Atlanta Braves: Ronald Acuna making adjustments

After coming out of the gate with some struggles with pitch recognition, Atlanta Braves top prospect Ronald Acuna is making his case for a promotion.

When the Atlanta Braves sent down star outfield prospect Ronald Acuna near the end of spring training, the thought was that the team did it solely for financial purposes. While that certainly factored into the decision, Acuna certainly did not hit well coming out of the gate, and it was more than just an issue of pressing to perform – Acuna had taken steps backward in his pitch recognition skills.

2017 impressive progress

After an injury-plagued 2016 season where Ronald Acuna impressed any scout that saw him healthy and on the field, the Atlanta Braves sent him to the Australian Winter League for some work. He ended up completely dominating the league in 20 games before being the hottest topic of 2017 spring training as he made play after play while the regular players were away with the World Baseball Classic.

He then opened his 2017 season in high-A, which is a fairly impressive assignment for a 19 year-old, but it was obvious in talent that Ronald Acuna was not the same as the other players in the Florida State League. His biggest bugaboo was recognizing pitches, specifically recognizing a change or slider out of hand on a pitcher with good arm deception on both pitches with his fastball. That led to a 31.75% strikeout rate with high-A Florida, but his talent was such that it was obvious he needed to be moving up the ladder, leading to a promotion to AA after 28 games.

The Atlanta Braves were hoping Acuna would hit well in AA and finish the season there, but instead, he took major steps forward, seeing his walk rate jump from 6.3% to 7.4% while his strikeout rate dropped from that 31.8% to 23% as he tattooed the ball, pushing the Braves into yet another promotion.

Certainly, Ronald Acuna couldn’t improve again, right? Wrong. He took his game to yet another level, dropping his strikeout rate to sub-20 with a 19.8% rate. After nearly a full calendar year straight of playing, the Atlanta Braves wanted to give him some rest, so after the AAA season was over, Acuna was allowed to get a break before heading to the Arizona Fall League against the top prospects in the game. AFL pitchers certainly wish he would have received a call up instead, as he again improved, posting a 12% walk rate in the AFL while winning the league’s MVP.

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2018 so far

Acuna seemingly pushed the Atlanta Braves hands this spring as he completely dominated the Grapefruit League, and many Braves fans felt the team had wronged Ronald Acuna when he was sent down to open the season to the club’s AAA affiliate in Gwinnett.

The issue was that once he was in Gwinnett, Ronald Acuna seemingly regressed to that guy he was with the Fire Frogs to open 2017, and perhaps even a touch worse, at recognizing the ball out of the pitcher’s hand. He wasn’t necessarily expanding the strike zone, but he was swinging at hard velocity like he thought he was seeing a change, swinging at a slider like he thought he was seeing a fastball, and swingling at a change like it would break like a slider. After 8 games in the season, Acuna had a .152/.222/.182 line with 12 strikeouts in 36 plate appearances.

Something clicked on a rained out day that was supposed to be against Rochester on April 15th. He opened the next series against Scranton/Wilkes-Barr the next day with a much better approach at the plate, walking twice, though he still struck out twice as well, but he was obviously watching the pitch well to get that recognition. It paid off the next day with his first home run of the season, and he’s hit in every game since, with only that home run for extra bases, but with plenty of loud contact, and he’s jumping on fastballs, sliders, and changes like he did in late 2017.

Needless to say, from this amateur scout’s eye, Ronald Acuna has got “it” back with his pitch recognition, and unless the Atlanta Braves are waiting for more extra bases to fall on the stat sheet, he’s doing what he needs to do now in the box to earn that call up.

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So, the wait should not be long, Atlanta Braves fans. Ronald Acuna should be in Atlanta sooner rather than later!