Ronald Acuña Jr.’s Eventual Return Comes Into Focus

Ronald Acuña Jr. did something we’ve never seen in 2023, becoming the first player to combine at least 40 homers and 70 stolen bases in the same season en route to NL MVP honors. Unfortunately, Acuña followed up that spectacular season by doing something we had seen before when he tore his anterior cruciate ligament. Having already torn his right ACL just before the All-Star break in 2021, he tore his left one last May 26. While he was playing defense for the first one and stealing a base for the second, the end result was the same: season-ending surgery and a massive hole in the Braves’ lineup. The team has taken his rehab more slowly this time around. Acuña will start the year on the injured list, and likely miss the first month if not more.

When Acuña reported to camp in mid-February, the Braves said that he wouldn’t play in any Grapefruit League games. The 27-year-old slugger has since been cleared for some baseball activity, and has been entertaining onlookers with his long-distance home runs in batting practice, building a legend in the process. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Ken Suguria, Braves manager Brian Snitker claimed that one Acuña homer cleared a video board beyond left center field at CoolToday Park, the team’s spring facility — a shot that would have traveled at least 450 feet.

“[Hitting coach Tim Hyers] was saying he was in the cage the other day and [Acuña was] whistling that bat around like guys would do a Wiffle bat,” Snitker told reporters. “He’s probably as strong as he’s ever been right now.”

Acuña has additionally taken live batting practice as well as at-bats as a designated hitter in minor league games on the back fields, leading off each inning but returning to the dugout instead of running the bases. He’s also done outfield and running drills that keep him on a straight line, but hasn’t been cleared to do any cutting drills, let alone play the outfield under game conditions.

While it was almost a month ago that Acuña described himself as running at 90-95%, the Braves’ slow-play is based on experience. Acuña tore his right ACL on July 10, 2021 and had surgery on July 21 of that year. He returned to the lineup on April 28, 2022, nine months and one week after surgery, but dealt with lingering soreness in the knee throughout the season, and didn’t drive the ball with the same authority. He hit .266/.351/.413 (115 wRC+) that season; aside from his batting average, those numbers were the lowest of his first five seasons, though he went even lower with last year’s tepid start (.250/.351/.365, 105 wRC+). He underwent surgery last June 4, and so the nine-months-and-a-week mark — used simply for purposes of comparison — was this past Tuesday.

The Braves have not provided an actual target date for Acuña’s return to the lineup, but on Thursday, the public received a bit more clarity when MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand reported, “According to sources, it’s reasonable to expect [Spencer] Strider to join the rotation sometime in late April, while Acuña’s return should come in early- to mid-May.”

“When he comes back, we want him to be able to go,” Snitker said earlier this week. “We’re going to make sure he is ready to go when we do turn him loose.”

The May timeline Feinsand reported would put Acuña 11 to 11 1/2 months removed from surgery. The Braves are scheduled to play 31 games through the end of April, and I’ve seen unsourced reports that Acuña is or was targeting May 2, when the team returns from a road trip to face the defending champion Dodgers at home for a three-game weekend series. May 10 is their 40-game mark, so a mid-May return would mean missing about a quarter of the season. Our Depth Charts projections are still a bit generous in terms of playing time, estimating him for 128 games, 553 plate appearances, and 4.9 WAR. That’s about a six-win projection over a full season, so his outage will probably cut into his value for somewhere in the 1.0–1.5-WAR range.

For however long he’s out, the Braves will feel the impact of his absence. Currently, 25-year-old lefty Jarred Kelenic and 28-year-old righty Bryan De La Cruz are vying for playing time in right field, and appear likely to wind up in a platoon or job share. Based on their recent performances, it’s not the most encouraging combination. Kelenic ranked fifth on our Top 100 Prospects list in 2021, but save for a 105-game stretch in 2023 that was interrupted by a broken left foot caused by him kicking a Gatorade cooler in frustration, he’s been terrible in the majors. Acquired via trade with the Mariners in December 2023, he set career highs with 131 games and 15 homers last year, but his .231/.286/.393 (86 wRC+) performance was well short of the .253/.327/.419 (109 wRC+) line he put up in ’23. Platoon-wise, he hit for a 95 wRC+ in 377 PA against righties last year and owns a career mark of 96, compared to a 41 wRC+ in 72 PA against lefties and a 58 career mark. Based on those numbers, it’s malpractice not to platoon him.

De La Cruz doesn’t have the prospect pedigree of Kelenic, but his -1.2 WAR last year — first with the Marlins and then the Pirates after a July 30 trade — was the lowest of any batting title qualifier, though merely the eighth-lowest of anyone with at least 50 PA; most teams have the sense to rein in anyone struggling that mightily, but the Marlins and Pirates kept running him out there. He hit just .233/.271/.384 with 21 homers, which also gave him the dubious distinction of posting the majors’ lowest wRC+ (77) of any player with at least 20 bombs. Like Kelenic, De La Cruz was within hailing distance of league average when he had the platoon advantage, posting a 99 wRC+ in 188 PA against lefties, but that’s nothing to write home about from a outfield corner; his career mark against lefties is just 92. As for righties, he owns an 89 wRC+ but was down to a 68 in 434 PA last year; among righties with at least 300 PA against same-siders, only Ke’Bryan Hayes (35) and Jonah Heim (64) were worse. Cruz was also bad defensively (-2.7 UZR, -5 FRV, -7 DRS split between the two corners) and those numbers weren’t aberrations.

Aspiring superutilityman Eli White — the owner of a career 59 wRC+ in 448 PA — is the only other outfield-capable player projected to make the 26-man roster unless one counts Marcell Ozuna, who didn’t play defense at all last year and played just two games in left in 2023. Thus the Braves would have to dig deeper to find alternatives to the Kelenic/De La Cruz pairing. Luke Williams, a superutilityman who’s two years younger than White (28 versus 30) also owns a 59 wRC+ through 315 PA in the majors, and is on the 40-man roster and listed among the outfielders, as is 24-year-old Carlos D. Rodriguez, their top outfield prospect in the upper minors, a 40-FV slash-and-dash fifth outfielder type who split last year between the Brewers’ Double- and Triple-A teams before electing minor league free agency. The Braves have 33-year-old righty Jake Marisnick in camp as a non-roster invitee, but he didn’t even play in the majors last year and managed just 59 games in the Angels’ organization while battling injuries. What’s more, he didn’t put up a wRC+ higher than 86 from 2021-23, and had just an 87 wRC+ against lefties in those years.

Our Steamer and ZiPS projections suggest that all of the aforementioned stand-ins for Acuña will struggle to escape the gravitational pull of replacement level:

A trade or at least an upgrade in the form of some other team’s NRI shaking loose as spring training ends could improve the situation… maybe. Glancing at Jon Becker’s forthcoming roundup of NRIs on the fringes, the best outfielder potentially available might be righty Manuel Margot, who’s in camp with the Brewers; others Becker mentions include 2021 NLCS MVP Eddie Rosario (currently in Dodgers camp), Albert Almora Jr. (Marlins), Joey Gallo (Nationals), and Trayce Thompson (Red Sox).

I do wonder if the Braves’ willingness to settle for the Kelenic/De La Cruz combination — which depends a lot on a belief that Kelenic will bounce back — might be the clearest signal that they don’t expect Acuña to miss a ton of time. The team is currently favored to win the NL East, with a 93.6-win projection and 64.2% odds of winning the division, ahead of the Phillies (87.4 wins, 20.2%) and Mets (86.2 wins, 15.2%), and with a substantial absence for Acuña already baked in. As we’ve seen from my only-slightly-premature concern about the Yankees — who soon lost Gerrit Cole to Tommy John surgery and got worse news about Giancarlo Stanton — it’s not the first wave of injuries that causes a team’s playoff hopes to take a severe hit, it’s when subsequent waves amplify that. Thanks to their depth and some of Alex Anthopoulous’ astute transactions, the 2021 Braves overcame the loss of Acuña to win a championship, but last year’s Braves had too many other injuries to withstand his loss.

And as noted by Feinsand, the Braves will open the season with other key contributors sidelined as well. Strider underwent what was expected to be his second Tommy John surgery last April 13, but Dr. Keith Meister found that his UCL didn’t have a significant tear and was able to remove a bone fragment that was causing irritation to the ligament and insert an internal brace, a procedure whose recovery time is shorter. Our current projections have the Braves opening the season with Chris Sale, Reynaldo López, Spencer Schwellenbach, Grant Holmes and Ian Anderson as their starting five. Both Holmes, who spent last year as a swingman for the Braves, and Anderson, who hasn’t pitched in the majors since 2022 due to Tommy John surgery and post-rehab struggles, are out of options, and the latter has additionally battled control issues this spring, walking 13 in 12 innings of work. Bryce Elder, AJ Smith-Shawver (no. 40 on our Top 100) and 2023 first-round pick Hurston Waldrep (no. 6 on our Braves list as a 45-FV prospect) are the next guys on the depth chart in case the injuries stack up; Michael Baumann recently zoomed in on the team’s rotation picture here.

Meanwhile, the lineup will be down one other regular besides Acuña. Catcher Sean Murphy suffered a fractured left rib when he was hit by a pitch on February 28, an injury expected to sideline him for four to six weeks. Beyond projected backup Chadwick Tromp, the team will face a choice of which one of their three NRIs to roster: Curt Casali, Sandy León, or Drake Baldwin. Casali and León are both well-traveled 36-year-old backups; the former spent last year with the Giants but hit for just a 62 wRC+ in 125 PA while the latter spent the season with the Braves’ Triple-A Gwinnett affiliate and owns a career 56 wRC+. The 23-year-old Baldwin, our 11th-ranked prospect overall, is “a stocky, physical catcher with impressive opposite field power and feel to hit,” to quote Eric Longenhagen’s Prospects TLDR. The 55-FV prospect “projects as an above-average regular.” He’s matured so quickly that he’s not on the 40-man roster, so whether they add him or one of the older backstops, they have a bit less flexibility to manage their outfielders.

While Acuña will start the season on the IL, this all still counts as mostly good news given his progress this spring. He’s still likely to be an offensive force to be reckoned with, it’s just going to take a bit of time before we get to see him.