Breakout Breakdown: Ronald Acuña Jr.
Ronald Acuña Jr. won the NL Rookie of the Year on Monday evening. That isn’t much of a surprise, but the fact that he ran away with it was kind of shocking. I didn’t see a major difference between Acuña and Juan Soto and could’ve truly seen the award going either way, so I was a little taken aback when Acuña nabbed 27 of the 30 first-place votes.
It wasn’t always a foregone conclusion that Acuña would be a ROY frontrunner this year as he had a .779 OPS in 129 PA before a left ACL sprain shelved him for a month. He took off when he returned, meeting and even exceeding the lofty expectations placed upon super-prospect. His numbers in the 82 games post-injury were probably good enough for the Rookie of the Year on their own and it’s why he has surged into the top 20 of early 2019 drafts.
Acuña put together a blistering .304/.380/.589 line with 21 HR, 51 RBI, 59 R, and 14 SB in 358 PA. Pace those out to a full season and you’re looking at 42-101-117-28. I’m not saying you should pace those numbers as a 2019 expectation, but rather I’m just showing how insane he was over the second half of the season.