Final Yr’s Mannequin of Ronald Acuña Jr. Is Nowhere in Sight

Aaron Decide, Paul Goldschmidt, and José Abreu aren’t the one latest MVPs off to underwhelming begins in 2024. After placing collectively a season for the ages final 12 months, Ronald Acuña Jr. has scuffled to date, each by way of making contact and hitting for energy. His struggles have coincided with these of a few the crew’s different heavy hitters, with the consequence that the crew not too long ago slipped out of first place within the NL East for the primary time in additional than a 12 months.

Roughly two years faraway from season-ending surgical procedure to restore a torn ACL, Acuña grew to become the primary participant ever to hit a minimum of 40 homers and steal a minimum of 70 bases in the identical season. He clubbed 41 dingers and swiped a significant league-leading 73 luggage, aided by a few rule modifications that elevated per-game stolen base charges by 41% league-wide. Enjoying a career-high 159 video games, he hit .337/.416/.596 whereas main the NL in on-base share, steals, wRC+ (170), plate appearances (735), at-bats (643), whole bases (383), hits (217), runs (149), and WAR (9.0). Regardless of a sturdy problem from Mookie Betts, he was a unanimous decide for the NL MVP award.

The place has that electrifying slugger gone? With greater than a month of play underneath his belt this season, Acuña has hit simply .267/.373/.359 with 14 steals however simply two homers. Because of his 12.4% stroll charge and his excessive on-base share, that slash line continues to be good for a 116 wRC+, however the 54-point drop in wRC+ is steep, even when it’s “solely” the Sixteenth-largest within the majors amongst gamers with a minimum of 400 PA final 12 months and 100 this 12 months.

Precisely what’s happening with Acuña is unclear, nevertheless it might be health-related, as he had a scare early in spring coaching. Following a rundown throughout a February 29 recreation in opposition to the Twins, he felt soreness in his surgically repaired proper knee, which led to an examination by Dr. Neal ElAttrache, the orthopedic surgeon who repaired his torn ACL in 2021. Dr. ElAttrache discovered solely irritation within the meniscus of the knee, however that was nonetheless sufficient to sideline Acuña for 2 weeks as he rested earlier than resuming his preparation for the season.

We haven’t heard a lot concerning the knee since, so setting it apart for the second and merely specializing in his efficiency, two issues are obviously obvious. First, he’s swinging and lacking far more usually than in 2023, and is especially struggling in opposition to four-seam fastballs. And second, he isn’t hitting the ball almost as arduous, or in methods that may do as a lot harm.

As a result of Acuña had already come near a 40-homer, 40-steal season in 2019, ending with 41 homers and 37 steals, it was simple to deal with his mixture of the 2 counting stats and marvel simply how excessive he may go within the latter class given the bigger bases and limitations on pickoff throws launched in 2023. Much less apparent was his dramatic discount in strikeout charge. He went from putting out 23.6% of the time in 2022 — matching a profession low set the 12 months earlier than, down from the 26.4% charge he struck out over his first three seasons — to 11.4%. Per MLB.com’s Mike Petriello, his 12.2-point drop was the second-largest in AL/NL historical past, behind solely the 12.4-point drop of light-hitting Orioles shortstop Mark Belanger, from 21.5% in 1968 to 9.1% in ’69.

Belanger’s enchancment was aided by the league-wide redefinition of the strike zone within the wake of the Yr of the Pitcher, however Acuña didn’t have that working in his favor. As a substitute, he simply didn’t miss as usually, chopping his swinging strike charge from 10.9% to 7.8% and enhancing his zone contact charge from 83% in 2022 to 87.8% in ’23. Thus far this 12 months, he’s given all of these features again and extra. He’s making contact on simply 78.1% of pitches within the strike zone, his lowest mark since 2020, and his swinging strike charge is a career-high 13.4%. Each his 15.4-point leap in strikeout charge and his 5.9-point leap in swinging strike charge are the majors’ largest, and he’s already obtained 12 multi-strikeout video games, up from 10 for all of final season. All of this has occurred regardless of comparatively little change in Acuña’s chase charge; per Sports activities Information Options, he went from 28.5% in 2022 to 26.8% in ’23 and is again as much as 28.9% this 12 months.

Right here’s a have a look at Acuña’s whiff charge by Gameday Zone, primarily based on information by Might 6. Regulate that higher row:

As you may see from these charts, Acuña was weak to pitches within the higher third of the strike zone and better; he shored up that weak point in 2023, however has regressed. Right here’s a fuller have a look at his outcomes on pitches in that space, with 2021 information thrown in as nicely:

Acuña punished these excessive pitches final 12 months, however he’s getting completely dominated by them this 12 months, along with his whiff charge almost doubling and his high quality of contact simply horrible. Pitchers seem to have caught on, as a result of they’re placing the next share of them in that neighborhood. They’re principally fastballs; final 12 months, 53.6% had been four-seamers and one other 20% sinkers, whereas this 12 months, the chances are as much as 66.4% for the four-seamers and 15.1% for the sinkers.

Much less dramatically, Acuña has fallen off in opposition to pitches on the outer third of the plate and additional exterior, although the impact is extra refined. Together with solely those which can be within the strike zone (Gameday zones 3, 6, and 9 for these of you scoring at dwelling), he’s gone from hitting .318 and slugging .588 in 2023 to hitting .409 and slugging .682 this 12 months, however his whiff charge has climbed from 22.3% to 36.1% on these pitches. If we embrace those which can be exterior the strike zone (Gameday zones 12 and 14), it’s a unique story, in that he’s gone from .292 AVG/.505 SLG with a 29.1% whiff charge to a .220 AVG/.340 SLG with a 43.4% whiff charge. He’s chasing all styles of pitches exterior the zone, and having a lot much less success at bad-ball hitting basically. Together with these which can be contained in the internal third of the zone, he’s slipped from a .252 AVG/.405 SLG (.441 wOBA) with a 31.8% whiff charge to a .111 AVG/.156 SLG (.297 wOBA) with a forty five.9% whiff charge. Cripes.

Pitch-wise, as that rising share of excessive fastballs suggests, Acuña’s fall-off has been significantly acute in terms of four-seamers, no matter location:

I don’t learn about you, however I needed to decide my jaw up off the ground wanting on the general 2023 versus ’24 splits, in addition to the location-based ones. Even on four-seamers within the strike zone, Acuña’s whiff charge has greater than doubled relative to final season, his wOBA on such pitches has fallen by greater than 50 factors, and his barrel charge has been greater than lower in half. Outdoors the zone, he hasn’t collected a single hit on a four-seamer this 12 months, after feasting upon them final 12 months.

Which brings us to Acuña’s high quality of contact, which has gone from high shelf to merely fairly good:

Final 12 months, Acuña was within the 93rd percentile in barrel charge, the 98th percentile in hard-hit charge, and the one centesimal percentile in common exit velocity and the anticipated stats. This 12 months, he’s nicely above common in most of these classes, nevertheless it’s nonetheless a really completely different image:

Woof. The lack of energy is especially notable, and you may see from the bars additional down how badly he fares in terms of whiffs and strikeouts. The one class the place his percentile rating has improved is in stroll charge.

I didn’t present it above, nevertheless it’s value noting that Acuña’s not hitting it within the air as usually as final 12 months. His groundball charge has elevated from 49.5% (which was a profession excessive) to 51.6%, along with his fly ball charge dropping from 30.4% (which was a profession low) to 24.2%. His groundball-to-fly ball ratio has elevated from 1.63 to 2.14, even whereas his common launch angle has elevated barely from 7.4 levels to eight.5. His candy spot charge — the share of batted balls hit with launch angles starting from eight to 32 levels — has dropped solely barely, from 33.6% to 31.9%, nevertheless it has dropped nonetheless.

If I hadn’t pulled up Acuña’s numbers and charts myself, I’d have a tough time believing that the 2023 and ’24 ones are from the identical participant. As to the why, I don’t know whether or not his issues are mechanical, health-related, psychological, or a mixture of all three, and as all the time, I’m reluctant to take a position. Nonetheless, it’s putting the way in which Acuña’s 2023 numbers resemble his blazing pre-injury half-season in ’21, whereas his comparatively mediocre ’24 numbers bear nearer resemblance to his tentative return in ’22, which places me in thoughts of this quote from late in that season:

Ronald Acuña Jr.: “It’s all a part of the method & I’m hoping for higher days. However I’ve to say, for instance, the knee with my swings, it doesn’t all the time really feel the identical. Some days I’ve confidence in it, some days I don’t really feel like I’ve confidence in it, and it’s not the identical.”

— David O’Brien (@DOBrienATL) August 5, 2022

We haven’t heard a lot about Acuña’s knee since he was sidelined, although O’Brien did be aware that after he tried a sliding catch in an April 16 recreation, he walked gingerly and pointed to his proper knee when the crew’s coach attended to him, although he stayed within the recreation. If the joint is bothering him, that also doesn’t clarify why his dash velocity percentile rating is per final 12 months (67th percentile then, 69th now) or why he’s stealing bases at the same clip. After being thrown out by the Purple Sox’s Reese McGuire on Tuesday, he’s 14-for-16, placing him on tempo for 69 steals, along with his success charge enhancing from 84% to 88%.

Final week, Acuña did string collectively three multi-hit video games for the primary time all season, going a mixed 7-for-14 with a double and a homer in a single recreation in opposition to the Mariners and two in opposition to the Dodgers. However even if you happen to zoom out to squint at some arbitrary endpoints — he’s hitting .381/.409/.571 by the primary week of Might! — a five-game pattern is hardly giant sufficient to be convincing.

Acuña isn’t the one one of many Braves’ high hitters who has opened the season in a funk. Matt Olson has dropped from 160 to 91 by way of wRC+, Austin Riley from 127 to 104, and Michael Harris II from 115 to 96. Nonetheless, none of these falloffs are as dramatic as Acuña’s, or are occurring to a participant who’s on the quick listing of the sport’s greatest. Absent a transparent clarification, I’d guess that his proper knee is a significant factor in what’s happening, however till Acuña presents us extra perception, we’ll simply should marvel what’s occurred to the 2023 NL MVP.