Nick Kurtz

Nick Kurtz 1B of the Oakland Athletics is the favorite to win the American League Rookie of the Year award. Kurtz hit his 31st home run last night. A towering shot that was a grand slam and I believe the longest home run hit this year at 493 ft.
Kurtz 6'5 240lbs. is 22 years old. He played college baseball at Wake Forest has 31 home runs, 78 RBI's is batting .298 and has 5.0 WAR in just 104 games. I'm looking forward to following Kurtz over the course of his career.

Another young Slugger! 31 homers at 22 is impressive!!

The season long, grand slam blast by The Big Amish.

Kurtz with his 32nd home run today. Wilson and also homered. The Athletics have alot of young talent. Hopefully they'll get better as a team next season and make the post season.

The thing I love about Kurtz is his size, natural power and easy swing. Reminds me a bit of Jim Thome.

In the MLB thread, we talked about guys who could challenge Bond’s fraudulent homerun record. I mentioned that it would have to be someone like Kurtz to do it. He’s already got 32-35 homers (I’m estimating 3 more) under his belt in his age 22 season. Extrapolate 35 for 15 seasons and you have 525. If Kurtz gets himself to 40 homers a year, you have 600 over a 15 season career. Where you get to record talks is if he can either play 18-20 seasons or increase his averages to 45 homers. Or a combo of the two.

Sadly, other great sluggers got a later start. Kyle Schwarber didn’t hit his homerun stride til age 24 and didn’t have a 40+ season until age 29. Now he’s at 335 wrapping up his age 32 season. Same for another homerun artist, Pete Alonso. Hit the ground running but 24 years old as a rookie. He’s at a great pace, but only at 259 near the completion of his age 30 year. So again, we can see the importance with coming up at a younger age.

Freethinker said:

He’s already got 32-35 homers (I’m estimating 3 more) under his belt in his age 22 season.

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Mike Trout had 111 home runs after his age 22 season! He probably had the best shot at getting to Aaron or Bonds, but we all know his story.
Still, he is the GOAT MLB Player for a 5 year span I've ever seen.
Although Kurtz is already a great slugger, he doesn't have the all-around game Trout had, but we can hope Kurtz can hit many more home runs. Kurtz also hits for average as well! He would have to average 35 home runs for 19 years just to approach 700! He would be 42 years old. I probably won't be around to see it.