This might be the easiest “what to expect” analysis we’ve ever written since we started regularly breaking down how Top 100 prospects might perform in their first taste of the big leagues.

Jacob Wilson is going to make contact. A lot of it.

It’s nothing new, even if his .438/.475/.686 line in the Minors at the time of his callup to the A’s for Friday’s game is extraordinary. The A’s knew what they were getting when they took former All-Star Jack Wilson’s kid No. 6 overall in the 2023 Draft. He left Grand Canyon University after three years with an absurd strikeout rate of 4.6 percent. That came down because in his junior season, he struck out just five times in 217 plate appearances (2.3 percent).

While the hope was that Wilson, the A's No. 1 prospect and MLB's No. 50, would be the type of college hitter to move quickly through the system, there was an understanding that the move to pro ball would likely lead to some more swing-and-miss. Wilson, who comes up with a combined .401/.445/.613 line over 311 total Minor League plate appearances, has seen his K rate “skyrocket” to 7.7 percent. This season, interrupted for a month by a knee injury, he’s struck out at a 6.5 percent rate.

Digging deeper into all of his numbers will leave you even more astounded at what he’s done this year at the upper levels of the A’s system. If Wilson saw a strike this year, he swung at it. And if he swung at it, he didn’t miss. According to Synergy, Wilson saw 256 pitches in the zone between Double-A and Triple-A. He swung at 194 of them, or 75.8 percent of them. He missed a grand total of seven. That’s a miss percentage of four percent, a number so small it’s hard to comprehend. By comparison, Steven Kwan is the only big leaguer with at least 75 plate appearances to have a lower in-zone miss rate, at 2.9 percent. Even the gold standard, Luis Arraez, is at 6.1 percent.

Wilson has had just two games with two strikeouts -- he's had three games with four RBIs. In games in which he's had at least one at-bat, Wilson has had more four-hit games (7) than hitless games (5).

Typically, even hitters who are succeeding have one pitch they really struggle against. Not so for Wilson. The breakdown, again according to Synergy:

All fastballs: .420/.473/.670
All breaking balls: .385/.389/.654
All offspeed pitches: .600/.600/.700

So, maybe don’t throw him a changeup? It’s an approach that’s been honed over the years with his father, who hated strikeouts throughout his career. The guy is even hitting .375 against pitches out of the zone with a tiny 16 percent miss rate, though that points to the one of the parts of his offensive game he knows he needs to keep working on, especially in the big leagues.

He’s almost too good at making contact, so he swings at almost everything. His overall chase rate of 28 percent this year is something to keep an eye on, with big league pitchers likely to try to expand the zone to see just how much he trusts his ability to put the ball in play.

The other area of growth for Wilson is the quality of his contact. His low exit velocity was concern when he was coming out of Grand Canyon. It’s hard to find fault with a guy who has a .974 OPS when you combine his college and Minor League numbers, but the big leagues are a different matter. He’s shown more ability to drive the ball, with a decent number of 100 mph or higher EVs in Triple-A this year, and his seven homers this year is one more than he hit at GCU in 2023, in three fewer games. It’s never going to be a huge part of his game, but he’s also only 22 and will continue to get stronger.

And of course when you're hitting .438 overall, you're bound to have some ridiculous splits. To wit:

• He's batting .765 (13-for-17) in day games
• He's batting .544 (43-for-79) in home games
• He's batting .529 (18-for-34) vs. left-handers
• He's batting .500 (9-for-18) when behind in the count 0-2

He’s also among the quickest A’s draftees to the big leagues. At 376 days, Wilson slots in ninth in terms of days from being drafted to making his debut, a number that likely would have been smaller if not for that knee issue:

Mike Morgan: 5 (6/6/78 - 6/11/78)
Tim Conroy: 17 (6/6/78 - 6/23/78)
Ariel Prieto: 31 (6/1/95 - 7/2/95)
Rich Bordi: 43 (6/3/80 - 7/16/80)
Scott Meyer: 96 (6/6/78 - 9/10/78)
Huston Street: 303 (6/7/04 - 4/6/05)
Kirk Dressendorfer: 313 (6/4/90 - 4/13/91)
Reggie Jackson: 367 (6/7/66 - 6/9/67)
Jacob Wilson: 376 (7/9/23 - 7/19/24)