I'm positive that I've brought this up before, but the one thing that's stood out to me in Oswaldo Arcia's ascension is his ability to adjust quickly and durably to new levels of competition. Progress up the ladder of pro baseball is a weird thing, filled with big steps forward followed by inexplicable steps back (Andy Marte, whose acquisition by the Indians caused me to predict that 2006-20015 would be the Indians' decade in MLB) and small steps forward followed by small steps back followed by much bigger steps forward followed by ... something else (Aaron Hicks).

Oswaldo Arcia has, heretofore, been the wonderful, boring example of the straight line. Acquired as an amateur free agent as a Venezuelan sixteen year old in 2007, he wasn't a big-ticket get for the Twins and they never really showed any grand plan to promote him aggressively until he showed a weird knack for acclimating quickly and conclusively to improved competition.

He showed the same base of skills in both his pro debut (DSL at age 17, .293/.343/.432) and his stateside debut (GCL at age 18, .275/.337/.455). Those skills can basically be described as an aggressive approach which, at best, welcomed a walk but strongly preferred to launch powerful linedrives to all fields and to pull flyballs over the rightfield wall. One of the things which will benefit him in this analysis is that he hasn't been tasked with the same defensive responsibilities as guys like Eddie Rosario, Miguel Sano, or even Aaron Hicks. Arcia started his career as a centerfielder, but in spite of being pretty fleet and possessing a strong, accurate arm, he's basically a box-shaped human and has always profiled in a corner.

What happened next, in continued short-season ball, was an age-19 promotion to the Appy League - the last year Arcia would see a level-by-level promotion schedule. The interesting performances at DSL and GCL there manifested in something that will probably give Appy League pitchers lasting nightmares, as he busted out to a .375/.424/.672 line. What's interesting there is that his strikeout rate ballooned to over 20%, generally a problem mark and he showed his same general disinterest in drawing walks - but it didn't affect his batting line negatively. Dude whales on everything.

A big spike in strikeout rate is a red flag, even if you square up the stuff you make contact with well enough that it's (slightly) plausible for you to have batted .375. But that performance was too much to hold him back, so Arcia started Opening Day of 2011 in Beloit. Between the cold weather and the first time pitchers have even a mild clue what they're doing, this is generally where Appy League flukes go to die. But Arcia didn't, posting a .352/.420/.704 line in 20 games. His strikeout rate remained around 20%, and at that 20 game mark he went down with a (rib, if I recall) injury.

The Twins like to see serious rehab done at homebase, so after healing he returned to Ft. Myers for some GCL rehab work. Evidently, the Twins liked what they saw because they just told him not to bother unpacking and re-assigned him to the Miracle. It was one of the weirder promotions I remember seeing as a Twins fan, as they don't usually do in-season promotions for guys in low-A; don't usually promote in the first month of the season; and regard health as an important enough skill that injury is actually a real knock on young guys.

But he didn't take notice of the exceptional circumstances and, after initial struggles, finished with a .263/.300/.460 line. The strikeout rate remained high, but that nigh-.200 IsoP in the power-suppressing Ft. Myers summer was eyebrow raising. Still, there's obviously stuff to build on in that line for somebody who will need to hit like a true corner guy in the majors, so for the first time in his career, Arcia was re-assigned to a level he'd seen before on Opening Day 2012.

Giving Arcia a second look at a level, given his reputation for quick acclimation, was an unfortunate stroke of luck for FSL pitchers. He lowered his strikeout rate, raised his walk rate to a career high, and bumped his power above that .200 IsoP mark. That led to a now-usual midseason promotion to New Britain, where he basically continued all of the above trends (but for a small uptick in K-rate) and hit .328/.398/.557. As we've discussed before, the AA promotion is the big one. This is where pitchers are capable of executing real plans against hitters and can spin above-average big league breaking pitches with regularity. What was cool too, is that Arcia started to iron out what had been a worse-than-you'd-like-to-see split against LHP and whaled against them in a pretty similar shape to righties in New Britain.

Again, the basic skills remain the same. Lots of hits and a high batting average based on strong on-contact numbers and in spite of occasionally high K-rates. Good power and the ability to use all fields. And the seasonal curve was starting to get really familiar: 2+ weeks of struggles followed by a gradual, but easily observable, return to batting dominance. He just doesn't take long to become himself.

Soooooo, with the exception of an absurd and brief stay at Rochester this season, Arcia has looked like himself in the majors this year. With twenty two games, he is basically right at the one month mark of his MLB career and we can split those neatly in half:

First eleven games: .216/.275/.405
Last eleven games: .372/.386/.581

He's not done yet, obviously. As long as he carries a 20%+ strikeout rate he'll be prone to slumps. And MLB pitchers will exploit his aggressiveness better than anybody has prior, so he'll need to draw walks too. The difficult thing for predictions is that he hasn't had to show both those skills in bulk yet, but the cool thing for imagining a really kind of awesome future is that he's never been in one place long enough for that. The one glimpse we got was 2011's return to Ft. Myers, where in his second look he successfully chopped his strikeouts to a perfectly normal level and raised his walks to around that magical 10% mark.

There are no new levels in front of him, so we can take a reasonably sunny view that these are skills he both can add and knows how to add rather seamlessly. So we may have to get used to having him around.