We\u2019re officially less than a month away from the MLB All-Star Game coming to the Atlanta metro area and as we\u2019ve discussed a few times off-handedly around here, there\u2019s a real question as to how many hometown representatives the Atlanta Braves themselves will have going into this game.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
As of right now, the Braves are only guaranteed the one required player representative for each team and manager Brian Snitker was selected to National League manager Dave Roberts\u2019 honorary staff for the game, so we know that there will be at least two people with Braves uniforms on in the NL\u2019s dugout for this year\u2019s All-Star Game.<\/p>\n
However, one Braves player has been on a tear lately and has been steadily rising up the ranks in All-Star voting and that\u2019s Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr.<\/p>\n
Despite starting the season late, Acu\u00f1a has hit the ground running upon returning and has now played his way into potentially landing a starting job in the All-Star game.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s now in fourth place in voting among NL outfielders, with the three players ahead of him being Pete Crow-Armstrong and Kyle Tucker of the Cubs and Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez of the Dodgers.<\/p>\n
PCA is currently leading all qualified big league outfielders in fWAR (in the non-Aaron Judge tier, since Judge is in a tier of his own at the moment), Kyle Tucker is tied for fourth-place in fWAR among qualified outfielders and Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez plays for the Dodgers.<\/p>\n
With that being said, what Acu\u00f1a has done at the plate since returning has been eye-popping.<\/p>\n
After Sunday\u2019s action, Acu\u00f1a is sitting on a .396\/.504\/.698 slash line with a .506 wOBA, a .441 xwOBA, eight homers, two stolen bases and 230 wRC+ for 2.1 fWAR so far on the season.<\/p>\n
Acu\u00f1a has played only 27 games so far this season and he\u2019s only 0.3 fWAR behind Matt Olson for the team lead at this point and is only 0.2 fWAR away from cracking the top 30 in fWAR among outfielders (if he was qualified).<\/p>\n
Acu\u00f1a has been on a heater (even for his standards) and while it would be incredibly impressive to see him make the All-Star Game as a starter, it wouldn\u2019t be a huge surprise to see him continue to rack up the votes from the fans as long as he keeps this up.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what MLB\u2019s press release had to say on the matter:<\/strong><\/p>\n Acu\u00f1a, who has been on a tear since being activated from the Injured List for his season debut on May 23, has jumped two spots in the NL outfield to rank fourth overall with 1,140,061 total votes behind leaders Pete Crow Armstrong of the Chicago Cubs (2,005,630), two-time All-Star Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez of the Los Angeles Dodgers (1,366,537) and three-time All-Star Kyle Tucker of the Cubs (1,219,866).<\/p>\n Acu\u00f1a is trying for a fifth career fan election, which would match Hall of Famer Hank Aaron and Dale Murphy for the most in franchise history.<\/p>\n Phase One of All-Star voting is set to end at 6:00 p.m. ET on this coming Thursday night, with ESPN set to reveal the starters on July 2 and the full rosters on July 6. The All-Star Game itself will culminate MLB\u2019s All-Star festivities on July 15 at Truist Park.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We\u2019re officially less than a month away from the MLB All-Star Game coming to the Atlanta metro area and as we\u2019ve discussed a few times off-handedly around… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":63712,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb"],"yoast_head":"\n