Can Esteury Ruiz Tap into Power Potential with A's in 2024?

The A's acquired Esteury Ruiz from the Milwaukee Brewers in part of the three team deal that sent Sean Murphy to the Atlanta Braves

Esteury Ruiz set the AL rookie record for stolen bases with 67 in 2023, but he finished with an OPS+ of 86 (100 is league average). He has the tools to be a main cog for the Oakland Athletics for years to come, but it'll take some work to get him there. 

Ruiz, 24, entered September with two home runs on the season and was batting .246 with a .303 OBP. In that final month he blasted three homers, hit .305, and got on base at a .339 clip. If he hit three home runs a month, he'd be right around 20 over a full season, and a .339 OBP for a burner like Ruiz would increase the amount of havoc he could wreck on the bases. 

Mark Kotsay said before the season ended that the power stroke for Ruiz has been an emphasis, with the goal being "For him to barrel the baseball more consistently and to have something behind it. He's got a knack. If you grade him out on an analytical scale, he's not going to grade out very well. Ichiro didn't grade out very well either because his contact and exit velocities didn't measure. But there's something to say about getting hits, and this kid has gotten hits. They'll argue that hitting with runners in scoring position doesn't mean anything, but he's still hitting .350 with runners in scoring position. 

"We're working on shortening his swing. He's got a little length to it, and I think if we can get him directionally into the zone quicker, it's going to allow him to be on time more. Be able to recognize breaking balls. He struck out at a 20% rate this year, which isn't bad, but I think we could even decrease that, and hopefully that takes the walk rate up. He's going to have a tremendous amount of success at this level."

The A's skipper also said that with those changes and adjustments to his approach and his swing, and getting on base at a .330 clip, he could see him stealing 100 bags next season. 

When the Blue Jays visited Oakland at the beginning of September, manager John Schneider said that Ruiz stood out "with the power potential." The outfielder had zero home runs and notched two singles in that series against Toronto, so his analysis caught the local reporters off guard a little bit. Yet, Ruiz hit a home run the very next game in Texas and added one more against Detroit to finish out the year. 

Based solely off of that final month (plus one game in October), Ruiz could be onto something moving forward. He walked in 6% of his at-bats down the stretch, the highest total of any previous month, and he also struck out 17.9% of the time, which was in line with where he was in the first half of the season and a little below the 20% level Kotsay talked about. Ruiz also finished with a 130 wRC+ in that final month, which was a little better than Zack Gelof and right in line with Red Sox third baseman Rafael Devers. 

Obviously there is a long way to go before his offense his considered to be at that level, but with the focus on adjustments heading into the offseason and the success he had with the adjustments he'd already made to finish out 2023, he could be on the right track to becoming at least a double-digit home run player, if not somewhere in the 15-20 home run range. Add that to his stolen base potential, and the A's may have made the right decision trading Murphy to Atlanta instead of San Francisco.