NORTH PORT, Fla. — Before Ronald Acuña Jr. gave baseball a season unlike anything it had ever witnessed, Braves assistant coach Eddie Pérez had a prophecy.
It was before the 2023 season, in which Acuña earned his first National League MVP award by becoming the first player in baseball history to hit 40 home runs and steal 70 bases in a single season. But it was after Acuña had limped his way through the previous year on a surgically repaired knee that had still caused him pain.
Now healthy after the 2022 season, Acuña dove into his offseason workouts in Atlanta. Pérez, a fellow Venezuelan and a confidant of Acuña’s, took it all in.
“He never worked out like that before,” Pérez told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Like, he was doing a lot of stuff.”
Hence, Pérez’s vision.
“And I told (Acuña), ‘You’re going to have an unbelievable year,’” Pérez said. “I never said that he’s going to have an MVP year, but he won the MVP. And now again, he’s going through the same thing, and I think he’s getting stronger.”
When Acuña will be back with the Braves from his second ACL tear, this one suffered to his opposite (left) knee in May, is not yet certain. After a minor-league rehab stint, an early May debut seems about right. But Pérez and others around Acuña have been agog at what they’ve seen so far at spring training in batting practice and live batting practice (against an actual pitcher off the mound).
For instance, Pérez said the 27-year-old Acuña is even stronger than he was previously and is hitting balls harder, which is quite an assertion for a player who led the majors in average exit velocity in his MVP season.
“Oh, yeah,” Pérez said. “He’s hitting the ball way harder than before. He’s hitting bombs now. He’s running well. It’s going to be interesting how he’s going to come back.”
Manager Brian Snitker has made the same observation about his right fielder’s strength.
“(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 said. “He’s good. He’s probably as strong as he’s ever been right now.”
Snitker made what seemed like an apocryphal claim, that Acuña launched a home run in batting practice that cleared a video board beyond left-center field at CoolToday Park.
It’s 385 feet to left-center and the board is maybe 45 feet behind the wall. It’s about 40 feet high and the board itself stands on a plaza roughly 20 feet above field level.
“It was crazy,” Snitker said.
Skeptical, I told first baseman Matt Olson what Snitker had said and asked if it had actually happened.
“Yeah, it happens.”
Happens?
“Happens.”
Anyone else besides Acuña?
“No, just him.”
Center fielder Michael Harris II had no legends to share but spoke with similarly glowing terms.
“He’s been himself,” Harris told The AJC. “I guess, obviously, he hasn’t played in games but watching him in BP and in the ‘lives,’ he’s been phenomenal again. I can’t wait to see him back in this lineup. He’ll be a huge factor when he comes back.”
One morning early in spring training, Harris was rotating with Acuña and a minor leaguer in a batting cage. Acuña was crushing soft-toss pitches, the crack of the bat jarring. When he emerged through the netting after one turn, he made a mildly profane declaration of his return. At his locker Saturday, Harris laughed at the memory.
“When he says it, he means it,” Harris said. “He’s definitely shown it throughout the spring.”
It isn’t only the batting-practice shows.
“He’s running better than anybody,” Pérez said. “And he’s fast and everything. To tell you if he’s ready or not, it’s not up to me, but what I see is nobody runs faster than him.”
To this point, not yet cleared to play, Acuña’s work has been limited. Besides taking BP and live BP, he has done his rehab work with a member of the medical staff, done outfield drills with first-base coach Tom Goodwin and taken at-bats as a designated hitter in minor-league games in the complex’s back fields, in which he has led off each inning but gone back to the dugout rather than attempt baserunning.
On Wednesday morning in a near-empty stadium after his turn at BP, he took turns in center field shagging flies with Austin Riley, Orlando Arcia and Ozzie Albies, at one point casually loping to his left to bring in a fly ball.
Said Albies, “I don’t know when he’s going to play, but he’s moving around great.”
It would seem all encouraging news for the Braves, who are taking exceeding care to make sure that Acuña is completely healthy when he returns. If he comes back in early May, it would be a little more than 11 months from when he tore the ACL on May 26 during a game at Pittsburgh in an awkward change of direction on the basepaths.
And while Acuña actually may be ready now, better to err on the side of caution. If he were to come back for the start of the home series against the Los Angeles Dodgers on May 2, that would be the 32nd game of the season. Plenty of the season would remain. The club undoubtedly remembers Acuña missing games in 2022 with soreness in his surgically repaired right knee.
“When he comes back, we want him to be able to go,” Snitker said. “We want him to be able to play. We’re going to make sure that he’s ready to go when we turn him loose.”
The prospect of a healthy Acuña, even stronger than before, sounds like something worth waiting for.
“He’s angry to play,” Pérez said. “He’s hungry to play baseball.”
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