SEATTLE — Two patches of skin, one under each eye, tell the story of how Ronald Acuña Jr. secured the most prestigious unofficial honor available to Major League Baseball players these days: “Best player in baseball not named Shohei Ohtani.”
“Salud,” he tells reporters, again and again, the Spanish word for health. The answer really is that simple. The secret to Acuña’s continued ascent is simply that every time the Braves have played this season, he has been healthy enough to apply that eye black and take the field with them.
“From last year to this year, it’s just being 100 percent healthy,” said Austin Riley, the Braves’ third baseman and a fellow National League all-star. “I think in this game, the more reps you get, you learn yourself better. And that’s as simple as I think it is.”
When he tore his ACL 82 games into the 2021 season, Acuña had accumulated 24 homers and 17 stolen bases. He watched his teammates win the World Series without him that year, waded through a winter of rehab, and returned in late April of 2022. He never looked quite the same and was limited to 119 games because of the knee and other nicks and bruises. He finished last season, “a down year,” with 15 homers, 29 stolen bases and an OPS more than 100 points below his career average.
Atlanta wanted him to spend his offseason getting fully right, making sure the knee was full strength. Acuña wanted to play for Venezuela in the World Baseball Classic, but the Braves did not want him to push the knee. But after seeing him in spring training in February, Atlanta relented, convinced the knee was healthy — convinced Acuña could participate without incident. He did, and everything that has happened since suggests everything about Acuña is at full strength.
“I always said he was the National League Mike Trout when he came up, and he’s doing it,” said Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman, Acuña’s former teammate in Atlanta. “Nothing surprises me about what Ronald is doing. We all envisioned that when he first got called up. He’s going to be doing this for a very long time.”
At 25, Acuña is leading the NL in OPS (.990), runs (79) and stolen bases (41). He is the most dynamic player on baseball’s most complete team, one of eight all-stars from the only 60-win team in baseball. He received the most fan votes of any player, including the one named Ohtani. When MLB released its list of the top-selling jerseys on its website since Opening Day, Acuña was No. 1, Ohtani No. 2.
“I think he can be one of the best players ever,” said Kansas City Royals catcher Salvador Perez, a fellow Venezuelan and an eight-time American League all-star. “He can change baseball.”
Funnily enough, the eye black is also a reminder of the ways baseball tried to change him. When Freeman, often seen as the heart and soul of the Braves, left Atlanta in free agency after the 2021 season, Acuña raised eyebrows when he told Dominican reporter Yancen Pujols that he would miss “nothing” about Freeman, then later clarified he was frustrated with an incident in his rookie season when Freeman and other veterans took issue with the way he wore his eye black.
“When you come up as a rookie, there’s always somebody who wants to stick it to you,” Acuña told MLB.com at the time. “You come with your swagger from the minor leagues. … A lot of people look at it as wrong and I don’t look at it as wrong because it’s part of the game.”
Freeman left. A year later, so did clubhouse staple Dansby Swanson. But when asked if Acuña’s clubhouse demeanor has changed in their absence, if he has emerged as something different, his teammates dismissed the notion that Acuña needed some kind of transformation.
“Like I always tell him: ‘You’re a superstar. . . . You don’t need to change. You just have to go play hard,’ ” Braves second baseman Ozzie Albies said. “He does his thing. He’s a team guy. He does talk when he needs to talk, but he goes and does what he does best, which is play baseball.”
Catcher Sean Murphy, who is in his first season playing with Acuña, said that every time the outfielder reaches base, the bench perks up, waiting for him to seize an opportunity — particularly now, when new rules prohibit pitchers from throwing over quite as much, when bigger bases might just bring stolen bases a few inches closer.
Riley, who began playing with Acuña in the minors in 2015, said part of what makes Acuña special is his aggressiveness. But he added that he is noticing Acuña making different decisions here and there, a little smarter about when to throw the ball, a little smarter about when to run. Ultimately, Riley said, Ronald Acuña Jr. is getting better at being Ronald Acuña Jr.
“He runs better than me. He hits better than me. He throws better than me,” Riley said. “He just does it all.”
The power and speed have led to repeated questions about just how high the numbers could go. Could he become the first player to hit 40 home runs and steal 80 bases? Is there a 60-60 season in his future?
“No, no no,” Acuña said. “Because having a goal means setting a limit.”
But if he had to pick a number, his eyes are set on 160 — as in at least 160 games played during the 2023 regular season. The secret for Acuña, it seems, is just to play the game.