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What measures can the Atlanta Braves outfielder do to improve on his 2024 performance?

The Atlanta Braves got a generational performance in 2023 from Ronald Acuña Jr, whose 41-homer, 73-steal season culminated in the National League Most Valuable Player award in a runaway.

And, it turns out, it very easily could have been significantly better.

You see, Ronald was surprisingly unlucky last season from a sabermetric perspective, significantly underperforming several expected stats.

Statcast guru Mike Petriello, writing at MLB.com, dove into the advanced data to figure out what went wrong for Ronald in 2023 and where, with some more normal luck, things could somehow be even better in 2024.

But when Statcast figures in the quality of the batted ball events for Ronald (accounting for exit velocity, launch angle, etc), Acuña’s Expected wOBA was actually .460, a 32-point difference. That’s the second-largest negative gap amongst hitters with 500 plate appearances, behind only Toronto’s Vlad Guerrero Jr and his .035.

It’s a similar story for Batting Average, with Ronald’s Expected BA being .357 against an actual .337.

Most of this is attributed to some bad luck, and as we discussed on the podcast after Atlanta lost to Philly in the NLDS, luck can manifest in things like a significant underperformance in a small sample size (a distinction that was lost on all the Philly fans in the comments.)