Ronald Acuña Jr isn’t having the offensive performance most Braves fans were expecting heading into the 2019 season. Although his power numbers aren’t quite there yet, he is having almost the exact same season as he did in 2018 thus far.

In 2018, Acuña finished with a 3.7 fangraphs WAR (fWAR) in 111 games played. Through 59 games this year, he has a 2.0 fWAR and is on pace for a 5.4 if he plays the rest of the season. If you pace it out over 111 games, it is 3.76.

Looking across the board, his stats are almost identical to last year’s with the exception of his power numbers. AVG/OBP are almost the exact same, K% is slightly down, BB% is slightly up, Barrel % is the same, exit velocity is the exact same, hard hit % is almost the exact same, etc… However, his on pace HR, 2B, and 3B total is lagging compared to 2018 and that’s the reasoning behind his OPS being down.

So, let’s take a look at how he is faring against certain pitch types.

In the first image, it shows Acuña’s Whiff % by zone in 2018. The latter shows his 2019 Whiff %. On pitches right down the middle and lower middle, Ronald is missing much more than he was in the previous years. It also appears from the naked eye that he has been late a lot on those pitches and ends up fouling them off rather than sending them into the outfield bleachers.

From BaseballSavant, his plate discipline and pitch tracking are very similar as well between the two seasons. Although his chase rate is almost the same, his chase contact % is actually up by about 13 points. This leads me to believe that even though he isn’t whiffing on a lot of balls he’s chasing out of the zone, he’s making weaker contact and it’s leading to a lower BABIP. Another thing I noticed, was his opposite field hitting % is up by about 10 points. This brings me back to my point I made earlier about how he seems to be late more on pitches. Whether this is a mechanical issue with his batting stance/hands placement or if he’s not picking up the ball out of the pitchers hand as quickly as he was, it’s something to take note of.

Yes, the power numbers are down at the moment but I don’t think it’s something to be alarmed about. He’s still on pace for a 5+ WAR season at 21 years old and with slight adjustments that he’ll surely make with Braves’ hitting coach Kevin Seitzer, we’ll see that extra base hit and OPS total go up.