The Atlanta Braves have the reigning MVP and he’s poised for a massive 2024

The Atlanta Braves couldn’t have expected this, right?

How often does a Major League team sign an international free agent for $100,000 and see them turn into arguably the best player in baseball?

The Atlanta Braves signed outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr in 2014 for $100k as an international amateur free agent, but have watched him outperform that modest bonus to become one of MLB’s best players. Unanimously named the 2023 NL MVP on the heels of only baseball’s fifth-ever 40/40 season, Acuña led either all of baseball or the National League in a whopping NINE different statistical categories, everything from stolen bases (73) and total bases (383) to on-base percentage (.416) and OPS (1.012).

And MLB.com, when polling their baseball writers about the best current player in baseball, almost unanimously agreed with Acuña’s potential placement at the top of the list.

Three of the five named Acuña the best current player, taking the mantle from Los Angeles Angels outfielder Mike Trout (2013-2021) and Los Angeles Dodgers two-way star Shohei Ohtani (2022 & 2023), who fell back in the voting since he will only hit in 2024 after undergoing a 2nd UCL surgery last fall.

Who believes in Acuña?
Researched David Adler was one of the three experts that had Acuña #1, citing his unprecedented blend of power and speed. Ronald’s 41 homers and 73 stolen bases last season obliterated the previous high mark for steals in a 40/40 season, 46 by then-Seattle Mariners shortstop Alex Rodriguez in 1998.

Researcher Sarah Langs had similar rationale to Adler, diving into advanced stats to show that Acuña’s .596 slugging percentage in 2023, while 2nd on the team to Matt Olson’s .604, was actually an underperformance. Based on the “quality of contact” for Acuña – the exit velocities and launch angles of his batted ball events – Acuña should have a slugging percentage of .660., showing the potential for even better power production for Acuña in 2024.

Researcher and Statcast guru Mike Petriello had a different rationale: What Acuña did, cutting his strikeout rate by more than half (23.6% in 2022 to to 11.4% in 2023) while not sacrificing power – his slugging percentage actually went up year over year, by 183 points – is practically unprecedented, and at only 26, Ronald’s just now entering the traditional prime years for baseball hitters.

(Important note here is that Acuña’s .413 slugging percentage in 2022 was an outlier, owing to his delayed recovery from 2021’s ACL injury. His pre-injury slugging percentage was .596 in 2021 and he’s averaged a .537 slug over his six seasons in MLB.)

Petriello also notes that, given several underperformance factors for Acuña last season, he could not only repeat but exceed last season’s performance with some positive regression.

Who had other ideas?
Two non-researchers, coincidentally, had Los Angeles Dodgers star Mookie Betts ahead of Ronald.

Will Leitch, national columnist, gave the nod to Mookie over Ronald due to Betts being the “personification of that Old School ballplayer” stereotype while not showing significant analytical deficiencies. Betts, who was drafted as an infielder before eventually moving to right field for the Boston Red Sox, played 86 games in the infield last season for LA “without having any reason in Spring Training to think he’d be doing so”, which a 40/70 season, apparently.

Editor Andrew Simon had a similar “ballplayer” argument for preferring Mookie, pointing out his career-long WAR dominance and his seamless transition to playing second base midseason. Simon opined that if Ronald became the first player in history to repeat a 40/40 and unanimous MVP season with yet another, Acuña’d “likely” be in the top spot on his personal rankings at this time next year.

The official MLB Network unveiling of the top ten players in baseball in Wednesday night at 8PM ET.

But in the eyes of the analysts who know ball, it’s not a debate.