Saturday seeds: Goodbye to Orlando Arcia; Ronald already leads the outfield in WAR
Here's some of the news and notes you might have missed from this week
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The end of Arcia’s tenure
To reactivate Ronald Acuña Jr. on Friday, the Braves designated Orlando Arcia for assignment. It’s the end of a quick fall from grace for the 2023 All-Star.
From a baseball perspective, it makes sense - there are better options than him for all three possible facets of the game. Allen is the better defender, while both Stuart Fairchild and Luke Williams are faster in pinch-running situations, and Arcia’s not going to be the first call in a pinch-hit scenario.
But from a personal perspective, it sucks. He’s been with the Braves ever since Atlanta acquired him via trade in early 2021. He played all over the diamond, including the outfield, during his tenure here and was well-liked in the clubhouse. Several Braves players spoke highly of him on Friday, but none more so than Ronald Acuña Jr.
“I think we all know that it’s a business, and for me it’s obviously mixed emotions,” Acuña explained to the media through team interpreter Franco García on Friday. “Obviously I’m happy to be back, but I’m sad that was the move. He’s been my teammate for a long time, and friend. I think if you would’ve told me that was the move, I probably would’ve asked if I could spend another week down in Gwinnett.”
Manager Brian Snitker, who was part of the conversation with Arcia on Thursday night to break the news, expressed his desire to have Arcia stay with the organization. “That was a hard conversation, because that guy’s done a lot for us,” Snitker explained on Friday. “We won a lot of games with him here. Unfortunately, things change, and it didn’t work out. But it was a good conversation, he got it. And we’ll see — we’d love to have him back. Go through the process and I told him, for his career, if he would want to get everything done and go to Triple-A and play, we’d love to have him."
With Arcia no longer on the roster, Snitker proclaimed Luke Williams to be the new backup shortstop and said that Eli White would do more infield work in pregame drills to be prepared if he’s needed, as well.
Ronald makes his presence felt immediately
It took all of one pitch for Ronald Acuña Jr. to put Major League Baseball on notice.
Ronald’s leadoff homer on Friday night, one he apparently predicted to his brothers, was notable for both the distance and exit velocity. Per Statcast, the 115.5 mph homer was the hardest-hit ball of the season for the Atlanta Braves and traveling 467 feet, was also the furthest-hit ball of the season for the team.
The next hardest was a Matt Olson line-out on April 23rd against the Cardinals, coming in at 113.8, while the next furthest was a Marcell Ozuna homer against the Washington Nationals at home two weeks ago. The Big Bear’s Big Fly was 464 feet and is Atlanta’s only other batted ball of 450 or more feet this season.
Just to continue his dominance, Ronald’s outfield assist in the top of the 8th, cutting down catcher Elias Díaz trying to stretch a single into a double, was the hardest outfield assist by a Braves player this season.
After last night’s game, Acuña now leads all Braves outfielders in WAR for the season with 0.2.
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The schedule’s getting tougher
Heading into Friday night, the Braves were just 24-25 in the season’s first 49 games…and that was the easy part of the calendar.
Atlanta’s Strength of Schedule in its first 49 games was just 23rd in the league, but that’s about to change. Starting with Friday night’s series opener against the Padres, Atlanta has the seventh most challenging schedule in all of MLB ahead of them.
For context, here’s the remaining SOS for the NL East:
6th: Washington - .511
7th: Atlanta - .509
10th: Miami - .507
14th: Philly - .501
22nd: Mets - .495
The Braves still have ten against Philadelphia and 13 against the Mets, as well as six with the Cubs and Giants and three against the AL East-leading Yankees. While they do get the basement-dwelling Marlins for eleven more games this season, most of the ‘gimmes’ are already gone - they only have three left against both the Rockies and White Sox. While the Braves do get the Pirates for three more games (and at home, to boot), that’s a small consolation when you consider that Atlanta dropped the first series in Pittsburgh two weeks ago.
There’s some debate whether every game matters or games later in the season, when postseason eligibility or seeding is on the line, are more important to win. Whichever one is correct, the Braves have an uphill battle to do it.
An abundance of prospect outfielders?
For a farm system that’s typically much more heavily slanted to pitchers, the Braves have a lot of young bats mashing their way through the minor leagues.
Every full-season level of the minors seems to have an impressive outfielder that’s currently raking, with some levels having more than one.
In AAA Gwinnett, former major league starter Jarred Kelenic has started his Stripers tenure batting .274/.378/.417 wth two homers and eleven RBI in just 23 games. While I’ve been told that he’s struggled to handle the demotion from a personal perspective, he’s putting in the work to get back into the major leagues.
In AA Columbus, we’ve gotta talk about Ethan Workinger. The former undrafted free agent is hitting .250/.333/.515 with nine homers in just 36 games for the Clingstones. Given that his previous season high in longballs was twelve, the surge in power is a nice feature to add to the corner outfielder’s profile.
In High-A Rome, 2024 16th-round pick Titus Dumitru is absolutely raking. The former Lobos product is hitting .273 with 11 extra base hits, 19 runs, and 30 RBI in just 40 games for the Emperors. His 11 stolen bases show that he’s not just a masher, but has plenty of speed to go around.
Single-A Augusta has not one, but two exemplary outfielders at the moment. Youngsters Owen Carey (.301 BA) and Isaiah Drake (.273) have combined to steal 24 bags and score 59 runs for the GreenJackets. This is an incredibly talented roster that’s tons of fun to watch - if you have a MLB.tv subscription and the Braves either aren’t on or have already played, check out Augusta when you have the chance.