Ronald Acuna is on the path to becoming a superstar.
Baseball America’s #1 overall prospect, Ronald Acuna has done nothing but hit since becoming a professional baseball player, hitting .310/.378/.488 across all three levels of the minor leagues the past three seasons. Specifically, in 54 AAA games last year, Acuna hit .344/.393/.548 with 9 HR, 33 RBI, and 11 stolen bases. At only 20, Acuna is the game’s next true five-tool player, and he showed in this spring for the Braves by appearing in 16 games against big league pitching, and promptly hitting .432/.519/.727 with 4 HR, 11 RBI, and only eight strikeouts in 52 plate appearances. And what did being one of the best hitters in spring training earn Acuna? A demotion back to AAA to start the regular season.
The reasons that the Braves front office has provided fans for demoting Acuna have included giving him more to develop, and not wanting him to deal with the pressures of being a rookie on opening day. However, this was clearly another example of a team manipulating a star prospect’s service time in the MLB so that they can gain an extra year of team control before they hit free agency. In the MLB, a player reaches free agency after they have accumulated six-years of service time in the major leagues. One year of service time is measured as 172 days on an MLB roster, or slightly more than the average MLB season allows for. By keeping Acuna in the minor leagues until at least April 13th, the Braves can ensure that they will get an extra year of team control over Acuna, as he will be on the active roster for at most 171 days this season. Instead of Acuna hitting free agency six-years from now after the 2023 season, he will now have to wait an extra year before hitting the market at the age of 27 in 2024.
To be clear, this is not the first time that an MLB team has used shady business practices when it comes to manipulating service time. In 2012, Mike Trout and Bryce Harper weren’t called up until April 28th despite being the top two prospects in baseball at the time, and in the case of Harper, he joined a crowded 2018 free agent class, rather than being the undisputed crown jewel of the market this past offseason. The most glaring example of service time manipulation came in 2015, when the Cubs demoted Kris Bryant to AAA after he hit .425/.477/1.175 with 9 HR and 15 RBI in spring training, only to bring him up two weeks into the season on April 17th. It should be noted that without Bryant, the Cubs went 5-3; who knows if Bryant would have turned those three losses into wins, but the Cubs did finish three wins short of first place in the NL Central, and one win short of being able to host the NL Wild Card Game against the Pirates. In an effort to prevent further service time manipulation in the future, Bryant has publically stated he wants to replace Jake Arrieta as the Cubs MLBPA player representative, adding, “I need to study up, have my voice heard, continue to learn, because this is going to affect us for years to come. And I’d be foolish not to kind of offer myself out there.”
From a business perspective, this decision makes all the sense in the world for the Braves, who are essentially trading three weeks of Acuna in the minor leagues to keep him in Cobb County for an entire extra year. All in all, you cannot blame the Braves for taking advantage of an inherently flawed system within the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the players and owners. The only problem is, the Braves front office is playing with fire, as if you’re a Braves fan, there is no way you can look at the front office and truly believe them when they say they are trying to field the best team possible. Right now, the Braves projected starting outfield is Nick Markakis in right, Ender Inciarte in center, and Lane Adams in right, with Preston Tucker as the fourth outfielder. Markakis is an established big league veteran, while Inciarte is an all-world center fielder, and has developed into an All-Star caliber talent. However, when you compare the spring training numbers of all four outfielders with that of Acuna’s, it is clear the prospect deserved a starting job out of spring training.
Acuna: 4 HR, 11 RBI, .432/.519/.727, 19 H, 8 R, 1 2B, 4 SB, 4BB
Adams: 1 HR, 2 RBI, .239/.239/.370, 11 H, 3 R, 3 2B, 1 SB, 0 BB
Inciarte: 0 HR, 0 RBI, .257/.350/.286, 9 H, 3 R, 1 2B, 3 SB, 5 BB
Markakis: 0 HR, 3 RBI, .367/.387/.400, 11 H, 2 R, 0 SB, 1 BB
Tucker: 1 HR, 8 RBI, .375/.457/.575, 15 H, 8 R, 0 SB, 6 BB
Between pace of play, player and draft-pick compensation, the dried up free agent market this offseason, and now service time manipulation like Acuna’s, it is clear that when the collective bargaining agreement between the MLBPA and the MLB expires in 2021, we could realistically be looking at the threat of the first strike in baseball since 1994.
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- Atlanta Braves
- Ronald Acuna
