Although the Chicago Cubs and the defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers have already played a pair of regular season games overseas as part of last week’s Tokyo Series, Thursday marks the traditional Opening Day for Major League Baseball, with 14 games scheduled for what many fans consider to be an unofficial holiday.

A new season brings new opportunities for organizations and players, including the three players from Turlock Unified’s 2020 graduating class — Turlock High’s Tyler Soderstrom and Cole Carrigg and Pitman High’s Kade Morris. As each continues to establish themselves in their respective organizations, 2015 Turlock graduate Nick Avila is on the comeback trail and hoping to find his way back to “The Show.” 

With all four on different chapters of their careers, here is everything you need to know about local ballplayers and their teams ahead of the highly anticipated 2025 season:

Kotsay expresses confidence in Soderstrom

The Athletics organization dominated many headlines throughout the offseason, mostly for happenings off the field.

After 57 years, the A’s have left Oakland and moved into what they say will only be a temporary home in West Sacramento, sharing Sutter Health Park with San Francisco Giants’ Triple-A affiliate Sacramento River Cats. Slated for their first career Opening Day start is Soderstrom, who has been given the full-time keys for the team’s first base job while also continuing to take reps at catcher in the event starting catcher Shea Langeliers needs rest or gets banged up.

After Soderstrom’s last spring camp a year ago was derailed by illness and, just as he seemed to be finding his footing in the big leagues, his regular season was interrupted by a bone bruise on his left wrist, the former first-round draft pick is at full health. He went 12-for-54 with a home run and four RBI over 20 Cactus League games. He also stole a pair of bases.

“I'm excited about Tyler Soderstrom,” said manager Mark Kotsay in a recent interview on the web series Foul Territory. “I think he had a year where he started to really figure things out, and then the injury happened. You know, he suffered an injury that took away from, you know, a good portion of the second half. He rehabbed, he got back, and then those last few weeks with us, I was really impressed with that.”

The 23-year-old played in 61 games last year, hitting. 233 with 44 hits, including 10 doubles, 9 home runs and 26 runs driven in. He also displayed patience by working 20 walks. In mid-June, he joined bash brother Jose Canseco and Hall of Famers Reggie Jackson, Jimmie Foxx and Mickey Cochrane as the only players in team history age 22 or younger to hit four home runs in a seven-game span.

“This spring training, if you're going to get caught up in, you know, just the numbers, the batting average, it's not going to look great, but the at-bats have been professional,” Kotsay continued. “He's hitting the ball hard, taking the at-bat that you want to see and just not getting the results right now, but I'm excited for him. I think this could be a year where he figures it out and takes off.”

Of any player on the Athletics’ Opening Day roster, Soderstrom has played the most games at Sutter Health Park, appearing 29 times over the last three seasons in his stints with the Triple-A Las Vegas Aviators. He has tallied 22 hits, including three home runs, and 16 RBI.

“I think it's nice. I like it,” Soderstrom said of the ballpark in a Turlock Journal interview last summer. “I like playing here. Always have. I always feel like I play good here. And it’s so close to home, so I'm probably a little biased on that part of it.”

Teammate Lawrence Butler, who recently signed a seven-year, $65.5 million contract extension with a club option for 2032, joked with the Journal during the team’s final series in Oakland that the Turlocker would have to give the team tips on how the ballpark plays for hitters, as well as recommendations for off-field bites and entertainment.

Soderstrom was the club’s top prospect until he made his MLB debut in July of 2023. His ability and willingness to continue appearing at catcher could also combat a potential future logjam at first base, as it’s the primary position of the organization’s current top prospect, 2024 fourth overall pick Nick Kurtz, who is projected by MLB Pipeline to break into the bigs later this year.

Carrigg climbs Colorado’s prospect rankings

Soderstrom’s former Bulldog teammate, Cole Carrigg, was a non-roster invitee to Colorado Rockies major league camp, and although his stay was short-lived (he played in just 11 games), he had his fair share of highlights. He had just three hits over 11 games in the Cactus League, but he made them count.

He had a pair of doubles that nearly cleared the fences, stealing on the ensuing plate appearances. He also hit a home run. All hits were tabbed over 90 miles per hour off his bat. The big fly on Feb. 25 was a missile into the stands of the Talking Stick stadium at 111 mph. 

Carrigg was reassigned to minor league camp on March 5, but returned to the spotlight 11 days later when he was named to Colorado’s Spring Breakout roster against the Chicago White Sox rosters. In that game, he went 1-for-3, tagging a double off the right field wall at Camelback Ranch in his final at-bat.

The 22-year-old outfielder is expected to start his second full season in professional baseball in Double-A Hartford.

Carrigg played the entire 2024 season in High-A Spokane, where he slashed .299/.371/.517/.850 with 129 hits, including 16 doubles, 14 triples, 17 home runs, 65 RBI and 53 stolen bags. His efforts helped him climb to be the No. 3 Rockies prospects on MLB Pipeline, and to No. 85 on Baseball America’s Top 100 Prospects list.

Morris finding his footing in A’s system

Kade Morris has been around the block the past few months, playing for two of the Athletics’ minor league affiliates and bouncing between the organization’s training camps.

After the Athletics acquired him at the July 30 trade deadline from the New York Mets, Morris ended the 2024 campaign between two affiliates, High-A Lansing and Triple-A Las Vegas. In Lansing, the 22-year-old posted a 5.92 and 24 strikeouts in 38 innings over seven starts. With the High-A season ending in September, the A’s sent Morris to Vegas to get extra work, which included a start and an appearance out of the bullpen, which brought his first professional save right as the year concluded.

Although he wasn’t a major league invitee to spring training, Morris was elevated to the main club early in camp, and spent all but the final week and a half there, appearing in a March 4 game against the Texas Rangers in which he tossed a hitless ninth innings for another save. 

If the previous roster shuffling involving Morris wasn't enough, he even left Arizona for a weekend to join the big league club in Las Vegas for the Athletics’ Big League Weekend, where they played a pair of games against the Arizona Diamondbacks in front of fans eager for the team’s anticipated relocation in 2028.

Upon returning from the Las Vegas showcase, Morris was named to the A’s Spring Breakout roster for the first time in his career, and the trend of unpredictability remained consistent, as he was just one of three players who didn’t see game action.

With the A’s seemingly set on making Morris a full-time reliever, they are expected to assign him to Double-A Midland to start the 2025 season. He was recently listed as the organization's No. 7 pitching and No. 17 overall prospect by MLB Pipeline.

More ways to watch

Whether Soderstrom continues to find success in the big leagues or Morris forces his way to Sacramento — or if Carrigg finds his way to the majors and plays against either the A’s or San Francisco Giants — local fans have more options than ever to tune in.

Data from ticketing app Gametime reveals the A’s will open the season with the highest median ticket price for a home game, at $181, at Sutter Health Park, which holds just 14,014 people. 

Such pricy tickets may keep fans home and opt to turn on their televisions or mobile devices. Luckily, those folks won’t have to worry about game streams being blacked out due to cable or streaming contracts.

On March 19, Major League Baseball announced that they came to an agreement with NBC Sports to carry Athletics and Giants broadcasts, meaning there will be streaming packages on MLB.TV available that include both regional teams and would waive infamous blackouts.

In past years, fans subscribed to MLB.TV couldn’t watch local teams play due to blackout rules enforced to protect advertising revenue for regional sports networks, such as NBC Sports California (who broadcast the A’s) and NBC Sports Bay Area (who carry the Giants). Now, after Diamond Sports Group (who operated Bally’s Sports) filed for bankruptcy and dropped many of their broadcasts, MLB themselves have come to the rescue to deliver games directly to consumers… at a cost, of course. 

For those without NBC Sports channels on their cable or streaming service plan, the new MLB.TV packages are as follows:

• $19.99 per month for one local team

• $39.99 per month for one local team bundled with all out-of-market games

• $29.99 per month for out-of-market games only

• $149.99 for all out-of-market games for the entire year

As in past years, every Minor League Baseball game is available with any of the MLB.TV packages.

Following the recent agreement with NBC Sports to carry the A’s and Giants, Major League Baseball now offers  direct-to-consumer streaming options without local blackouts for 26 of the 30 teams.

Avila building back up

One local ballplayer who made headlines last year for making his MLB debut is Nick Avila, and his 2025 is off to a much different start.

This time last year, the right-handed reliever impressed Giants manager Bob Melvin so much in spring training, he was on the short-list of relievers considered for an early-season MLB call-up. It’s exactly what happened April 1 when he made his debut against the Los Angeles Dodgers, striking out two-time reigning MVP Shohei Ohtani in the process.

But after he was sent down to Triple-A Sacramento, the injury bug bit him. Prior to his release by the Giants on June 16, he spent weeks on the IL with right shoulder impingement. After a short stint in the minors with the Baltimore Orioles organization, he was released again and has remained a free agent since.

The lack of a new contract over the winter was because Avila had offseason surgery, and returned to soft toss just a week ago, he revealed in an Instagram video. He is expected to make a full recovery in the coming months.