Gunnar Hoglund Finishes Dominant June with 8 K's
The Oakland A's don't have much to show for the trade they made with the Toronto Blue Jays for Matt Chapman back in 2022. In fact, three of the four players the team acquired for Chappy are already in other organizations. The one who remains, right-hander Gunnar Hoglund, just finished off a dominant stretch of games in June, firing six one-run innings on Thursday night, giving up four hits, zero walks, and striking out eight.
The 24-year-old former first rounder has been in Double-A Midland all season, and through 15 games (14 starts) he holds a 3.08 ERA with a 1.10 WHIP, a 23% strikeout rate, and a 7.2% walk rate. In the month of June he made five starts and totaled 29 2/3 innings, giving up 22 hits, walking ten, and striking out 33. He also held a 1.82 ERA and recorded more strikeouts than innings pitched in a month for the first time in his pro career.
If you go back to his last two starts in May, he has allowed just six runs in his last 40 innings, good for a 1.35 ERA. He's starting to put things together.
With the run that he has been on, the logical question to be asked is when will he get promoted to Triple-A? The answer could be soon. The Texas League consists of just 10 teams total, and once a player has shown that they can perform against a team multiple times, then it's time to move them on up.
Take the Corpus Christi Hooks for example. Hoglund has faced them five times already this year, and in back-to-back starts in April he allowed four and then three runs to the Astros affiliate. The last two times he's faced them, he's totaled 9 1/3 shutout innings.
His promotion may not come immediately, but it should be on the horizon.
It should also be noted that since he is a 2021 draftee, that would make him eligible for the Rule 5 Draft in December. It's highly likely that he'll find his way onto Oakland's 40-man roster some time in November to protect him from that Draft.
While the A's don't have much to show for the Chapman trade, the player that is still around has a legitimate shot to make the deal look decent if he continues on his current trajectory towards the big leagues.
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JASON BURKE
Jason is the host of the Locked on A's podcast, and the managing editor of Inside the A's. He's a new father and can't wait to take his son to his first baseball game at the Coliseum.