Atlanta Braves Morning Chop: Winter Heat, Spring Negotiations

There’s still a lot happening even though baseball’s big off-season show is now over.  In actuality, only a few spectacular deals were done; lots more may still be ahead.

So here’s a couple of Atlanta Braves left-overs from last week that we passed on at the time… and there is somebody who is getting hard to ignore this winter.

Braves prospect on a tear Down Under

STAFF REPORT / ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION (DEC 10)

Baseball in Australia suits Braves outfield prospect Ronald Acuna just fine.

Acuna, who played last summer at Single-A Rome, is spending his offseason playing for the Melbourne Aces of the Australian Baseball League and is hitting .351 in 15 games.

The MLB Pipeline at MLB.com ranks Acuna the Braves’ No. 17 overall prospect. Overall at Melbourne, he is 20-for-57, with two homers, 12 RBIs, 11 runs scored, three doubles and a triple. He had stolen 10 bases in 11 attempts and had a slugging percentage of .544 and an OPS of .937.

He has hit safely in his past seven games, in which he is 12-for-26 with two homers and 10 RBIs. He had a four-RBI game Dec. 2.

The low point among his stats are his 10 strikeouts.

[ Ed. Note:  okay, there’s probably 2 questions that are relevant her about Acuna’s hitting in this league:  (1) How is he doing relative to everyone else; and (2) How tough is this league anyway?

As for Q1, the answer is “very well, thank you.”

Acuna, as of this writing, is hitting .356 with a .942 OPS and now 21 hits in 59 AB.  15 of the hits are singles, but he does have the 6 XBH noted above… and now 11 steals.

3B Mike Walker on the Aces has a 1.009 OPS; OF Roman Collins is at .851.  They are the only true offensive threats on this team other than Acuna.  They are hitting .288 and .281 respectively.

For the league, 2 batters are hitting better than Acuna:  Robbie Perkins (.400/.460/.644/1.104 in 12 games) and Luke Hughes (.392/.516/.647/1.163).  Mitch Nilsson is roughly equivalent to Acuna:  in 15 games, he’s hitting an OPS of .930 with a slightly higher average.

As for those strikeouts?  After his latest game, that’s 12 in 64 plate appearances, or a rate of 18.75%.  Not horrid.

So yeah – he’s lighting it up strong early on.

So how good is the league?

The Aces roster has players ranging from age 16 (two of them – born on the same date!)  to 34 years old.  Acuna is 19…so there’s a very wide range of talent around.

It appears that the league is more-or-less equivalent to something in the range of the Appalachian-to-Sally Leagues:  between Danville and Rome.  The difference is that Acuna isn’t going to see any pitching of the likes of that Rome roster… but of course few teams can load up on first round draft picks like that – even if when putting a stateside team together.

Either way, Acuna is definitely busting on what he’s seeing, and that’s a good sign.

The ABL plays mostly around weekends (no games on Mondays through Wednesdays) and lasts through January.

And they do have a pitching coach named Peter Moylan.