Acuna Jr, Ronald - MLB HOF Tracker

AGE 24 Tracked Career 3.8 WAR – 9.6 WAR

Floor Level Hall of Famer Year 3.2 WAR

Average Hall of Famer Year 3.9 WAR

Acuna Jr, Ronald

2022: 2.2 WAR Career: 18.4 WAR

Let’s get this out of the way, if you’re wondering about my confidence in Ronald Acuna, Jr making a comeback, I think he’s the 2023 NL Comeback player of the year. And I think he’s a top 10 MVP candidate.

That’s not a through-the-roof estimation, because I don’t have complete confidence that come opening day he’ll have made all of the adjustments he needs to make. But it’s coming, in my humble opinion, because I do not think of Acuna having a down season due to nagging injuries. I see Acuna as someone who basically shouldn’t have been on the field at all, but his team was in the hunt and he was in there, and he still proved to be a worthy MLB starter.

The main question to ask yourself is, were Acuna’s struggles actually from injury? Yes. Hope that helped.

It’s just so easy to see how his knee hurt him in everything, including the most important thing: his swing.

And Acuna was the Braves star, always a potential breakout away. They were in an extremely close race, so they let him Kirk Gibson his way through the year. His arm was worse. Of course, you can’t plant and throw. His range was worse, of course, you’re slower with a knee injury. And this isn’t hard to see with his sprint speed metrics:

2018 29.7

2019 29.4

2020 29.2

2021 29.4

2022 28.5

Uh, did you see that? Acuna was still extremely fast. But when they say people lose a step – yes, he literally lost a step. That’s what it looks like when you’re running your competitive ass off on a knee that he described as “terrible.” Yes, that terrible was after he tweaked his knee in early September, but as late as mid-August his entire year had been described as “fighting pain every day.” You tell me how many players could be 2 WAR guys in that condition. Remember, there was a worry when he got hurt in 2021 that it was potentially career-ending. That was unlikely, but this was a serious, serious injury.

To me, 28.5 is illustrative of a few things:

1) He was obviously physically limited last year

2) He’s also obviously able to be fully healthy on his knee. You don’t run in the 82nd percentile of the league on a leg that won’t let you do it

3) This guy, effort-wise, kicks ass. There were certainly questions about him in his early years. Not one of you bozos would have endured what he did last year. He proved himself in my eyes, and that changes future projections a great deal.

4) This is a year-long total, it just occurred to me that I actually checked this on a previous update.

Last but not least, in fact, most, is that swinging a bat on a hurt knee is going to suck. You have to compensate in many ways. You can take me as an example. I was lucky enough to step on broken glass a few weeks ago. I went from running 5 miles a day to limping to my fridge in a frantic search of pudding. OK, that’s not the point. The point is while I was hoping my foot would heal, I injured my ankle and my calf because of how I had to compensate when dealing with my injury. After my foot was pain-free, I had to wait on two other injuries to heal before I could run again. (And I promise you it’s more like 28.5 feet a lunar year in my case.)

Acuna had injury issues all season long. Gee, I wonder why. Guy had to play as a professional athlete compensating for a major injury. How fun.

It’s not thought about a lot, but hitting with bad knees, I mean, my word. Nearly impossible to get your swing right. Knee pain sent Mark McGwire from having an MVP caliber 2000 to a retired, pathetic, pinch hit for in the playoffs by Kerry Robinson 2001. But we’re not here to talk about the past.

The knee changed Acuna as a hitter dramatically.

His career ground ball % going into last year was 38.2% And, as he was developing as a hitter, it was dropping. Literally every year of his career. He was turning into Mr. Launch Angle.

2018: 42.8

2019: 38.5

2020: 36.0

2021: 31.8

2022: 47.7

Uh, did you notice that one? Injuries change swing trajectories and often make guys groundhogs. Christian Yelich preview anyone? And it’s unstoppable. The knee wouldn’t let him rotate to get the proper loft. His GB/FB ratio nearly doubled year over year. Say it with me: He didn’t regress; he was hurt.

Every metric as a hitter plummeted last year, and pitchers knew it. Even his walk % went way down because he wasn’t the threat he was in years past. They weren’t scared to pitch to him anymore. His .300+ ISO went down to .148.

And if you need more proof of the knee making things impossible for him, consider this: He tweaked his knee on September 2nd, and it all but did him in for the year. And how did he do it? Hitting a 440+ foot bomb. At that moment he got his usual, fierce swing back, at that moment he was the Acuna of old, and he paid for it. His knee wouldn’t let him play that way anymore. He hit .239 the rest of the way. How? I do not know how.

The course of his season shows the wear and tear of the daily grind of baseball. Take a look at his game log and you’ll see a rehab-ready Acuna heading into June he was 9-9 in Stolen Base attempts. Zero caught stealings. Heck, he had 2 on opening day. By the end of the season, he would lead the league in being caught with 11. As late as June 11th his OPS was at .950. It’s around here things went south. The production left, and by the end of the month, Acuna started missing time, while still playing an unbelievable amount considering his injury. He was a sub .600 OPS hitter for 6 weeks. His next worst month, you’ll be shocked to know, is when the “terrible” revelation came out.

So last year we saw the real Acuna, or at least close to the real Acuna. But the knee couldn’t hold up. This isn’t a shock at all. No doctor would have imagined he could have been playing. No one would have expected he’d be starting both ends of a doubleheader twice within a week in August last year, but he did. And he did so without a day off in August. (Technically he had 3 days off where he wasn’t in the starting lineup – but they found a way to get him into each game anyway.)

So what is the real Acuna?

Here’s his per 162 WAR for each year of his career:

2018: 6.0

2019: 5.6

2020: 8.5

2021: 8.5

2022: 3.0

Folks, people don’t know crap about the Hall of Fame. They don’t. The vision they have in their head is always vastly different than what the Hall actually is. 4 or 5 years from now you’re going to hear people wondering if Acuna might be a Hall of Famer. Do you see the above? Yeah, he’s a Hall of Famer. Now look, he hasn’t played enough, obviously. He could be run over by a camel tomorrow, obviously. But as far as Hall of Fame talent, this is inner circle stuff here. He’s had injury troubles, yes. He was lucky enough to be screwed by the Covid season, yes. Even that said he’s so far ahead of pace for a 24-year-old it’s insane. Look at the list of 24-year-olds he’s with. Count how many just came up last year. Count how many are “if only he can break out in his prime” type of players. For Acuna, we just hope he can be 80% of what he was while playing full-time. That’s all he needs.

And remember, the numbers above are through age 24. We’re supposed to see prime Acuna now. Technically we’re supposed to see a better version of him soon. He was half an Acuna last year. You can pencil him in for a 6.0 WAR pace next year. I guarantee it.*

*-I can confidentially guarantee this because you don’t get jack if I’m wrong anyway.

How will you know if I’m right? Ignore the hitting stats to start the season. He’s spent a year away from his swing, and it’s going to take time to get it back. Check those sprint speeds. The closer they are to 29, the more he is healthy and letting it loose. If you see those kinds of sprint speed stats, his small sample hitting size won’t matter at all at that point. He has to be healthy first. Then he has to adjust.

Then you can look at that ground ball %. Watch that dip, and watch the king return. That’s the secret. That’s how you’ll know he’s coming.

450 to start the year (His homers were ALL bombs. Only 2 under 400 ft, 10 over 425 – just has to get healthy to get his flyball swing back)

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=0d11ea1b-1780-4b14-8fd8-a89ea349107f

June 7th multi-homer 434 and 464!

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=0c878fd5-2b21-444e-a304-80bde97efbd7

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=2ec2bba4-cd3b-4920-bac4-052b0c4583c2

Career hit 500

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=71070569-9b8f-471e-8179-d6e332b412b9

Hurt his knee – watch how they rotate on this 444 foot homer, like he didn’t mean to let go, but he did

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=a1bc5cac-7b5e-4705-aece-8cab7b18e170

September 27th multi homer

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=9346d21b-67fa-4e69-ad96-d0bee79c14ed