There was a time when I wondered whether we ever would see the 2019 version of Ronald Acuña Jr. again. He’d been very good since then, but I’m talking about the Acuña who put up MVP-level production over an entire season. The start of the pandemic in 2020 and power-and-speed sapping injuries in 2021 blunted what once seemed to be an otherworldly trajectory.
Then I went to spring training and watched Acuña hit, run the bases and play the field. I saw his familiar zest for playing the game. And then I wondered: What the heck was I thinking?
Acuña is so good that of course he would be a superstar again once he’s healthy. That’s what’s happening. At the start of this season, Acuña was 21 months removed from ACL surgery on his right knee. Now he’s pace for a year even better than 2019, when he was fifth in voting for the NL MVP award at just 21 years old.
