Atlanta Braves: Ronald Acuña’s Impossible Hot Streak
Atlanta Braves young phenom, Ronald Acuña Jr., is having one of the greatest young seasons ever and is in the middle of an incredible hot streak that could lead the Braves to the postseason.
Atlanta Braves outfielder Ronald Acuña, Jr. has been on an absolute tear lately! He has now homered in 5 straight games, 7 of his last 8 games with 8 homers in that span. During this 8 game power surge, Acuña is hitting .471/.514/1.235 over 37 plate appearances, good for a 1.749 OPS, a .705 wOBA and a 356 wRC+. If you shrink the sample to just his five game homer streak, the numbers become even more outrageous. During this 8 game sample, Acuña has raised his batting average 24 points, his on base percentage 23 points, his slugging percentage 87 points, his OPS 110 points, and his wRC+ has gone from 114 all the way to 145. What the young phenom is doing right now is just remarkable and most importantly for the Braves, the team is also 6-2 over this stretch.
While his past week has been utterly ridiculous, Acuña’s hot streak goes a bit further than that. On July 20, Braves manager, Brian Snitker, batted Acuña lead off for the first time and the kid has been on a historic pace ever since. Over his 104 plate appearances in the lead off spot, Acuña has a 235 wRC+, which is the best mark of all time with a 100 PA minimum. In the leadoff spot Acuña is slashing .372/.433/.840 with a respectable 8% walk rate and 22% strikeout rate. Over this time span, Acuña has actually been the best hitter in all of baseball with a 226 wRC+ overall. Obviously, this is somewhat of a small sample, but it shows just how remarkable he has been over the past month.
With this torrid pace, Acuña has propelled himself back into the Rookie of the Year discussion. I wrote about the Rookie of the Year award race last week and determined that it was all but Juan Soto‘s prize to lose but Acuña’s hot streak is changing that narrative. Acuña’s 146 wRC+ and 2.3 fWAR are now quite close to Soto’s 158 wRC+ and 2.7 fWAR.
While all of Soto’s value is tied up in his bat and elite plate discipline, Acuña does everything on the field well. He is a good defensive outfielder, he is one of the fastest runners in the game and he is a good baserunner. Acuña will also look more favorable in the old school stats at the end of the year. Soto will likely have him in batting average but it will be close and Acuña should finish the year with more home runs, runs scored, RBIs and stolen bases.
Not to mention that Acuña might be a driving force on a playoff team while the Washington Nationals are seemingly going nowhere this season. When I wrote about the Rookie of the Year race last week I mentioned that Acuña had a chance if he got hot and carried his team to the playoffs. It’s looking like he might just do that.
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So how is he doing all of this?
First of all, Acuña is punishing fastballs in the strike zone much better than he did early in the season. Since he began batting leadoff, Acuña has a .563 xwOBA on fastballs in the zone compared to his .395 before batting leadoff. This stems from his much-improved plate discipline over the past month. Since July 20, Acuña has swung at just 21% of pitches outside the zone compared to the 27% of pitches he swung at before that date. He has even lowered his swing rate at pitches inside the strike zone, waiting for the perfect pitch that he can do damage on.
Acuña is also barreling the ball almost as much as anyone in baseball over the past month. Only Khris Davis has more barrels than his 13 according to Statcast since July 20. Acuña is being more selective at the plate and only swinging at pitches that he can make the most impact on and it is paying massive dividends for him and the Braves.
The Atlanta Braves are in the heat of a playoff race in the National League East. The team has many great players including MVP candidate, Freddie Freeman, but it might be the 20-year-old phenom who carries them to the postseason. If Acuña can keep hitting at anywhere near this pace for the rest of the year, then there is no way the Braves won’t be playing playoff baseball in October.
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Acuña has played himself back into the Rookie of the Year race and may even get some down-ballot MVP votes. Either way, Ronald Acuña Jr. has put the Atlanta Braves back in contention for the playoffs.