This article is part of our Collette Calls series.
Atlanta and the Mets played a doubleheader this past Saturday that Mets fans would like to forget, as they lost by a combined score of 27 to 3. In a way, it essentially prepped them for football season, but that is not the takeaway here. The bigger story is that Ronald Acuna Jr. stole his 54th base of the season as we continue to witness one of the greatest fantasy seasons ever. If you grew up with Rickey Henderson in the mid-80s as I did, that is the nearly the level of production we are seeing from Acuna. The 1985 season saw Henderson hit .314 with 24 homers, 72 RBIs, 80 steals and a career-best 146 runs scored. Acuna is currently hitting .336 with 26 homers, 71 RBIs, 54 steals and 106 runs scored. Henderson's steals total is likely safe, but the rest of those numbers could all be bested. After all, we're talking about a player whose current earned auction value sits at $62, which is 32 percent higher than the next player on the list in Shohei Ohtani.
Acuna's 2023 season is sharing the spotlight with the dual efforts of Ohtani as he wastes away in Anaheim this year, what Freddie Freeman continues to do with the Dodgers, as well as Acuna's own teammate Matt Olson, who's looking to to add his name to the list of batters with 60+ homers in a season. Maybe I am a bit out of touch this season in my
Atlanta and the Mets played a doubleheader this past Saturday that Mets fans would like to forget, as they lost by a combined score of 27 to 3. In a way, it essentially prepped them for football season, but that is not the takeaway here. The bigger story is that Ronald Acuna Jr. stole his 54th base of the season as we continue to witness one of the greatest fantasy seasons ever. If you grew up with Rickey Henderson in the mid-80s as I did, that is the nearly the level of production we are seeing from Acuna. The 1985 season saw Henderson hit .314 with 24 homers, 72 RBIs, 80 steals and a career-best 146 runs scored. Acuna is currently hitting .336 with 26 homers, 71 RBIs, 54 steals and 106 runs scored. Henderson's steals total is likely safe, but the rest of those numbers could all be bested. After all, we're talking about a player whose current earned auction value sits at $62, which is 32 percent higher than the next player on the list in Shohei Ohtani.
Acuna's 2023 season is sharing the spotlight with the dual efforts of Ohtani as he wastes away in Anaheim this year, what Freddie Freeman continues to do with the Dodgers, as well as Acuna's own teammate Matt Olson, who's looking to to add his name to the list of batters with 60+ homers in a season. Maybe I am a bit out of touch this season in my efforts to scale back my social media presence for more rewarding pursuits, but I'm not sure Acuna's season is being properly framed. After all, he's doing something this year that only eight other players have ever done in a single season: hit at least 25 homers while stealing at least 50 bases. Here's the entire list of players who have accomplished that feat in a single season:
Player | HR | SB | Season | Age | PA | AB | R | HR | RBI | SB | CS | BA | OBP | SLG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ronald Acuña Jr. | 26 | 53 | 2023 | 25 | 526 | 457 | 102 | 26 | 70 | 53 | 9 | 0.337 | 0.420 | 0.580 |
Barry Bonds | 33 | 52 | 1990 | 25 | 621 | 519 | 104 | 33 | 114 | 52 | 13 | 0.301 | 0.406 | 0.565 |
César Cedeño | 25 | 56 | 1973 | 22 | 576 | 525 | 86 | 25 | 70 | 56 | 15 | 0.320 | 0.376 | 0.537 |
César Cedeño | 26 | 57 | 1974 | 23 | 688 | 610 | 95 | 26 | 102 | 57 | 17 | 0.269 | 0.338 | 0.461 |
Eric Davis | 27 | 80 | 1986 | 24 | 487 | 415 | 97 | 27 | 71 | 80 | 11 | 0.277 | 0.378 | 0.523 |
Eric Davis | 37 | 50 | 1987 | 25 | 562 | 474 | 120 | 37 | 100 | 50 | 6 | 0.293 | 0.399 | 0.593 |
Rickey Henderson | 28 | 65 | 1990 | 31 | 594 | 489 | 119 | 28 | 61 | 65 | 10 | 0.325 | 0.439 | 0.577 |
Rickey Henderson | 28 | 87 | 1986 | 27 | 701 | 608 | 130 | 28 | 74 | 87 | 18 | 0.263 | 0.358 | 0.469 |
Joe Morgan | 26 | 67 | 1973 | 29 | 698 | 576 | 116 | 26 | 82 | 67 | 15 | 0.290 | 0.406 | 0.493 |
Joe Morgan | 27 | 60 | 1976 | 32 | 599 | 472 | 113 | 27 | 111 | 60 | 9 | 0.320 | 0.444 | 0.576 |
Hanley Ramírez | 29 | 51 | 2007 | 23 | 706 | 639 | 125 | 29 | 81 | 51 | 14 | 0.332 | 0.386 | 0.562 |
Ryne Sandberg | 26 | 54 | 1985 | 25 | 673 | 609 | 113 | 26 | 83 | 54 | 11 | 0.305 | 0.364 | 0.504 |
You are forgiven if you forgot how many bases Sandberg stole in 1985 because I certainly did. I would apply the same forgiveness to Hanley Ramirez but am also hoping that some readers are not seeing these Cesar Cedeno numbers for the first time. Cedeno was putting up those numbers in the cavernous Astrodome, where flyballs mostly went to die back in the day, which is part of the reason the man only scored 86 times despite his 56 steals in 1973. Morgan, Davis, Henderson and Bonds are the names we all expected to see on this list, although it is surprising to see Bonds listed just once. I only bring that up because Bonds was 25 years old when he pulled off the feat, as is Acuna. Henderson and Morgan are the only two players to pull off this feat after the age of 25, which is the context of this article: what do we do with Ronald Acuna Jr. in 2024, and who could be the next candidate to join this exclusive group next season?
Let's begin with the most obvious point in that Acuna is part of a ridiculous offense which leads all of baseball with 5.71 runs per game as play begins in August 13th. The club has hit 36 more homers than any other team, had a league-best .273 team batting average and trails only Texas in percentage of baserunners scored, plating 16.7 percent of their baserunners this season (league average is 14.5 percent). They are 20 percent better than league average with runners in scoring position, trailing only the Dodgers, Orioles and Rangers in that area. The one area they somewhat lag is stolen bases as they have 91 as a team, with Acuna owning 59 percent of those by himself. There arguably is not a better lineup situation for a hitter than Acuna's, with Ozzie Albies, Austin Riley and Matt Olson batting behind him every game.
When I say every game, I mean it, because those four players have hit 1-2-3-4 for every Atlanta game since June 23rd. It's truly something when four of the top 14 earners on our earned auction values calculator are in the same lineup like this. The trio of batters behind Acuna has combined to hit 98 home runs, which is a huge reason why only he and Freddie Freeman have scored at least 100 runs this season. Acuna certainly does his part to get into scoring position with all his steals, but the fact he has three above-average sluggers behind him who increase his odds of scoring with their abilities to generate extra-base hits (and particularly homers) cannot be overlooked in this particular equation. In fact, if we were to throw in the 100+ run requirement to the first query done in this article, Cedeno is completely eliminated from the group, while one of Eric Davis's seasons falls off. If we add a 75+ RBI requirement, Hall of Famer Joe Morgan is the only player to repeat a 25-50-75-100 season in baseball history.
Eric Davis had Dave Parker and Buddy Bell behind him in the lineup to help push him across the plate. Rickey Henderson had Don Mattingly and Dave Winfield to help him, while Barry Bonds had Bobby Bonilla and Andy Van Slyke around to knock him in. Hanley Ramirez won Rookie of the Year thanks to Miguel Cabrera and Dan Uggla pushing him across the plate at a high volume, while Ryne Sandberg relied on Keith Moreland and Leon Durham to do the heavy lifting behind him. Acuna has had the luxury of three above-average bats behind him as he looks to challenge the modern-day runs record of 152, set by Jeff Bagwell in 2000. If Acuna were to continue his current run-scoring pace, he would fall just short with 148 runs.
If we were to begin early drafting on NFBC right now, Acuna would go 1.1 in just about every single league unless someone had some type of strategy they wanted to try out. Given that certainty, I wanted to both look back at some recent players who finished the season on top and what they did the following season, as well as some candidates for joining the 25-50 (and even 75-100) club in 2024.
2019 Top Dollar Earner: Christian Yelich
Yelich had an amazing 2019 season with 44 homers, 100 runs, 97 RBIs, 30 steals, and a .329 average on his way to the Most Valuable Player Award that season. I do not believe anyone reading this piece needs to be reminded of the fantasy production, or lack thereof, we have seen from Yelich since that magical season. He had his big season at age 27, but the rest of his prime years have been anything but for him.
2020 Top Dollar Earner: Jose Abreu
This performance comes with the grains of salt known as the 60-game season as well as the completely unbalanced schedule. Abreu could only play the games on the schedule and made the most of that performance, playing all 60 games and hitting 19 homers, driving in 60 with a .317/.370/.617 triple-slash line. Abreu did come back to hit 30 homers and drive in 117 the next season, but his batting average tanked by 56 points and he's now rapidly accelerating down the aging curve in the first year of his three-year deal with Houston.
2021 Top Dollar Earner: Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
Ah, the year of the extremely friendly ballparks! Vlad took full advantage of playing in Dunedin and Buffalo for most of the season, maximizing his production there on the way to a monster fantasy season. He has failed to replicate that production since, even with the reconfiguration of Rogers Centre this season. He and his teammates are the second-worst team in plating baserunners this season, trailing only Oakland.
2022 Top Dollar Earner: Aaron Judge
Judge was on his way to another monster power season until he lost the battle with the outfield fence at Dodger Stadium, leading to a lengthy stay on the injured list and a stretch in which he's clearly not looked well since his return. Judge had 19 homers in 213 plate appearances with a .291/.404/.674 triple-slash line before the injury and has hit 3 homers in 59 plate appearances with a .256/.458/.488 triple-slash since his return. It doesn't help that he has zero lineup protection, so opponents are choosing to pitch around him (27 percent walk rate) more frequently these days as well.
Who is next?
If we want to look at who could be the next 25 homer/50 steal guy for 2024, if there is one, we truly do not have many options. Corbin Carroll and Bobby Witt would be the prohibitive favorites, as both are under the age of 25 and are on a pace to potentially get there even this year. Julio Rodriguez is in the periphery of this discussion as well with his abilities, but I cannot picture another player taking that type of step up to join that elite group next season.
Simply put, Ronald Acuna Jr. has been an elite fantasy performer this season and has produced a season for the real and fantasy record books to date. He is likely going to be the top overall pick in an overwhelming majority of leagues next season, but the recent track record of similar top finishes has not been great.
