Fansided

Braves are making a mistake sending Ronald Acuna to the minors

By Baasil Ebrahim

LAKE BUENA VISTA, FL - FEBRUARY 26: Ronald Acuna Jr. (82) of the Braves hustles down to first base during the spring training game between the Washington Nationals and the Atlanta Braves on February 26, 2018, at Champion Stadium in Lake Buena Vista, FL. (Photo by Cliff Welch/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
LAKE BUENA VISTA, FL - FEBRUARY 26: Ronald Acuna Jr. (82) of the Braves hustles down to first base during the spring training game between the Washington Nationals and the Atlanta Braves on February 26, 2018, at Champion Stadium in Lake Buena Vista, FL. (Photo by Cliff Welch/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit

Despite a monster spring, the Braves are sending top prospect Ronald Acuna to the minors so they can control his future.

Acuna is the No.1 ranked prospect according to Baseball Prospectus and everything he did this spring lived up to the hype surrounding him.  He was hitting for a .432 batting average and a 1.247 OPS.  He has shown he can do everything asked of him at the big league level, yet was still sent to the minors.

Acuna has dominated at all minor league levels, including a .940 OPS in 54 Triple-A games last year.  However, Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos believes in thoroughly developing players.

"“Just from a developmental standpoint, to go through three levels the way we did … We feel like it’s probably best overall, from a philosophical standpoint, to get him more development time.”"

This feels awfully familiar to what the Cubs did to Kris Bryant in 2015.  He was ready following spring training; hitting a .425 BA and 1.652 OPS in spring training that year simply confirmed what everybody knew.  After being sent to the minors at the end of spring training, Bryant was quickly called up by April 17th.

The Cubs did this so that Bryant would not have enough service time in the MLB that season and they would essentially be able to have him for seven years before he hit free agency.  Presumably, this is what the Braves are doing with Acuna.  They need him in the minors until April 13th for this to happen.

In the meantime, the Braves are missing out on not only having one of the most exciting young prospects on their roster, but also risk planting a poison seed that could sprout later in Acuna’s career.

Kris Bryant came up and won the Rookie of the Year award that season, reaffirming that he didn’t need the extra few weeks in triple A.  The same likely applies to Acuna.  There is no need to keep him in the minors when he can begin to help win MLB games immediately.

If the Braves miss the postseason by a few games, they will be wishing they had Acuna’s services earlier.

Next: 27 MLB Records That Will Never Be Broken

Keeping Acuna in the minors for a few weeks is unnecessary, if he really is as good as everybody believes, paying for him a year earlier will be worth it.

Home/Atlanta Braves