He put everything together in August, limiting hits and walks while also seeing his strikeouts soar, posting a 1.57 ERA in 23 innings, giving up 16 hits and six walks while striking out 29.

That earned him a promotion to Las Vegas in September, but he made just two starts. In the first inning of that second start, he was struck on the side of the head by a comebacker that left the bat at 107 mph. He was pulled from the game immediately, and did not make another appearance in 2026. 

Moving into the 2027 season, he'll be able to pitch when the minor-league season begins, regardless of where the CBA negotiations stand, since he's not on the A's 40-man roster yet. That means both he and Taylor will be playing in games before the start of the MLB regular season, which could be the seasoning each player needs to get an early call to the A's roster. 

Braden Nett was part of the A's return in the Mason Miller trade, and his first full season with the A's began with a shoulder injury that delayed his season debut until April 25, then landed him back on the IL again until May 30. 

From there, he wasn't really able to find his footing in Vegas, posting an 8.59 ERA (8.08 FIP) while walking 30.7% of the batters he faced in his 22 innings of work. The right-hander was demoted to Double-A Midland in August, and things didn't get better. 

He allowed five home runs across just 14 ⅔ innings, helping lead him to a 9.20 ERA. 

This sequence of events would seem to suggest that he was trying to be too fine with his pitches in Triple-A and saw his walk rate soar because of it. The demotion could have been to help him find that conviction in his pitches, work on some offerings that he was less confident in, and/or build up his overall confidence moving forward.

With the five home runs in a small sample size, that could be bad luck (he did have a .410 BABIP in Midland), or the result of trying to follow the game plan of working on a new approach. 

While the results weren't the best, the point of the minor leagues is to develop players, not just accumulate wins. The results he displayed could be a symptom of things completely falling apart, or the more likely scenario that this was a season that was marred by injuries that led to some adjustments to his game plan. 

If he's healthy in 2027, Nett could be an arm that the A's call upon, given the goal of building up the club's depth. The opportunity will be there for Nett to put himself in that conversation.