Ronald Acuna

Poll: When Should The Braves Promote Ronald Acuna?

By Steve Adams | April 17, 2018 at 1:35pm CDT

The topic of whether top prospect Ronald Acuna should be in the Majors or in Triple-A is one of the most oft-discussed topics certainly among Braves fans but also among fans throughout the league. The 20-year-old, after all, has been widely billed as a phenom in the waiting and topped the majority of prospect rankings from major outlets this offseason (with the occasional exception of Shohei Ohtani, when he was deemed eligible for such lists).

Acuna opened the 2017 season in Class-A Advanced and skyrocketed to Triple-A by season’s end. The Venezuelan-born slugger didn’t just move up the ladder, though; his numbers actually improved upon each promotion, culminating with a .344/.393/.548 line in Triple-A.

Overall, Acuna slashed .325/.374/.522 with 21 homers, 31 doubles, eight triples and 44 steals across three minor league levels in 2017 — and he did so all before turning 20 years of age this past December. Even before reading any of the many glowing scouting reports on Acuna, it’s abundantly clear that he’s a special talent. Teenagers simply don’t perform that well in pro ball.

Entering the season, the thought was that the Braves, like many teams do with elite prospects, would take advantage of Major League Baseball’s service time infrastructure and hold Acuna in the minors long enough to delay his free agency by a year. Doing so would only require him to be in Gwinnett until mid-April. While some may bristle at the notion, it’s hard to argue, from a front-office standpoint, that the extra two weeks of games in 2018 are worth sacrificing Acuna’s entire 2024 season — his age-27 campaign. Keeping Acuna in the minors for those couple of weeks makes perfect sense from a long-term view.

That date has come and gone, however, meaning the Braves can bring their vaunted wunderkind to the Majors at any point, knowing he’ll be controlled through 2024. Bringing him up now would mean allowing him to reach arbitration four times as a Super Two player rather than the standard three times, but that’s of relatively minimal consequence — at least when juxtaposed with the notion of losing an entire year of club control over his prime.

But although Acuna dominated Grapefruit League play in Spring Training (.432/.519/.727), that hasn’t been the case in the regular season. It’s only nine games and 41 plate appearances, of course, but Acuna is hitting .139/.244/.167 in Triple-A. After striking out at a 19.8 percent clip last season, he’s already whiffed 14 times in 41 plate appearances (34.1 percent).

None of that does anything to change the perception that Acuna is a star in the making, but it stands to reason that the Braves may not relish the idea of taking a struggling 20-year-old and bringing him to the big leagues to face even tougher competition. It doesn’t help that Preston Tucker has filled in capably at the big league level. Even though the 27-year-old likely isn’t a long-term piece, and there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that his start isn’t sustainable, the fact remains that the Braves have gotten some production out of Acuna’s would-be spot in the lineup.

That, of course, isn’t deemed a good enough reason for Acuna to be in the minors for many. Narratives on his brief minor league struggles will suggest that he’s pressing to earn a promotion or not engaged enough by the lack of competition. Atlanta skipper Brian Snitker went with the similarly nebulous explanation that Acuna is “trying too hard” at the moment (link via MLB.com’s Mark Bowman). It’s understandable if Braves fans want to see him up at all costs; it’s been a lengthy rebuilding process down in Georgia, and Acuna’s arrival could in many ways mark a move back toward contention. It’s also true that attendance figures would likely spike, at least in the short term, the moment that Acuna is called upon for his highly anticipated debut. And if he’s anything close to the player that most believe he will be, there’s also an argument to be made that Acuna ought to be added to a ballclub that has played rather well and may yet be a fringe postseason contender.

All of those factors enter into the calculus of when Acuna will be brought to the big leagues. It’s a decision the Atlanta front office won’t make lightly, as the last thing first-year GM Alex Anthopoulos and his staff want to do is have to demote Acuna back to Gwinnett if he struggles out of the gate. At the same time, Anthopoulos & Co. are no doubt cognizant of the fanbase’s desire to see Acuna attack Major League pitching and of the manner in which a strong arrival on the scene would invigorate the Atlanta faithful.

(Link to poll for Trade Rumors app users.)

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Poll: Service Time Considerations

By Kyle Downing | April 15, 2018 at 9:57pm CDT

It’s no secret that talent alone doesn’t necessarily dictate when top prospects will reach the major leagues. Ballclubs have significant financial and competitive incentives to keep top prospects down in the minors even when they’re hitting the cover off the ball, or embarrassing every opposing batter from the mound. These incentives are a by-product of MLB’s service time regulations.

For those unfamiliar, the basic concept is as follows: players accrue service time for each day spent at the MLB level, even if they’re on the major league disabled list. After a player collects six years of service time, he’s eligible for free agency.

Things get far more complicated from there, however. MLB has specific regulations in place to account for partial seasons, since the vast majority of players are promoted at some point in the midst of the season. Perhaps the most significant aspect of these regulations (and certainly the most controversial) is that a player doesn’t get a full season’s worth of service time if he spends 12 days in the minors.

That seemingly short amount of time is the difference between the Cubs keeping Kris Bryant under team control through 2020 or 2021, which was (unofficially) the reason the team elected to keep him at Triple-A to start the season. At the end of 2020, Bryant will fall exactly a day shy of qualifying for free agency, giving the team the rights to one more of his prime seasons.

The conversation has once again resurfaced (though admittedly to a lesser extent) in regards to Braves prospect Ronald Acuna. Although the 20-year-old annihilated Grapefruit League pitching to the tune of aÂ .432/.519/.727 batting line with four homers and four steals, Lane Adams and Peter Bourjos made the opening day roster while Acuna was reassigned to minor league camp. He’s now been down long enough to give the Braves control over him for an additional season.

It’s hard to blame teams for managing the service time of top prospects in this way, especially a Braves club that has little chance to contend this season as it is. From a pure baseball standpoint, the fraction of a WAR that AcunaÂ might have contributed in those first 12 days (it’s worth noting that he’s off to a .152/.222/.182 start in Triple-A) is worth tens of millions less than the WAR total he’s likely to post in the year 2024.

On the other hand, the system is hardly fair to the players. At its core, it seems absurd that a single day of service time can cost a player the additional seven or even eight figures he could have earned if his final arbitration season had instead yielded open market value for him.

There wouldn’t seem to be an easy solution to the issue, either. There’s not exactly a midway point between becoming a free agent and being under team control for an additional season (though the Super TwoÂ regulations at least guarantee players more arbitration dollars if they’ve accrued a significant portion of a seventh year’s service time). One could say that 12 days is an awfully small percentage of a season and that players should gain the full year even if they spent 20 days, 30 days, 40 days, etc. in the minors, but no matter what, it’d always come down to one day making a multi-million dollar difference in value.

What do you think? Should the service time rules change, or are they perfectly reasonable the way they are now? (Poll link for app users)

NL East Notes: Rendon, Acuna, Hunter

By Mark Polishuk | April 14, 2018 at 4:14pm CDT

The latest from around the NL East…

Anthony Rendon left last night’s game after fouling a ball off his left big toe, and he wasn’t in today’s Nationals lineup. X-rays on the toe were negative, and manager Dave Martinez told MLB.com’s Jamal Collier and other reporters that there had yet to be any discussion of a possible DL stint for the star third baseman. Washington is already short Daniel Murphy and Adam Eaton from their first-choice starting lineup, and a Rendon absence would give Bryce Harper even less protection.
Ronald Acuna is hitting just .138/.219/.172 over his first 32 Triple-A plate appearances this season, and with Preston Tucker playing well for the Braves in left field, David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes that we may have to wait a while longer to see Acuna make his big league debut. There had been speculation that Acuna could have been called up as early as today, as he would no longer accumulate a full year of MLB service time if he remained on the roster for the entire season, giving the Braves an extra year of control over the star prospect. Service time considerations aside, it doesn’t seem like Atlanta would try to rush Acuna to the majors when he is on such a cold streak. O’Brien did wonder, however, if the team could promote Acuna on Monday to generate some extra interest for the start of a new homestand.
Tommy Hunter will participate in a game at the Phillies’ extended Spring Training camp today, though manager Gabe Kapler told reporters (including NBC Sports Philadelphia’s Jim Salisbury) that the team would see how Hunter felt afterwards before deciding whether he needed one more rehab outing or not. Hunter suffered a hamstring strain in late March and has yet to make his debut in a Phillies uniform. The club signed Hunter to a two-year, $18MM free agent deal in the wake of his very strong 2017 season with the Rays. Even if Hunter requires one more outing, he is likely to be activated sometime this week, provided there aren’t any health setbacks.

Latest On Ronald Acuna

By Jeff Todd | March 27, 2018 at 4:03pm CDT

4:03PM: Acuna hasn’t been approached with any offers, the outfielder himself told David O’Brien and other reporters, and he and his representation hadn’t been engaged in any sort of talks about a potential $30MM deal.

1:55PM: Braves phenom Ronald Acuna has at least given some indication to the Braves that he would be interested in a long-term contract, according to MLB.com’s Mark Bowman. While some discussions have taken place, it seems there is no real indication at present that the sides are particularly likely to agree to a deal.

The report from Bowman arises after former ESPN Deportes blogger Arturo Marcano tweeted yesterday that Acuna had turned down a $30MM offer from the Atlanta organization. But both Bowman and David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Twitter link) reported in strong terms that no such offer had been issued by the team.

Acuna, who’s perhaps the highest-regarded pre-MLB player in baseball, was previously re-assigned out of major-league camp in anticipation of opening the year at Triple-A. First, though, he showed why he has drawn so much hype with a monster performance in the Grapefruit League.

A generally similar situation was unfolding with the division-rival Phillies, whose top prospect Scott Kingery pushed for a MLB role with a big performance in camp. He ultimately agreed to an extension before ever suiting up for a big-league game — a somewhat controversial contract model. That deal, while hardly unprecedented, has sparked some new discussion as to whether teams will increasingly attempt to lock up their best prospects quite early in their careers.

For the time being, anyway, it seems there’s not much likelihood of a similar outcome in Atlanta. The team would no doubt be quite willing to make a commitment to Acuna at the right price, but it’s far from clear whether the sides will see eye to eye — or even whether significant further discussions will take place.

Braves Reassign Ronald Acuna To Minor League Camp

By Jeff Todd | March 19, 2018 at 5:58pm CDT

The Braves have re-assigned much-hyped prospect Ronald Acuna to minor-league camp, David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution was among those to report on Twitter. He’ll presumably open the season at Triple-A.

It’s rarely notable when a 20-year-old is moved out of major-league camp. Then again, it’s fairly rare even to see a player of that age on the MLB side in the first place.

Acuna is a particularly special case. He began the 2017 season as a highly-regarded but largely untested youngster and finished the campaign as arguably the game’s best overall prospect after blitzing up the minor-league ladder. He opened at High-A and ended at Triple-A, improving his output all the while. Acuna finished with a cumulative .325/.374/.522 slash over 612 trips to the plate, adding 21 long balls and 44 steals to go with it.

Recent developments have only raised Acuna’s profile further. He mashed his way through the Arizona Fall League and has laid waste to the Grapefruit League this spring, posting a .432/.519/.727 batting line with four home runs and four swiped bags in 52 plate appearances.

There’s not much question that Acuna is ready for the majors. But the Braves are evidently not quite ready for him to join the active roster. That’s hardly a surprise, as the organization has consistently indicated Acuna would open in the minors, but it remains quite notable.

It’s impossible to ignore the service-time factors at play here. So long as Acuna is not allowed to accrue 172 days of service in the coming season, he won’t accrue a full season of MLB service. That would allow the Braves to play him in the majors for most of the upcoming campaign while still controlling him for six full seasons after that point. (Of course, the club might also try to hold him down long enough to prevent future Super Two status, though that would be yet a harder sell.)

Of course, even a delay of a few weeks’ time can have an impact on a team’s won-loss record. But that’s not a particularly pressing concern for this organization. While Atlanta had been looking to 2018 as a season to gear up for contention, a series of events — the poor finish to 2017, stunning front office upheaval, and big salary swapping trade that pushed financial obligations forward — seemingly conspired to change the plans.

In that regard, the considerations are a bit different than in the much-discussed case of then-top-prospect Kris Bryant back in 2015. Bryant, who was also a good deal older than Acuna, started in the minors despite a torrid spring and was held down just long enough for the Cubs to ensure that additional season of control. He played in 151 games after arriving and helped lead the team to a postseason berth.

We’ve never yet seen a situation as eyebrow-raising as Bryant’s and probably never will. But Acuna is certainly in the same general category: a super-premium prospect who has shown everything needed to prove he’s ready — at least from an on-field perspective — to play at the game’s highest level. Instead, the Braves will at least open the year with some kind of platoon in left field, likely featuring some combination of Lane Adams, Charlie Culberson, Danny Santana, Preston Tucker, and/or Ezequiel Carrera.

Braves GM Alex Anthopoulos explained his thought process to MLB.com’s Mark Bowman, stating that Acuna’s own developmental needs were the primary concern. Atlanta’s new top baseball decisionmaker also suggested he would not have been as inclined as the prior front office group to move Acuna up so quickly last year.

It’ll be interesting to see whether or how the Major League Baseball Player’s Association addresses today’s decision by the Braves. The union has already felt squeezed on the free-agent side of the service-time spectrum, making it especially notable to see a top young talent handled in a manner seemingly designed (at least in part) to delay his entry onto the open market.

Braves Nearing Acquisition Of Position Player

By Jeff Todd | February 14, 2018 at 11:33am CDT

12:00pm: In fact, the move was not for an outfielder, with Bowman explaining that he was mistaken in that regard. The Braves have reached a deal with catcher Chris Stewart.

11:33am: The Braves “seem to be close” to working out a deal to acquire an unnamed outfielder, according to a tweet from MLB.com’s Mark Bowman. Details on the prospective move remain sparse, but David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution tweets that GM Alex Anthopoulos has indicated the club is lining up a “small, depth-type move.”

At this point, it’s not known whether Atlanta is nearing a trade or free-agent signing. Either, surely, is plausible; there’s no shortage of unsigned outfielders left in free agency. With Matt Kemp dealt away earlier in the offseason, the Braves have an opening in the outfield mix that remains unresolved as camp opens.

One notable factor here is Bowman’s suggestion that the prospective addition would fill out the club’s outfield mix “until” top prospect Ronald Acuna is promoted. That obviously suggests that the Braves do not intend to allow Acuna to open the season on the MLB roster. Of course, that’s largely unsurprising, since the organization has every incentive to preserve their future control over the young phenom.

The reports also indicate that the new acquisition will be expected to play a role at the major league level, so perhaps this is more than a non-roster signing. Clearly, though, all indications are that Atlanta is not on the verge of a truly significant move.

NL East Notes: Acuna, Harrison, Brinson

By Steve Adams | January 29, 2018 at 9:40am CDT

Ronald Acuna is widely regarded as the best outfield prospect in baseball (if not the best prospect overall), but he tells MLB.com’s Mark Bowman that he’s also cognizant of the fact that he could open the year in the minors for a few weeks for service time reasons. The Braves could keep Acuna in Triple-A for as few as 12 days to open the season and, in doing so, secure an extra year of control over the 20-year-old’s future. “I’ve talked to some people, and I think the debate is whether they should keep me [with Triple-A Gwinnett] for a couple weeks or a month or however that works, contractually, to benefit the team,” Acuna tells Bowman through his interpreter. “I’ve tried not to focus on any of that. My goal is just to compete for the roster spot and hopefully make the team.”

The Braves, of course, would hardly be the first team to aggressively employ service time manipulation of that form with its young talent, and there’s every argument for doing so under the current construction of the service time system — especially for a team that would need quite a few things to go its way to be in Wild Card contention.

NL East Notes: Mets, Acuna, Marlins

By Mark Polishuk | January 27, 2018 at 3:21pm CDT

Some items from around the NL East…

The slowed free agent market could benefit a team with seemingly limited payroll space like the Mets, Kristie Ackert of the New York Daily News writes. If price tags fall due to the lack of movement, players like Jonathan Lucroy, Lance Lynn, or Alex Cobb could emerge on the Mets’ radar, especially if the team is willing to get “creative” with offers. For Mike Moustakas, for instance, Ackert wonders if the Mets could offer the third baseman a contract with an opt-out after the first season if Moustakas wanted to quickly test the market again; New York made a similar deal with Yoenis Cespedes two years ago.
The Mets’ methods of dealing with injured players has been a source of controversy for years, and while the club has made new hires in its medical department this winter, Ken Davidoff of the New York Post reports that ownership “micromanagement” and hyper-competitiveness will have to be curtailed in order for progress to be made. In particular, COO Jeff Wilpon is “more involved in medical matters — such as working on media releases about injuries.”
As you might expect, rival teams have been coveting Braves outfield prospect Ronald Acuna, with the Marlins most recently asking for Acuna in as part of a Christian Yelich trade package. Braves GM Alex Anthopoulos told reporters (including Gabriel Burns of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution) that the team might still consider an outfield move “but [one] that’s not as big because we don’t want to block Acuna” in 2018. Arguably the top prospect all of baseball, Acuna is expected to debut in Atlanta’s outfield as early as Opening Day.
The Marlins could be an attractive destination for lower-tier free agents who are still trying to find a new team, the New York Post’s Joel Sherman writes, given their lack of big league-ready talent. Signing a couple of notable veterans to reasonable contracts would help the Marlins on several fronts, Sherman argues — the team could gain some trade deadline chips, add veteran leadership to a young roster, and alleviate criticism from the players’ union about a lack of spending.

NL East Notes: Yelich, Mets, Arrieta, Rizzo

By Steve Adams | January 17, 2018 at 11:27pm CDT

Despite Christian Yelich’s unhappiness with the Marlins’ direction and the recent comments from his agent to ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick indicating that the relationship between team and player is “irretrievably broken,” the Marlins maintain an understandably high asking price on the 26-year-old. MLB Network’s Peter Gammons uses the Braves as an example of that lofty asking price (video link), reporting that the Marlins at one point informed Atlanta that they’d be willing to talk about a multi-player package that would send Yelich to the Braves if and only if top prospect Ronald Acuna was the headliner of the deal. (Braves fans will undoubtedly scoff at the very notion, though it’s hardly a surprise to see the Marlins pushing for any team’s top-ranked prospect when peddling five years of Yelich at a maximum total of $58.25MM.)

Unsurprisingly, Gammons quickly adds, “That’s one guy the Braves are not going to trade,” in reference to Acuna. Despite the drama surrounding Yelich and teammate J.T. Realmuto, Gammons notes that the Marlins aren’t locks to deal the pair, with Yelich being especially difficult to pry away given the affordable half-decade of control he has on his contract.

Nationals, Braves Interested In Christian Yelich, J.T. Realmuto

By Steve Adams | January 4, 2018 at 11:59am CDT

11:59am: The Nationals, too, are interested in both Realmuto and Yelich, writes MLB.com’s Joe Frisaro. The Nats’ interest in Realmuto has been previously reported by the Washington Post and MLB.com, among others, though GM Mike Rizzo’s club hasn’t been prominently linked to Yelich due to its own strong collection of outfielders. Per Frisaro, the Nats could have interest in trying to land both players, though that’s likely true of many teams.

Frisaro notes that the Marlins would covet both Victor Robles of the Nationals and the Braves’ Acuna, though both clubs would likely be reluctant to part with their top-ranked minor league talents. Rosenthal tweets that the Nationals would be loath to part with either Robles or fellow outfield Juan Soto, for instance. It’s a similar tale for the Phillies — an oft-cited Yelich suitor — as Frisaro writes that Rhys Hoskins would surely appeal to the Marlins, but it stands to reason that he’d be near untouchable after his stellar 2017 debut.

Talks regarding both Yelich and Realmuto are expected to pick up next week, according to Frisaro.

8:52am: Not only have the Braves called the division-rival Marlins to express interest in Christian Yelich (as has been previously reported), they’ve also tried to engage Miami in talks on catcher J.T. Realmuto, per Jon Morosi of MLB.com. Talks between the two sides haven’t advanced too far in either case as of late, he notes, but it seems as though the Braves have some level of interest in attempting to pry one or both players out of South Florida. David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution hears that the Braves have expressed interest in acquiring the pair, though he classifies it as doubtful that new GM Alex Anthopoulos would part with the overwhelming level of talent it’d take to land both players.

Atlanta will trot out a pair of solid veterans on one-year commitments — Tyler Flowers and Kurt Suzuki — to handle the bulk of their catching duties in 2018, whereas Realmuto and his remaining three years of control would give them a longer-term answer behind the dish. There’s a clearer spot for Yelich following the trade of Matt Kemp to the Dodgers, but Atlanta wants to leave space for top prospect Ronald Acuna to debut in an outfield corner as well. O’Brien speculates that perhaps the Braves could convince Miami to take on Nick Markakis and his salary if Martin Prado or another pricey veteran heads back to Atlanta in the deal.

While both Yelich and Realmuto are immensely popular trade targets — Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic writes (subscription required/recommended) that “virtually every club” is interested in trading for Yelich — it seems that there was at one point some positive momentum between the two sides. MLB.com’s Mark Bowman tweets that Atlanta and Miami “made some progress toward” a trade involving Yelich back at the Winter Meetings. The Marlins, though, pumped the brakes on talks a bit as they dealt with significant PR backlash from trading away the likes of Giancarlo Stanton, Dee Gordon and Marcell Ozuna, according to Bowman. He does add that talks were expected to resume eventually.

Certainly, acquiring even one of the two would require a massive haul. (Rosenthal, for instance, spoke to one exec who suggested that the Marlins could rightly ask three to four “genuine assets” in exchange for Yelich alone.) Acquiring both in one swoop would presumably require one of the largest packages of young, controllable talent in recent memory.

Even after being stripped of a dozen prospects on the heels of their recent front office scandal, the Braves have one of the game’s strongest farm systems, though there are still untouchable players in the organization (O’Brien has tweeted more than once that Acuna simply is not available in discussing scenarios with his followers). On paper, then, it’s possible that the two sides could line up for a swap, though things are never quire so simple. Other factors to consider include the financial component of a deal, whether the Marlins would charge some type of premium for dealing their top two remaining stars to a division rival, and what type of splash the new Anthopoulos-led Braves front office wants to make on its first significant move in Atlanta.

It’s worth stressing, again, that the Braves are merely one team that is interested in the pair of young Miami stars. In that same column, Rosenthal writes that the Nationals have already checked in on Realmuto, while the Astros “would figure to be interested” in the Miami backstop as well. MLB.com’s Joe Frisaro wrote yesterday that upwards of dozen clubs were in on Realmuto. As for Yelich, the Cardinals, Phillies, Diamondbacks, Giants, White Sox and even the outfield-heavy Cubs are among the teams that have been connected to him in previous reports, and surely there are others that have at least gauged the asking price as well.

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