Minor League Ball Gameday, Tuesday, May 9th, 2017

Good afternoon everybody and welcome to the Minor League Ball Gameday discussion thread for Tuesday, May 9th, 2017. Let’s get started.

****Today’s Minor League Scoreboard

****Today’s MLB scoreboard

****Highlights from yesterday can be found in the Monday comments thread.

COOL STUFF THAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY

****Colorado Rockies outfield prospect Raimel Tapia went 2-for-4 yesterday with two runs scored for the Triple-A Albuquerque Isotopes, bringing his season line up to .387/.420/.575. He has yet to hit a home run, but he has stolen eight bases in 10 attempts and has hit .426 in his last 10 games.

****The Atlanta Braves promoted outfield prospect Ronald Acuna to Double-A Mississippi last night. At the tender age of 19, he was hitting .287/.336/.478 for the Florida Fire Frogs in the High-A Florida State League, stealing 14 bases in 17 attempts. Scouting reports are glowing and he was certainly handling FSL competition well, with a 136 wRC+. That said, he is striking out a lot and drawing few walks, with just eight free passes against 40 strikeouts in 115 at-bats.

That’s a red flag but the promotion is justifiable. Right now he is dominating the FSL despite the fact that he swings at everything. Given the way the ball jumps off his bat, he may never learn what he needs to learn against High-A pitching. Now he’ll get to face Double-A pitchers who know what they are doing and he will be forced to adapt. That’s the theory anyway.

Personally I’d have given him until the end of June in High-A before moving him up but I can still understand Atlanta’s logic, and they certainly know more about Acuna’s psychology and development needs than any of us do.