Two years ago, Ronald Acuña Jr. was one of Major League Baseball’s most exciting young players. In just his fourth MLB season, the 23-year-old had already won Rookie of the Year and two Silver Sluggers, finished top-12 in National League MVP voting in each of his first three seasons, and was on his way to his second All-Star Game appearance with an OPS of .999 through the first two months of the season. Going into the All-Star break, Acuña had established himself as a favorite for NL MVP and was widely considered one of the league’s top players, but that would all change on July 10, 2021.
In the bottom of the fifth inning with the Atlanta Braves leading the Miami Marlins 5-2, Jazz Chisholm Jr. stepped up to the plate for the third time that day. After flying out in the first inning and swinging through a Max Fried fastball to strikeout in the third, Chisholm was looking to get back on track with a base hit. When Fried hung a slider down the middle on the first pitch, Chisholm jumped all over it, roping a 96.1 mph line drive down the right field line. Acuña, playing right field, raced after the ball. Needing to cover 73 feet in only 4.2 seconds, Statcast only gave him a 5% chance at making the play. When he reached the warning track, Acuña leaped after the ball but just barely missed it. As he came back to the ground, he immediately grabbed at his right knee, crumpling into a heap against the outfield wall. As Chisholm raced around the bases for an inside-the-park home run, panic started to set in for the Braves while teammates and trainers ran out to check on the fallen superstar. After a few minutes, Acuña attempted to limp his way off the field, but after a couple of feet, he knew he wouldn’t make it. He sat down to wait for the cart to come to take him off the field, with tears streaming down his face. Acuña knew his season was over.
Initially a relatively unheralded prospect out of Venezuela, Acuña was not even ranked as one of the top 30 international amateur free agents ahead of the 2014 signing period. He signed with the Braves for only $100,000 that July, and after posting an .818 OPS over 55 games of rookie-ball, made his debut on MLB Pipeline as the #23 ranked Braves prospect ahead of the 2016 season. Over the next two seasons, Acuña soared through the Atlanta farm system. He posted a .322/.378/.502 slash line with 25 home runs and 58 stolen bases over 181 minor league games as he rose from rookie-ball all the way up to AAA by the end of the 2017 season. After dominating the Arizona Fall League to the tune of a 1.053 OPS while taking home MVP honors, Acuña solidified himself as the consensus best prospect in the world not named Shohei Ohtani ahead of the 2018 season.
Acuña started off the 2018 season slow, still in AAA and hitting just .139 through his first nine games. But after hitting his first homer of the season on April 17, his swing was back, as he proceeded to hit .333 over his next eight games before getting called up to make his MLB debut on April 25 at just 20 years old. Upon being called up, Acuña immediately hit the ground running, homering in just his sixth major league plate appearance and not looking back from there. He added another 25 home runs to go with 16 steals while running away with NL Rookie of the Year honors, receiving 27 of 30 first-place votes, with Juan Soto and Walker Buehler being the only others. He placed 12th in NL MVP voting, the only rookie to receive votes, and finished the season tied for the rookie lead in fWAR with 4.1 as his 142 wRC+ trailed only Shohei Ohtani and Juan Soto among rookies with at least 200 plate appearances. Just four games into the 2019 season, the Braves decided to reward Acuña with an 8-year $100 million contract extension. This deal proved to have incredible value for Atlanta, as it covered all of his arbitration years while buying out four years of his free agency at $17 million, well below his market value. This process of extending young stars has been a trend for the Braves in recent years, as Ozzie Albies, Austin Riley, Spencer Strider, and Michael Harris II have all received contract extensions to keep them from hitting free agency.
The results were immediate for the Braves, as Acuña spent the 2019 season trying to become the fifth player in MLB history to hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in the same season. At the All-Star break, he had hit 21 homers and stolen 13 bases, short of the pace he would need. But over his last 66 games, he added 20 homers and 24 steals, more than doubling his pace from the first half, finishing just short with 41 home runs and 37 stolen bases. While he wasn’t able to join the 40-40 club, his 37 steals and 127 runs were both the most in the National League. Acuña’s incredible overall season was enough to garner him his first All-Star appearance and Silver Slugger award, as well as a fifth-place finish in NL MVP voting.
The pandemic-shortened 2020 season was another dominant offensive at the plate for Acuña as he once again finished 12th in NL MVP voting and picked up his second straight Silver Slugger. He posted a 158 wRC+ that tied him for the 11th-best mark in the league while being only one of 10 players to hit at least 10 home runs and steal at least eight bases. Although he hit a career-low .250, he offset that by posting career-best on-base and slugging percentages at .406 and .581 respectively. That on-base percentage was largely aided by an 18.8% walk rate that ranked fourth-best in the entire league and was well above the 10.1% mark he had posted over his first two seasons. At the age of 22, Acuña had firmly established himself as one of the best players in the game.
2021 looked like it would be another dominant season for Acuña until that fateful day in Miami. Before his injury, he had been nothing less than elite, ranking in the top five in home runs, stolen bases, wRC+, and fWAR among major league hitters. He was selected to his second All-Star Game but wasn’t able to participate due to his injury, as he was scheduled for reconstructive knee surgery on July 21st.
While Acuña’s injury may have seemed like a massive blow at the time for the middling Braves, it turned out to actually be a blessing in disguise. Through July 10, Atlanta was stuck right at .500, with a 44-44 record that put them 4.5 games behind the first-place New York Mets for the NL East division lead. Acuña’s injury forced them to rethink their entire outfield, and ahead of the July 30 trade deadline, general manager, Alex Anthopoulos, swung a series of deals to acquire outfielders Joc Pederson, Eddie Rosario, Jorge Soler, and Adam Duvall. After coming to Atlanta, those four would combine to slash .251/.325/.503, while leading the Braves to a 36-20 record after August 1. Those additions, combined with a second-half collapse from the Mets, helped Atlanta win the division by 6.5 games. The Braves defeated the Milwaukee Brewers in four games in the National League Division Series, led by pinch-hit home runs from Pederson in games one and three. Next, they took down the 106-win Los Angeles Dodgers in six games in the National League Championship Series. This time they were led by Rosario, who slashed .560/.607/1.040 en route to taking home NLCS MVP honors.
Finally, they defeated the dreaded Houston Astros in six games to capture the franchise’s first World Series title since 1995. Soler started the series off with a bang by smashing a leadoff homer in game one, before breaking open game six with a monster home run to give the Braves a lead they wouldn’t relinquish. He was named World Series MVP for his efforts as he posted a 1.191 OPS and crushed a series-leading three home runs. While his teammates celebrated their World Series win, Acuña was still on the road to recovery. While he got to celebrate on the field and during the World Series parade with them, it wasn’t how he pictured it, with a massive scar running down his right knee.
Acuña missed spring training in 2022, still healing his knee, but began a rehab assignment in AAA on April 19. After hitting .368 in six AAA games, he was finally ready to return. On April 28, 2022, 292 days after tearing his ACL, Ronald Acuña Jr. was in the Braves lineup once again. When he stole two bases in his first game and hit his first homer of the season in his seventh game, it looked like he was back, but that wouldn’t be the case for the full season. He was still elected to start the All-Star Game after stealing 20 bases over the first half, thanks to him being one of the league’s most popular players, but you could tell he wasn’t the same.
He ended the season with an OPS of .764, well below the .924 mark he posted across his first four seasons. While his 29 steals still placed him seventh in the entire league, the 11 times he was caught stealing were the most in the NL and only trailed Randy Arozarena in all of baseball. Acuña simply wasn’t the same athlete anymore, despite still only being 24 years old. Across his first four seasons, he never placed below the 95th percentile in sprint speed, but in 2022 he dropped to the 82nd percentile.
The biggest problem for him offensively was the change in his batted ball profile, which led to a significant decrease in his slugging percentage, from .550 over his first four seasons all the way down to .413 in 2022. While Acuña was still hitting the ball hard, with 50.1% of his batted balls coming with an exit velocity over 95 mph, compared to 51.9% across his first four seasons, his average launch angle had decreased from 18.2° in 2021 down to 10.8° in 2022. He was hitting more ground balls than ever before while hitting fewer balls in the air, giving him fewer opportunities to do damage for extra bases. His ground ball percentage increased from 38.2% across his first four seasons all the way up to 47.7% in 2022, and his fly ball percentage dropped from 29% to 24.7%. These changes led to only 31.5% of his hits going for extra bases, compared to 44.6% from 2018-21.
Despite the slowed production from their superstar, breakout seasons from players like Harris II and Dansby Swanson helped lead the Braves to a 101-win season as they captured the NL East division crown for the fifth straight season. During the Division Series against the underdog Philadelphia Phillies, Acuña hit .333 and posted an on-base percentage of .412. However, despite his performance, the Braves would be upset in four games as the rest of the lineup failed to show up. Even with performances from Acuña, Matt Olson, and Travis d’Arnaud that saw them combine to post an OPS of 1.161, the team as a whole managed an OPS of just .594, while Bryce Harper led the way for the Phillies by slashing .500/.529/1.063, eventually taking them all the way to a World Series appearance.
Following their upset loss, both Acuña and the Braves were looking to bounce back to their previous winning ways. Heading into the 2023 season, Acuña was one of the early favorites for NL MVP, and the Braves had some of the best World Series odds in the entire league. Both got out to a wickedly hot start through the month of April, with the team’s record sitting at 18-9 at the end of the month, and Acuña capturing April’s NL Player of the Month honors for hitting .352 with an MLB-best 13 stolen bases.
Through the first two months of this season, Acuña has simply been one of the league's best all-around players. Right now, his 2.5 fWAR is the second most among MLB hitters, barely trailing Wander Franco’s 2.6, and his 2.8 bWAR trails only Franco’s 3.2 and Marcus Semien's 3.0. The biggest change Acuña has made to his game this season has been his discipline at the plate. Through 2022, his 11.4% walk rate has always been one of the stronger aspects of his games, as he had never ranked below the 58th percentile. While he had always walked at a high clip, through 2022 he also carried a career 25.3% strikeout rate and had never ranked better than the 34th percentile of major league hitters. But in 2023, he has cut that number nearly in half, with his 13.8% strikeout rate placing him in the top 9% of the league. Acuña’s 0.88 BB/K ratio is the 12th-best mark in the league and is by far the best number he has put up in his career.
He is hitting the ball harder than ever this season, with his 95.1 mph average exit velocity ranking third in the league, and well surpassing his previous career high of 93.8 mph in 2021. He has just made exceptional contact overall this season which has shown up in both his actual and expected stats. His .323 batting average, .562 slugging percentage, and .414 wOBA rank eighth, ninth, and fifth among major league hitters, respectively, which are all good numbers. But his .347 expected batting average has been the league’s best mark, and his .666 expected slugging percentage trails only Aaron Judge while his .463 xwOBA is tied with him for the league lead. As incredible as he has been at the plate, the fact that his expected numbers are all better than his actual results shows that there’s still room for him to improve this season.
In addition to what Acuña has done as a hitter this season, the best overall aspect of his game this season might be the threat that he is on the basepaths. So far this year his 22 stolen bases have been the most in the National League, trailing only Esteury Ruiz’s 27 for the Major League lead. His .409 on-base percentage gives him plenty of opportunities to run, and in addition to the sheer volume of steals this season, he has done it on career-best efficiency, only being caught twice, good for a 92% success rate. His combination of power and speed has been simply unmatched this season, with his 14.7 power/speed number well out-pacing second place’s Bobby Witt Jr., who has produced an 11.3 power/speed number.
One of the most underrated things about Acuña’s incredible production has been his durability this season, playing in every single one of Atlanta’s first 51 games this season. For someone who lost as much time to injury as he did, this has been absolutely incredible, and there is no doubt that he has been the main reason the Braves hold the National League’s best record this season. He is currently on pace for 35 home runs and 70 stolen bases this season. If he keeps up the home run pace he has held recently, nearly doubling his homers from April to May, he could not only become the fifth player in MLB history to go 40-40, but potentially the first player to ever have a 50-homer, 50-steal season. Right now, Acuña sits as the betting favorite to take home his first MVP award, and at still just 25 years of age, the ceiling for his career seems limitless at this point.
All stats are accurate as of 5/27/23
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