Baseball’s latest phenom Acuna comes to Chase Field; Dyson’s season over

PHOENIX — Other sports outside of baseball have their fair share of young phenoms.

Playing for France in this year’s World Cup, 19-year-old Kylian Mbappe dazzled for the winners of the tournament.

Donovan Mitchell turned 21 just before his first NBA season and led the Utah Jazz to a first-round win in the playoffs.

It’s far rarer for Major League Baseball, where prospects spend time developing through many levels of the minors before coming up to the show. Even in cases where players rise rapidly up the ranks, they will typically be 22 or older.

But every now and then, there’s someone like Atlanta Braves left fielder Ronald Acuna Jr., who has been a major part of the Braves entering Thursday’s matchup with the Arizona Diamondbacks 13 games above .500.

Acuna and Atlanta come into Chase Field to face off with the D-backs in a pivotal four-game series for both teams in a heated NL playoff race.

“The comfort level he shows and his ability to go out and execute and make adjustments is uncanny for a young player,” D-backs manager Torey Lovullo said before the game, who went on to compliment the Braves’ young talent as a whole, not just Acuna.

Acuna entered Thursday’s game hitting .289 with 24 home runs and 51 RBI in only 88 games.

Prior to Thursday’s action, if Acuna was eligible for the season leaderboards, his .929 OPS would be tied with Colorado’s Nolan Arenado for the 10th-best in baseball.

That’s a remarkable achievement, but Acuna’s company among the best 21 and under seasons in league history is staggering for a league that goes back over 100 years.

Acuna’s wins above replacement (WAR) is 3.9, and only seven other 20 or younger seasons top that number: Willie Mays, Carlos Correa, Roberto Alomar, Bryce Harper, Jason Heyward, Frank Robinson and Ted Williams.

Bringing back that .929 OPS, only four players have had an OPS that high for an MLB season before they were 22: Williams, Jimmie Foxx, Mel Ott and Mike Trout.

Acuna truly is a “once in a generation” type of talent for his age, and what has impressed Lovullo the most is despite Acuna playing well at the start of the season, he’s been at his best as of late, ranking in the top-five in OPS the past 30 days.

“He came out, did well, the league adjusted to him, he adjusted back — those are hard things to do for any player, let alone somebody that’s in their early twenties,” Lovullo said.

DYSON’S SEASON OVER

The D-backs announced a roster move prior to Thursday’s game, acquiring outfielder Patrick Kivlehan from the New York Mets and sending outfielder Jarrod Dyson to the 60-day disabled list.

Dyson was originally placed on the 10-day DL all the way back on July 5 with what was described as a “lower core injury.”

Over the next month and a half, Dyson progressed back, but his recovery hit a snag in early September. Lovullo revealed on Tuesday that Dyson said he had more discomfort in the area after playing in two games for the Triple-A Reno Aces.

“He was trying to make something good happen in a short amount of time,” Lovullo said, noting there was a risk with how quickly Dyson was attempting to come back.

Dyson is expected to have a very similar surgery that he had with the Seattle Mariners last September. Lovullo added it was in the “adductor area” but would not provide exact specifics on the injury.

“The one thing that I want to say is Jarrod was trying to gut it out and get back here as fast as he possibly could,” Lovullo said.

“This is a very tough baseball player. He wanted to join this pennant race at any cost and we knew this possibly could happen. It was outlined to him, but he was going to press on as far as he could and then could unfortunately go no further.”

Dyson was expected to be the team’s fourth outfielder behind David Peralta, A.J. Pollock and Steven Souza Jr., but that was a role Jon Jay filled when he was acquired in early June.

Kivlehan, who does not have an at-bat in the majors this year, is expected to play in the corner outfield for the D-backs, per Lovullo.

All stats courtesy of FanGraphs

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