PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. -- Over the past year, Luisangel Acuña has produced a significant body of work suggesting a need for further development. In nearly 600 plate appearances at Triple-A Syracuse last season, Acu?a produced a .654 OPS. He has posted a .500 mark this spring while showing some rough edges in other areas of his game.
Yet when Acu?a debuted last September to replace injured teammate Francisco Lindor, he hit safely in seven of his 10 starts, posting a .966 OPS and homering more than six times as often as he did in the Minors. Within that much smaller sample size, Acu?a very much looked the part of a big leaguer.
Baseball scouts like to talk about ¡°the third deck¡± effect, an allusion to successful Minor Leaguers who struggle to produce at the highest level.
Some Mets types believe Acu?a has the opposite gene.
¡°I think he plays bored in Spring Training,¡± Lindor said. ¡°If the lights come on, then he¡¯s good. [Last year in the Minors], he was bored, probably. He doesn¡¯t get amped up for it.
¡°It¡¯s rare when you see elite big leaguers or good big leaguers dominate the Minor Leagues. They just get bored. And then they eventually figure it out and say, ¡®I guess I¡¯ve got to do a little bit more to get called up,¡¯ and then they get called up. It wakes them up.¡±
The Mets have not yet told Acu?a, their seventh-ranked prospect, that he¡¯s earned an Opening Day roster spot. But on Saturday, team officials informed Donovan Walton he won¡¯t make the cut, eliminating the last remaining obstacle standing before Acu?a. Barring injury, the only way Acu?a won¡¯t make it is if the Mets acquire a veteran who shakes loose from another camp -- someone like Garrett Hampson, for example, a steady infield defender and right-handed hitter who recently triggered his opt-out clause with the D-backs.
It makes sense to leave such possibilities open because Acu?a, at this point, remains an imperfect prospect. At the plate, he continues to struggle with pitch recognition -- a point that manager Carlos Mendoza recently went out of his way to mention. While Acu?a only has eight strikeouts in 51 spring plate appearances, he¡¯s also drawn just one walk. His natural contact ability can hurt him if he¡¯s regularly swinging at pitcher¡¯s pitches.
Moreover, Acu?a has run into trouble on the bases, recently getting picked off multiple times in the same game against the Marlins -- once by a right-handed pitcher, the other by a lefty. Two days later, he committed his second defensive error of spring.
¡°They¡¯re going to make mistakes,¡± Mendoza said. ¡°How are they going to respond? Are they going to learn from it? He got picked off the other day twice. Learn from it. Make some adjustments without losing the aggressiveness.¡±
Perhaps those issues are a product of incomplete development. Or perhaps there¡¯s something to the whole boredom thing.
¡°He acts like he don¡¯t care,¡± Lindor said. ¡°And when you act like you don¡¯t care, yeah, you¡¯re bored. He¡¯s not putting everything he¡¯s got into it. ¡ It doesn¡¯t feel like he¡¯s being challenged.¡±
Asked about the concept, Acu?a responded through an interpreter: ¡°I think in the Major Leagues, there¡¯s a certain level of adrenaline and energy that there just isn¡¯t in the Minor Leagues.¡±
Acu?a went on to note that after the Mets called him up last year, teammates and coaches instilled so much confidence in him that he knew he belonged. Acu?a rapped out a pair of hits in his first start with the team, homered in his second and never really looked back -- at least not until this spring, when he seemed perched on the outside of the roster bubble until Jeff McNeil strained his oblique midway through camp.
Now, Acu?a is on the cusp of his first Opening Day roster, probably on the short side of a platoon with Brett Baty. Assuming he makes the team, Acu?a is overwhelmingly likely to start Thursday (4 p.m. ET, live on MLB.TV) at second base against Astros left-hander Framber Valdez.
It would be a significant opportunity for a player with special talent and special genes -- the type of player Lindor said can be ¡°a 10-time All-Star¡± if he manages to find consistency at the highest level.
If he can produce again when the lights come on, Acu?a might avoid ever returning to the ennui of the Minors.
¡°It would mean a lot to me,¡± Acu?a said. ¡°It would be my first Opening Day, my first time there, so it could be really special. But at the same time, I can¡¯t worry too much about that, because it hasn¡¯t come. I just need to focus on the things I have to do to get there.¡±