A year ago, Eric Hartman was just trying to get back on the field for Single-A Augusta. He was a 20th-round pick from the 2024 Draft, a 19-year-old from Alberta, Canada, and his first taste of pro ball was a grind: .222 with a .710 OPS over his first 39 games.
Now he’s one of the fastest risers in the minors.
On Wednesday night, Hartman launched his 20th home run of the season in High-A Rome’s 8-1 win over Jersey Shore at ShoreTown Ballpark. Paired with the 30 stolen bases he had already piled up, that made him the first player in 2026 to reach the 20-HR/30-SB mark at any level, including the Majors.
The pace behind that production is what really jumps off the page. Hartman reached the milestone in his 71st game of the year, and since 2005 only Charlton Jimerson got there faster in the Minors, doing it in 70 games in 2007. The Braves have seen this kind of breakout before, too: Ronald Acuña Jr. was the last player in the organization to be the Minors’ first to the 20-homer, 30-steal threshold, doing it across three levels in 2017.
The big-league comparison is even rarer. Since 1900, Eric Davis with the 1987 Reds is the only player to get there in his club’s first 70 games.
Hartman’s jump has been dramatic. He’s now the Braves’ No. 3 prospect and No. 81 overall, and he became the 13th Minor Leaguer to reach 20 homers this season. That stands out even more because he hit only five home runs in 89 games during his debut season last year.
The power surge hasn’t come out of nowhere. His line-drive rate is up by more than 5 percent from last year, and his flyball rate has climbed as well, sitting at 42.6 percent entering Wednesday’s action, fourth in the Braves’ system.
The results have been steady almost all year. Hartman hit between .292 and .299 in each month of the calendar through the first three months, and the only real dip came in a 14-game stretch from May 21-June 5, when he went without a homer.
Even then, he still put together four multihit games and stole eight bases. He has also stolen at least one base in every series he’s played in so far in 2026.
There have been flashier individual bursts, too. On April 21, Hartman became just the 14th teenager since 2005 to hit three homers in a full-season league, and he joined Jeremiah Jackson in 2019 and Cam Collier in 2024 as the only High-A players to do it. He turned 20 on June 16, but his 17 homers as a 19-year-old are still tied for the most in the Minors this season.
Even the age profile makes the numbers look louder. Only three of his 322 plate appearances this season have come against younger pitchers, and he has done most of his damage away from Rome’s AdventHealth Stadium, with 16 of his 20 home runs coming on the road.
“He’s always been a talented player,” Braves assistant GM of player development Ben Sestanovich said of Hartman last month. “He can really run.
Last year we saw glimpses of the power; this year, you’re just seeing the consistency. This is mostly the case of a young kid who had a bunch of tools, and we’re starting to see the tools translate into performance.
This isn’t some eureka moment.”
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The outing still fits into the larger picture of patience, because this was about building back arm strength and rhythm rather than rushing toward a return. Atlanta can use every encouraging checkpoint it gets from a pitcher who was part of its future plans, especially with the rotation already thinned by elbow issues and the club watching every healthy arm closely. [Read more 🡒]