The Braves offense is the deepest in baseball. There’s not a lineup that features a hitter like Michael Harris 9th, and there’s certainly not one that features a table setter like Ronald Acuna Jr.
The Venezuelan superstar began Tuesday’s contest against the Pirates with a lead-off home, which was the 31st of his career, ranking fourth all-time in National League history, behind Charlie Blackmon, Jimmy Rollins, and Craig Biggio. That was Acuna’s 100th run of the season too, which makes him the fastest player in franchise history to reach that mark, surpassing Dale Murphy.
Even when Acuna doesn’t hit a home run, he’s getting on base over 42% of the time, which generally leads to a stolen bag. He’s leading all of baseball with 53 steals as he chases down history, currently on pace to reach 38 home runs and 77 stolen bases. Nobody in the sport has that combination of speed and power, which is why he topped MLB.com’s ten hitters with the best combo.
https://twitter.com/MLB/status/1689302646417420288?s=20
As I said, the Braves right fielder leads all of baseball in steals, with the next closest being Esteury Ruiz of the A’s, who has nine fewer swiped bags. What’s most revealing is Ruiz only has a single home run.
Corbin Carroll (21/36) and Bobby Witt Jr. (20/34) are the only players that belong in the same conversation with Ronald Acuna Jr.’s combination of speed and power. However, both are close to 20 steals behind Acuna and more than a handful of long balls.
This is all to say, there isn’t any comparison to Acuna. He’s one of a kind.
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Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire
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