Old Man Acuña

One of those mix-and-match contraptions, but:

"NL MVP favorite Ronald Acuña Jr. swiped his 40th base of 2023, becoming the first player in AL/NL history with 40 steals, 20 HRs and 50 RBIs before the All-Star break."

Actually, even better: 201 TB in 83 team games. No one's had 400 since the peak of the PED era (Bonds, Sosa, Luis Gonzalez, and Helton twice in 2000/2001).

40/70 or bust

Surprised at the lack of grouchy old coot asterisk talk for steals with the bigger bases and pickoff rules.

"AL/NL history" - is this a subtweet about the Negro Leagues or something?

Why wouldn't you just say "Major League history"?

I assume that's what that meant. Which sometimes is worth noting, but I'm not sure it applies here in that "All-Star break" seems like an MLB construct.

(And if someone did do it in the Negro Leagues, why not just mention who that was?)

I shouldn't have put the accent on Acuña's name in the thread title--not very search-friendly...Jeff Passan had a tweet about NL MVP suddenly being a three-way race. I think he's right. It's not so much that Acuña has fallen off--he's .340/.431/.553 in August--it's that Betts has gone crazy this month: .454/.510/.802. Freeman is his third candidate: .396/.446/.604 in August. Where they are in bWAR: Betts-6.9, Acuña-6.4, Freeman-5.8. fWAR: Betts-7.0, Freeman-6.4, Acuña-6.3. Vote-splitting on the Dodgers may factor in, but Betts looks like the front-runner right now.

I didn’t want to clog up the general thread with betts talk but yes, 100% to all of this, and SB’s be dammed Betts should win if the season ended today

Guessing it would have to be a razor-thin margin for SB to sway a voter today.

Not until you factor in the CS!

Two for Acuña tonight...these two guys! Trying to think of the most comparable MVP race and not coming up with a good parallel. Cabrera/Trout in a way, but Cabrera's TC carried a lot of weight (whether you think it should have or not) and it ended up being not that close, 22-6 in first-place votes. Guidry/Rice ('78) and Clemens/Mattingly ('86) came to mind, but they were fundamentally different with pitchers involved, and they weren't too close either (reversed, which I've always found interesting). Hernandez/Stargell famously tied, but I think the accepted view now is that Stargell received an inordinate amount of old-school intangible goodwill in that one. So I don't know offhand.

Betts left the game on crutches tonight so the race may be over.

x-rays were negative, so i'd doubt it.

even if betts stays in and flatlines - unless acuna hits the 40/40 it's looking like betts/freeman to lose.

Prior to tonight Acuna was #5 in HRs... on the Braves.

He's now tied at #2 with Austin Riley.

Nothing against Freeman, but I can't see Acuna being lower than 1st or 2nd.

Back in the lineup tonight after a couple of worrisome days out with calf tightness.

you can tell he wants that 40/40 bad

My guess is he's after that prime Immaculate Grid real estate.

Agree with Posnanski's post today: MVP is clearly Acuna's now.

I don't know if this has gotten any attention yet, but Acuna has 33 leadoff HR and won't turn 26 till December. He's almost cracked the Top 10 already, and he's almost halfway to Henderson's 81.

damn certain snitker gave him the greenlight on the 40/70 club for the rest of the year

I'm sure there will be no end to Acuna-related milestones in the next few days...As far as I can tell, only two post-war players have scored 150 runs: Williams in 1949 (150) and Bagwell in 2000 (152). Acuna's at 143 with eight games to play.

(Henderson's most were in his two great years with the Yankees: 146 in '85 and 130 in '86.)

https://www.mlb.com/news/best-mlb-leadoff-seasons-ever

Tough call for #1. Henderson only played 132 games, but he beat out Cecil Fielder--first guy to hit 50 HR since '77--for MVP, and even with the missed games he compiled a 9.9 bWAR.

Actually he played 136; the stats they use are only for games leading off.

From some Twitter page:

Ronald Acuna Jr. (this season) and Ty Cobb (in 1911) are the only players in MLB history to have 75+ extra-base hits and 60+ stolen bases in the same season.

Both Acuna Jr. and Cobb were born on December 18, 111 years apart (1886 and 1997).

There's yr 40-70 man right there

May be just me, but it feels rather hollow to be glorifying any SB records the year that they made it easier than ever to steal a base (last I checked 2023 was tracking at 81-82%+ SB success rate vs. traditionally tracking at 55-70%). Get out your asterisks!

Ignoring this fact makes baseball more fun and what better justification do you need?

Making the game "more fun" via stat-padding comes off as cheap and tacky. May as well bring in the fences and switch to aluminum bats.

a real Mookie stan here

The total number of SB across MLB isn't much higher than it was in the 90's and 00's. There has been a drop over the last decade, presumably because everyone is a power hitter now.

The last decade was the anomaly, more so than this year. Same with the pace of play rules. Nine inning games were never supposed to last 3.5 hours.

I do think SS's point is legit, but still very happy for RA Jr. My impression, no data, is that pitchers haven't fully used the step-offs and throw-overs they're entitled to, including using soft throw-overs as a way to refocus and get a few more breaths before the next big effort. Runners have made the first big change, but I think pitchers will adjust a little.

it'll be interesting to see how things play out next season. it's all true about the SB, even Mike Trout stole 2 bases this season.

Mike Trout maybe not the best example, guy has always been far faster than he looks. He’s got 206 career steals! Even this season he’s in the 96th percentile for sprint speed.

The slowest player I can find on the leaderboard to have stolen a base this year is the Cubs’ Tucker Barnhart. I’m all the way up to Giancarlo Stanton and have yet to find someone in the list who’s stolen multiple.

Matt Thaiss (Angels) has 2! Also, Nelson Cruz is the oldest guy to steal a base this year.

that was more a deep cut joke about Mike's extreme decline in SB over the years, one of these seasons i would like to see him pile up at least as many SBs as Schwarber did in 2022!

i always like when the old guys run. Carlos Santana stole 6 this season.

xp fair, he’s been injured a lot of the time though hasn’t he?

Justin Turner (39 in November!) has 4!

i wondered if he was cautious on the basepaths to avoid injury, iirc he missed a chunk in an earlier season due to an injury incurred while stealing second.

if he's trying to avoid injury, he's having a tough time of it obv

On the fence about this till Alejandro Kirk starts getting the green light.

Started a rehab assignment today so he’ll be back up by June 1.

Pretty sure I could predict who'd finish fourth if you repolled this today.

career fWAR/bWAR as of today:

Soto: 37.3/38.0
AJr: 28.3/25.6
TJr: 23.0/24.2
VJr: 17.6/22.2

Young man Acuna pretty fun player, too.