MESA, Ariz. – It might be the first time Leo De Vries slugged a home run rocking the kelly green and gold, but it certainly won't be the last. These are just Cactus League games after all, and De Vries throttled not one but two homers in an 11-7 win against the Dodgers on Sunday at Hohokam Stadium, his first with the white script "Athletics" across his chest.
Among the starting nine for a third consecutive day, as the club had a split-squad with another game in action at its future home in Las Vegas, De Vries stayed back in Arizona. But there’s arguably no player more intertwined with the future of Athletics baseball than De Vries.
In the fourth inning, De Vries quickly got behind in the count against Dodgers No. 24 prospect Kyle Hurt, but the righty hung an 0-2 changeup, and the switch-hitting shortstop deposited it over the right-field fence for a two-run shot.
“When you play every day, when you swing every day, you get into a rhythm,” De Vries said via A’s Major League staff assistant Ramon Hernandez. “I've been working a lot in the offseason to get myself ready for this, and now that I’ve got the opportunity, I'm trying to leave it all [out there] and do the best I can with this opportunity.”
An inning later, De Vries watched as Los Angeles made a pitching change prior to his plate appearance. He knew nothing about right-hander Carson Hobbs aside from his warmup tosses; on the second pitch of the at-bat, he whistled an elevated fastball out for a grand slam to nearly the same spot as his first round-tripper. His performance makes him the first Athletics player to collect six or more RBIs in a Cactus League game since Brandon Allen on March 4, 2012.
Both balls – hit in excess of 101 mph – would have been home runs in all 30 regular-season MLB parks. And after impact, De Vries’ first step told the story: he knew he got all of it.
“That’s confidence,” said De Vries. “It comes out naturally; you don't even think about it.”
When De Vries was acquired as the headlining prospect in last year’s deal with the Padres that sent Mason Miller and JP Sears in the other direction, he was tied for the second-highest-ranked prospect ever dealt. He ascended to Top-5 overall prospect status in the sport by the time he was 18 years old – and is now ranked No. 4 overall in his first full season with the Athletics.
Now he’s a fixture in A’s camp – albeit as a non-roster invitee – at just 19. While he previously got into Cactus League games with the Padres each of the past two years, this spin around camp has been much more of a legitimate audition than just part-time extra reps. De Vries is slashing .385/.429/.615 (10-for-26) across 11 games, and his 16 total bases rank tied for third among all Athletics.
COMPLETE ATHLETICS PROSPECT COVERAGE
The question is seemingly not if, but when, he will bring his potentially transcendent skill set to a big league diamond.
“What I like about the aura is that it’s a quiet level of confidence,” manager Mark Kotsay said last month. “There’s some, we use the word ‘swag,’ to describe how he goes out and plays the game. At the same point, he plays the game the right way. He plays it hard, and he continues to want to learn and grow.”