The Atlanta Braves are off to a disappointing start. Through 41 games, the team sits a game under .500. It’s a far cry from where fans expected the team to be after it won 89 games and earned a wild-card spot last season.
But help is on the way. Star outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr. will begin a rehab assignment Tuesday, and should return to the major league club by June 1 at the latest.
The team announced Acuña’s rehab assignment Tuesday. He’ll begin with the Braves’ Florida Complex League team and will work out at the Braves’ spring complex before eventually joining one of the team’s minor-league affiliates, per MLB.com’s Mark Bowman.
The Braves have not announced how many games Acuña will play on his rehab assignment before he re-joins the major league club. Position players can spend 20 days on a rehab assignment. If Acuña hits that mark, he would be activated by the team June 1. The only way that date can move back is if Acuña suffers a setback in his recovery from an ACL tear in his left knee. Acuña could also return sooner than that June 1 deadline depending on how well his body handles playing in games.
Acuña, 27, is quickly approaching the one-year anniversary of his injury. Acuña tore the ACL in his left knee during a May 26 game against the Pittsburgh Pirates last season. He was injured while trying to take a lead at second base. It was a non-contact injury.
It was the second time in his career that Acuña sustained an ACL injury. He tore the ACL in his right knee in 2021 while trying to make a catch in the outfield. Acuña returned to action less than a year after that injury in 2022. While he stayed healthy that season and put up decent numbers, his 112 OPS+ — an advanced stat that measures a player’s total offensive performance — was Acuña’s lowest output in that category to that point in his career.
For that reason, the Braves are playing it more cautious with Acuña this time around. While a 112 OPS+ is excellent for most players, it represented a dip for Acuña. In the two seasons prior to his first ACL tear, Acuña had a 158 OPS+, meaning he was 58 percent better than the average player on offense. His performance was good enough to earn him some down-ballot MVP votes in 2020.
If Acuña was still dealing with remnants of his injury in 2022, he didn’t carry any of that over to 2023. Acuña hit .337/.416/.596 — good for a 171 OPS+ — and won the National League MVP award.
That performance shows what Acuña is capable of when fully healthy, and is likely the reason the Braves are giving Acuña more time to recover from his ACL tear this time around.
If Acuña can come back to the team at anywhere near that form, the Braves should surge above .500, and could challenge the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies for the National League East title.
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