Elephant Rumblings: Luis Barrera continuing his success from AAA

Happy Thursday, Athletics Nation!

We got our first look at Luis Barrera in the major leagues last season when he came up for a six game stretch in May. With only a few chances to bat, Barrera’s first cup-of-coffee wasn’t too notable, and he returned to AAA Las Vegas to follow through with a very solid .741 OPS season.

Come 2022, Luis stayed consistent through spring training, keeping that OPS in the .700s through 9 games. Despite a strong start in the minors this year Barrera found himself designated for assignment on April 11th, making room on the 40-man roster for waiver claim Gabe Klobosits. Thankfully for A’s fans, Barrera managed to clear waivers and continued his assault on his Pacific Coast League opponents.

Less than a month later Luis’ fortunes changed as Billy McKinney faced a DFA on May 9th, and Barrera was called back up to the A’s. Since then Barrera has proved to be a core part of the Athletics batting order, especially through a slumpy May. Of course Barrera’s lack of April ABs means that he isn’t fully qualified for batting stats so far, but with what we can see he is currently leading the team’s batting stats through the month.

Luis’ biggest impact obviously came with his gigantic walk-off homer against the Angels on the 14th. It seems that Barrera is ready to keep the pace, going 4-for-9 in the series against the Seattle Mariners with a pair of doubles, a pair of RBI, and a pair of stolen bases. The key for Barrera going forward is keeping his whiff rate and strikeouts down. Luis was averaging one K-per-game in AAA, but has so far been able to halve that rate in the majors.

A’s Coverage

• Ashford: Game #46: A’s hang on for 4-2 win, take series against Mariners
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• AP: Mariners’ slide continues with loss to Athletics
• Martin: Brown: A’s starting to ‘gel’ after series win vs. Mariners
• Kawahara: Second X-ray of A’s outfielder Ramon Laureano’s hand is negative ($)
• Contes: Jeff Bagwell railed against “farce” Moneyball during Houston Astros broadcast
• Kawahara: What’s behind A’s ace Frankie Montas’ increased splitter use? ($)

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• Law: Redrafting the 2012 class: It’s still Correa vs. Buxton ($)
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Jonah Bride from the 2018 draft class has made it to AAA

Check out the thread for a full showcase of this team-to-team communication

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The bright side of 2022 Lou

K or KO?

oh no