The Rockies almost signed Ronald Acuña Jr. at 17, it could have brought them to a World Series.

In 2014, there was a 17-year-old kid in Venezuela who was catching the eyes of Major League Baseball. Recruiting new ballplayers outside the United States has taken over the sport in the 21st century, and our very own Colorado Rockies came very close to landing superstar Ronald Acuña Jr.

He burst onto the scene of MLB scouting at a very young age. His grandfather Romualdo Blanco and father Ronald Acuña Sr. both played in the minor leagues, so his name was on a scouting chart very early on. By the time Acuña Jr. was 17 there were five teams in pursuit.

Scouts were very pleased with his bat speed and pitch recognition for his age. However, he had far surpassed every expectation set for him just months into his rookie season with the Atlanta Braves. Back in Venezuela, Acuña Jr. had learned to love the sport from playing in a facility built by his older cousin, Kelvim Escobar.

Escobar spent 12 years in the majors with the Toronto Blue Jays and Los Angeles Angels. He was an above-average pitcher, but injuries riddled him late in his career. It was Escobar himself who told the story about Acuña Jr.’s recruiting process.

The first team that reached out was the Washington Nationals. They were coming off back-to-back successful seasons but just missed out on the playoffs in 2013. They had a plus $100,000,000 million dollar active payroll that year and were looking for cheaper options.

Reports are the team called Acuña Jr., and his father answered the phone, who was managing the entire process. The Nationals called asking for a price that the family would be happy for him to join the team, but what Acuña Sr. asked for was way out of their ballpark. Nobody knows the exact price, but Washington thought it was an extreme overpay for the young Acuña Jr. In hindsight, they would’ve taken the roughly $100,000 contract in a heartbeat.

The second team was the Kansas City Royals. The Royals had ties with Acuña Jr.’s cousin, Alcides Escobar. He was the team’s starting shortstop during the time of Acuña’s tryouts, so the Royals scouts made Acuña Jr. work out as a shortstop. His entire career has been played as an outfielder, so this wouldn’t work out, and the relationship between Acuña Jr. and Kansas City quickly died out.

Next was the Texas Rangers, and this is perhaps the worst mistake out of every team in the mix. Simply enough, they were interested, but not interested enough to give him an offer. Their scouting reports have shown that they didn’t love his swing. They thought it was too long and slow, while it was commonly known that he had tremendous bat speed, and he turned into one of the greatest hitters of our generation.

Then came the Colorado Rockies. At this point, Acuña Jr. was getting tired of having to try out for so many teams and just wanted to commit. the Rockies were the closest to completing a deal. Going into 2014, they had a slight three million dollar difference between their active payroll and their total payroll, meaning they had put dangerously low money into their future.

According to Escobar, Colorado and the Acuña family had a contract in place to bring him into the organization, but it was the Rockies who had dropped out saying they decided to go with someone else. That someone else was either Chris Rajabo or R.J. Seidel. Neither of them would make an appearance in the major leagues.

In the 31 years of Colorado baseball, there have been a lot of swings and misses. They’ve only made the postseason five times and never won more than 92 games. One year hypothetically could’ve been the year the Rockies won the World Series if Ronald Acuña Jr. had been inserted into that lineup.

The year was 2018. They finished 91-72 and missed out on winning the National League West by a tiebreaking 163rd game to the Los Angeles Dodgers. If you take out Geraldo Parra and flex Acuña into left field, that cancels out to a 4.7 increase in WAR, which hypothetically gives the Rockies four more wins. That would bring them to 95-67 which would not only win them the division but also give them a first-round bye in the postseason.

They’d have to face the 90-win Braves, but without Acuña only have 85-86. It would likely come down to a NLCS against the Milwaukee Brewers or LA Dodgers, which would lead to a World Series rematch with the Boston Red Sox. Now, this is where Colorado would’ve been expected to meet their match, as no one was beating the 108-win Red Sox with MVP Mookie Betts.

Still, nonetheless, this was a franchise-altering loss for the Rockies. Acuña could’ve completed a team that had simultaneous primes of Nolan Arenado and Trevor Story with an actually good pitching staff led by Kyle Freeland.

Instead, the Atlanta Braves land 17-year-old Acuña as an amateur free agent, and the rest is history. He has found immaculate success with the team, highlighted by a World Series win in 2021 and a record-breaking 2023 season where he became the first player in MLB history to hit 40 home runs and steal 70 bases. That year, he was the most productive hitter in baseball, and it all encapsulated with the NL Most Valuable Player award.

Instead, the Rockies and Braves are on different sides of the spectrum, with one team having World Series aspirations and the other trying not to lose 100 games for the third season in a row. Let’s just hope Colorado can find the next Ronald Acuña Jr. and begin to turn their organization around.