Ronald Acuña Refuses To Cool Off

If you were on Twitter today, you might’ve read some exciting news about the Atlanta Braves top outfield prospect, Ronald Acuña. It’s true; he really did hit three home runs in one game.

This is starting to get ridiculous. In a AA game today against the Phillies, Atlanta Braves teen prospect Ronald Acuña went off for three home runs according to Kevin Karel, the radio play-by-play guy for the Rome Braves.

Ronald Acuña is an absolute monster, sources confirm. Seriously, is he ever going to slow down?

Since his career began in 2015, Acuña hasn’t struggled at all in making opposing pitchers look bad. Granted, he’s only a few months into being 19 years-old, so he hasn’t progressed past A-ball yet, but he just looks better than everyone else he plays with.

It’s no wonder why he finally cracked both ESPN and Baseball America‘s Top-100 Prospects lists this year.

Just take a look at his career stats, courtesy of Baseball-Reference:

* -The Australian Winter League

Everything on this chart is impressive. The low strikeout rates, the stolen-base numbers, the consistent extra-base power, the high batting average, it’s all there. The most impressive stat to me, however, is OPS.

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With an ability to get on base that never feigns and impressive power, Acuña’s OPS has not dipped below .800 at any stop so far. That includes his time in this year’s major league Spring Training games, as well.

While those stats do not show up on Baseball-Reference, Acuña had an OPS of .832 (.387 OBP + .445 SLG) in 27 ST at-bats, which looks in-line with his career numbers, outside of his ridiculous month with the Melbourne Aces a few months ago in which he OPS’s over 1.000.

Acuña has clearly kept up his hot streak as he answered any questions about his power potential today. At this point, can we even call it a hot-streak anymore?– He’s always hot!

For these reasons, there is a lot of talk that Ronald Acuña will be a quick riser through the Braves system, which makes him an easy comp to former Braves outfielder Andruw Jones. TomahawkTake’s own Benjamin Chase addressed this comparison in his Ronald Acuña Scouting Report from earlier this year:

"While people have mentioned Andruw as a comp for Acuna, I do think that is getting a bit ambitious, especially on the defensive end.I looked at their similar size, similar BB/K ratios, percentage-wise, and similar proclivity to power, and really feel like an excellent future comp for Acuna is Curtis Granderson.While that may not excite some people as an elite name to throw out there, it’s good to remember that Granderson has put up just shy of 44 fWAR in his career with three seasons of more than 5 fWAR in an individual season."

After looking at Curtis Granderson‘s career numbers, you won’t be hearing any complaints from me! Chase also predicts that Acuña will start and finish the 2017 season with the Florida Fire Frogs, the Braves’ A-Advanced affiliate, now located in Kissimmee, FL.

Next: Julio is Ready to Go

Let’s hope Acuña can stay hot for the rest of the year, too. Along with their phenomenal name, the Fire Frogs may have a special player in their midst, as well.