Exactly one year ago, Eric Hartman was preparing to rejoin Single-A Augusta after a stint on the injured list. He was a 20th-round Draft choice from 2024 who hit .222 with a .710 OPS through his first 39 pro games, a 19-year-old from Alberta, Canada, who was taking his lumps in pro ball.
Fast-forward to Wednesday night and Hartman slugged his 20th homer of the year in High-A Rome's 8-1 win over Jersey Shore at ShoreTown Ballpark, which when coupled with the 30 stolen bases he’d already compiled, made him the first player to hit the 20-HR/30-SB plateau at any level (including the Majors) in 2026.
Hartman’s rise has been meteoric. The 20-year-old now ranks as the Braves’ No. 3 prospect and No. 81 overall. And this much success in the home run and stolen-base departments so early in the season is nearly unprecedented. Dating back to 2005, only one player -- Charlton Jimerson (70 games, 2007) -- has reached those benchmarks in the Minors faster than Hartman, who did so in his 71st game of the year.
The last member of the Braves organization to be the Minors’ first player to hit the 20-homer/30-steal threshold? None other than Ronald Acuña Jr., who did so across three levels in 2017.
Widening the scope to include big league action, Eric Davis (1987 Reds) is the only player since 1900 to reach the mark in his club’s first 70 games.
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Hartman became the 13th Minor League to hit 20 home runs this season, an especially surprising development considering he launched just five roundtrippers over 89 games in his debut campaign last year. His line-drive rate has risen by more than 5 percent since last year, as has his flyball rate (42.6 percent entering play Wednesday), which ranks fourth in the Braves’ system.
It’s been a fairly steady hum through the first three months of the year for Hartman, who hit between .292 and .299 in each pass of the calendar. Here’s a month-by-month breakdown of his HR/SB totals:
April: 8 homers, 8 steals
May: 5 homers, 10 steals
June: 6 homers, 12 steals
Hartman's only real lull in production came during a 14-game stretch from May 21-June 5 in which he didn’t homer. But he still posted four multihit games and swiped eight bags over that span. He has swiped at least one base in every series that he’s played in thus far in 2026.
On April 21, Hartman became just the 14th teenager since 2005 to deliver a three-homer game in a full-season league, joining only Jeremiah Jackson (2019) and Cam Collier (2024) in doing so at High-A. He turned 20 on June 16, but Hartman’s 17 homers as a 19-year-old are still tied for the most in the Minors this season.
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Hartman’s production is even more impressive when considering that just three of his 322 plate appearances this season have come against younger pitchers. He has particularly mashed when away from Rome’s AdventHealth Stadium, with 16 of his 20 homers 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.”