Luisangel Acuña
Week: 6 G, 7 H, 4 2B, 0 3B, 1 HR, 0 BB, 5 K, 0/0 SB (Triple-A)
2024 Season: 103 G, 427 AB, .267/.314/.375, 114 H, 18 2B, 5 3B, 6 HR, 28 BB, 74 K, 31/44 SB, .309 BABIP (Triple-A)
Luisangel Acuña is having a very streaky season. In 21 games in April, he hit .235/.294/.365 with 2 doubles, 3 triples, 1 home run, and 8 stolen bases in 11 attempts. In 27 games in May, he hit .282/.336/.359 with 6 doubles, 0 triples, 1 home run, and 11 stolen bases in 14 attempts. In 24 games in June, he hit .298/.348/.414 with 4 doubles, 1 triple, 2 home runs, and 7 stolen bases in 11 attempts. In 22 games in July, he hit .236/.274/.281 with 2 doubles, 1 triple, 0 home runs, and 5 stolen bases in 8 attempts. So far in August, he is 7-21 with 4 doubles, 1 homer, and 0 stolen bases.
Acuña has had plenty of success against fastballs but has struggled against secondary pitches of all kinds. Against fastballs, he is a .301 hitter with a .434 slugging percentage and a .133 ISO. Against breaking balls, he is a .219 hitter with a .319 slugging percentage and a .100 ISO. Against off-speed pitches, he is a .250 hitter with a .250 slugging percentage and a .000, not having logged a single extra base hit against one.
Acuña hits the ball hard and has more raw power than his 5’8” frame would suggest, but he saps most of this potential power by hitting the ball on the ground. He currently has a 20.8% line drive percentage, 54.9% groundball percentage, and 24.3% flyball percentage. On all of his hits combined, Acuña is averaging a launch angle of 3.4°; 4.6° for singles, 12° for doubles, -16.8° for triples, and 13.8° for home runs. While putting the ball in play and relying on his above-average-to-plus speed to leg out hits against minor league defenses has worked thus far to a degree, against better competition in the majors, this modus operandi is unlikely to work.
Mike Vasil
Week: 1 G (1 GS), 6.0 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 8 K (Triple-A)
2024 Season: 22 G (20 GS), 103.1 IP, 112 H, 67 R, 61 ER (5.31 ERA), 37 BB, 85 K
Massachusetts native Mike Vasil was a prep player of interest by reputable national scouting and evaluation organizations coming into the 2018 MLB Draft, but an arm issue that arose early in his senior season prompted Vasil to announce that he was going to follow through on his commitment to the University of Virginia and would not sign with a professional team if drafted. His tenure at the University of Virginia was not disastrous by any means, but he did not live up to expectations. In the three years he played there prior to being selected by the Mets in the 8th round of the 2021 MLB Draft, the right-hander posted a cumulative 4.74 ERA in 161.1 innings with the Cavaliers, allowing 190 hits, walking 50, and striking out 136.
He signed for $181,200, exactly the MLB-recommended slot value, and has been fairly inconsistent as a professional. He looked strong in 2022 pitching with the St. Lucie Mets but struggled with the Brooklyn Cyclones. In 2023, he looked solid with the Binghamton Rumble Ponies but struggled with the Syracuse Mets. Assigned to Syracuse for the entire year this season, Vasil is once again struggling, with an ERA higher than the International League average and peripherals that are on the whole trending downward as compared to his time in Triple-A last season.
The biggest difference between the Mike Vasil of 2024 and the Mike Vasil of 2023 is that he is throwing his slider a lot more. This season, he is throwing it at a 35.2% rate, as opposed to 2023, when he threw it at a 26.7% rate. His 2024 changeup and curveball usage is in line with his 2023 rates, meaning that the additional sliders are coming at the expense of his fastball. His 2023 53.3% fastball rate has dipped to a 45.3% rate this season.
His slider, a hard gyroscopic slider that sits in the mid-to-high-80s, has less vertical movement this season as compared to last; in 2023, the pitch had a pfx VMov of 2.67 inches, whereas this season, it has a 0.69. With less force on the pitch, it is slightly slurvier this season, with 3.57 inches of pfx HMov, as opposed to last season, where it had 1.11.
The pitch is getting fewer swings (55.20% in 2023, as compared to 46.84% this season) and is getting fewer whiffs (21.68% in 2023, as compared to 11.08% this season). While the pitch is being put in play at roughly the same rate (19.30% this year as opposed to 16.19% last year), the results are starkly different. Last year, batters hit .232 off of Vasil’s slider, with a .342 slugging percentage and .110 ISO. This season, batters are hitting .279 against it, with a .481 slugging percentage and .201 ISO. The right-hander has allowed 17 home runs in total, which is tied for third-most in the International League.
Coming into the season, projection models generally graded Vasil’s entire repertoire as slightly below-average, with his slider slightly above-average. With his slider seemingly backing up, his already shaky arsenal is at a disadvantage. Being in a league that is as offensively-charged as the International League does not help, but the majors, should Vasil make it, are not gonna be easier.
