Atlanta Braves Morning Chop: Acuna or later?

Lots of debate recently about Ronald Acuna and when he might hit the majors… let’s take a look and some of the issues involved.

In recent history, the Atlanta Braves have not been shy about promoting players to the majors.  In fact, the mantra has always been a 2-verse song:

• ‘They will tell us when they’re ready’
• ‘We will promote them when they’re ready’

Such was the case with both Dansby Swanson and Ozzie Albies.  You could argue the same for Sean Newcomb, Max Fried, and Lucas Sims.

And there’s yet another one happening today:

Ronald Acuna‘s case is a bit different… but only slightly.

The best (qualified) hitter in the International League is Yandy Diaz of the Columbus Clippers – though he’s actually with the parent Cleveland Indians right now.  Diaz, a Cuban expatriate, is 26 years old and hitting .350.

The next closest to him are Jesse Winker and Rusney Castillo, both at .314.

19-year-old Ronald Jose Acuna went 2 for 4 last night, knocking in a run and stealing 2 bases.  He’s now hitting .354 in AAA (39 games, 161 AB).

The complicating factors are the 40-man roster, the Rule 5 draft, and “starting his service clock”.

First off:  the service time bit.

• One year of service time is defined by 172 days on the 25-man (active) roster.  The major league season is 183 days, by the way.
• Teams have 6 full years of control on each player… the latter 3 being the arbitration years.
• If a player qualifies in the ‘Super 2’ category, then he is awarded an extra arbitration year.  For that, you must be among the top 22% of service time when between 2 and 3 years of service time at the end of their 3rd full major league season.
• So if a team holds a hot prospect in the minors for about 2 weeks when the next season begins, they will get a maximum of 183 – 14, or 169 days of service that year… and thus one more year of control.  The player will be a Super 2, but the 2 weeks withheld buys them another year.

September call-ups will gain close to 30 days of service time.  But if the Braves are expecting/planning to have Acuna on their Opening Day roster for 2018, then that’s actually irrelevant – same as the case with Ozzie Albies.  30 days, 50 days… whatever.  That number won’t matter.

Another mantra we’ve heard (though I can’t put my finger on a quote to cite) from the Front Office is that the team doesn’t get in the game of manipulating the service time clocks.  In other words, they won’t jerk a player around by holding them in the minors to buy an extra year of control.

That’s nice of them – probably doesn’t make the best of business sense, but it’s nice.