Ronald Acuña on pace to be greatest leadoff hitter ever

Atlanta Braves star Ronald Acuña is on track to be the greatest leadoff hitter in the history of baseball with unbelievable numbers.

When Ronald Acuña is batting lead-off, there’s a ridiculously high chance the Braves will score early.

To prove that, Gran McAuley pulled out an insane stat demonstrating how impressive the outfielder has been to start his career.

He hits home runs as the lead-off batter eight percent of the time.

Acuña has 96 home runs in his career. Of those, 22 have come when he’s the first batter of the game. Another 43 have come when he leads off an inning. His career averages when batting first are .288/.384/.578. His OPS is a ridiculous .963 which would rank second behind Mike Trout among active players if he had enough games to qualify.

He added another lead-off homer against the Pirates.

Ronald Acuña has the production but he needs to keep it up

That’s the one hiccup in these numbers. The sample size is too small at this point. It didn’t help that the 2020 season was shortened. Still, there’s a long way to go before he can claim to make a run at someone like Rickey Henderson.

Henderson was the opening batter 2,875 times. Acuña has made a fraction of the plate appearances.

Still, at this stage in his career, Acuña has the second-best at-bats per home run numbers in the game.

The challenge for Acuña will be to keep up this furious start. The first four years of his career have been consistently great, netting him a Rookie of the Year award, an All-Star appearance and competitive MVP votes. Henderson did it for 25 years.

The Braves would love to see their star produce that kind of longevity.

He’s maintaining his high level of play in 2021. This season he leads the majors in home runs and the NL in runs. He’s batting .281/.383/.634 with an OPS of 1.017.