Ronald Acuña Jr. all but accepted the NL MVP as the Braves locked up the #1 seed in the National League.
History was made on the final Wednesday of September as Acuña entered a new realm of possibility in baseball. Acuña recorded his 70th stolen base of the season, creating the 40/70 club.
It was a number that even he didn’t believe was accessible.
“I’d be lying if I told you I thought I was going to get this done,” Acuña said through an interpreter. “It was one of those numbers that wasn’t impossible, but seemed impossible. Thankfully, we were able to get it done.”
He forced the bag out of the ground, thrusting it over his head with an exclamation. He is the only player in MLB history to record over 30 home runs and 60 stolen bases, and now the only one with 40 home runs and 70 stolen bases.
“He might be the only human that can break his own records,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said.
Acuña recorded the historic feat seconds before scoring the game-winning run on an RBI single from Ozzie Albies and clinching the #1 seed for the Braves in the process.
The 40/40 club is one of the most exclusive clubs in MLB history. Only five players have hit 40 home runs and stole 40 bases in a single season. Hitting 40 home runs in a single season is a very tough feat to begin with. Only 13 players have done it since the start of the decade, and to do it while leading the league in stolen bases is unheard of today.
The members of the club include Alphonso Soriano, Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, Jose Canseco, and now Ronald Acuña Jr. It should be mentioned that three of the five players in the 40/40 club are alleged steroid users, and A-Rod was suspended a full year for steroid use. This fact makes Acuña’s insane season that much more impressive.
Baseball has always been the home of analytics. There isn’t another sport that relies on statistics as much as baseball. Statistics play an enormous role in a game where getting out 7 of 10 times is considered outstanding. With the recent explosive advancement of technology, analytics have only taken a more advanced role. The 5-tool player is rarely seen as players are becoming better at having one tool and refining it until they are the best in that particular category. This is evident in the massive decline in stolen bases since the 2000s.
Acuña is a breath of fresh air in today’s game of baseball. While his work in the outfield could use some refinement, no one plays the game like he does. He achieved the first 70 SB season since Jacoby Ellsbury in 2009, and his game exemplifies four of the five tools. Speed, Throwing, Fielding, Hitting for Power, and Hitting for Average. He leads the league in offensive WAR, Stolen Bases, Total Bases, On-Base%, Runs scored, Hits, and a jumble of advanced statistics. He is also second or on the leaderboard in Batting Average, Slugging%, OPS, Home Runs, RBI, and OPS+.
Acuña is having an incredible season and is easily the NL MVP. Since Jeff Passan released this tweet saying Acuña isn’t running away with the MVP, Acuña has run away with the MVP. It has been 29 days since Passan dropped the infamous tweet, and in that time, Acuña is batting .341 with a 1.096 OPS. He has 13 home runs, 12 stolen bases, and 30 RBI since the tweet was sent.
My favorite random advanced stat is a Baseball Reference stat called Power-Speed #. Baseball-Reference describes Power-Speed # as “The harmonic mean between HR and SB. To do well, you need a lot of both.” Acuña is doing really well with a 51.7, and the next closest player is Bobby Witt Jr. of the Royals, who has 36.2.
Although Acuña can be a liability in the outfield at times, he has one of the strongest arms in the league and often instantly makes up for his mistakes with a bullet of a throw coming back into the infield. He is in the 96th percentile for arm value and 98th percentile for arm strength.
With a lot of controversial buzz surrounding the new rule changes, including the increase in base size, many have put an asterisk over Acuña’s new record. Stolen bases haven’t carried the same weight over the recent years, as the risk started to overtake the reward due to the advancement of analytics. (Skipping the shortened 2020 COVID season*) since 2019, only five players had stolen at least 40 bases as we entered the ’23 season.
Although total attempts have plummeted over the recent years, the league-wide SB success rate has sky-rocketed. Currently, the league-wide success rate is at 80%, crushing the previous record (75.7%) set in 2021. The only four years in the Live Ball Era with a success rate higher than 75% have come in the past four years.
The rule changes have done exactly what they were supposed to. Stolen bases are way up, while the average game time is way down. The same amount of players that have reached 40 bags in the past four* seasons have done it this season. But the quantity of Acuña’s tally is miles ahead of the pack. Acuña and Oakland’s Esteury Ruiz (65) have been taking an extra base at an incredible rate all season. They lead the rest of the league by at least 15 stolen bases.
The fact is, the bigger bases have brought back the importance of stealing bases. For the first time since 2012, the MLB has surpassed 3,000 stolen bases. With four days of games left in the regular season, all 30 teams have tallied a total of 3,416 SB. It is the third-highest total since the Live Ball Era began over a hundred years ago (1920). The 2023 season is just five stolen bases behind the 1999 season to take over the coveted second step. 1987 holds the top spot with a whopping 3,585 SB in a single season.
Stolen bases are way up, but that doesn’t dispute the fact that Acuña has more stolen bases than two entire franchises. The Rockies and the Giants have less than 70 stolen bases this season, so the narrative that the bigger bases are the only reason Acuña has as many bags as he does has no basis.
The NL MVP has just put up a season that will go down in history as one of the most dominant seasons by a single player, and the Braves are in a perfect spot to win the whole thing. The 2023 MLB season has been all Atlanta all the time.
