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Ronald Acuña
Ugadawg1993
Posts: 957 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
in Off Topic
Braves are about to lock up Acuña for the next 8 years for 100 million. This to me is a steal and we will have his best years as a Brave!
Comments
If The Braves can pull it off, it's the best deal they'll have made in a long time. He is a more complete player than these guys signing 300 plus million dollar deals. From Acuna's side, it makes him rich now and protects his interest in case or injury and/or underperformance.
Great for both sides. If he lives up to his potential in the next 8 years, lock him up for life along with Freddie and ozzie
For Acuna he'll be 28 at the end of this deal. That is still young enough to sign a lifetime mega deal, win, win.
If he could also service as a relief pitcher, that’d be great.
Acuna Matata baby
Love the deal, now you have something you can definitely build around.
That kid is a fool to sign that contract. In three years he will wish he didn't because the market will pay him much more. I have to wonder who his agent is.
How much money does he need? He is now set for life no matter what happens to him. Baseball is more treacherous than people realize. At 21 years of age, he would be a fool not to take the $100 million. At 31 he will still have access to a $30-40mil a year deal, or perhaps more - providing he stays healthy and pitchers don’t uncover an exploit in his swing.
Remember that Jeff Francuoer was also a 5 tool guy.
RDD. I disagree. Yes it's possible Acuna could have signed a huge contract after becoming an unrestricted FA. It's also possible he has a serious injury or simply doesn't have the career many expect him to.
I could make quite a list of phenoms who sputtered after fast starts, 2 were Braves. You could add Brian McCann to the list and make it 3 Braves. He was the best hitting catcher in the game in his early 20s.
Brian McCann
22 years old - BA - 333___ OPS - .961
28 years old - BA - .230___ OPS - .698
Brian never hit .300 after the age of 24.
I'm a bit confused as to why this is being called a 100 million dollar deal over 8 year.
From what I read it's 90 million over 8 years with a 2 year team option that would push it to 124 million over 10 years.
He was under contract through 2022 at an average of under 1 million, so he pockets an extra 30 plus million by his 24th birthday, that is no small thing.
Yes if he stays healthy and performs at the high end of his potential, he will earn less over his career. On the other hand, he's rich, young, healthy and famous, all for playing a game where he works a few hours a day 8 months a year.
Hard to include McCann in your example (7 time all star, 5 time silver slugger). For one, he sure didn't sputter on getting his big contract. That alone excludes him from this example. Also, there's very, very few catchers hitting for .300+ BAs. There's been 12 catchers in the last 10 years to bat .300+. Also, a lot of catchers wear down after the age of 28, especially if they made it to the league as early as McCann did. 8 of his 14 years of MLB service have been great.
Teddy. I didn't include McCann on my original list. What I did was point out that at Acuna's age he was hitting at a level that seemed to project him to greatness and max contracts. That is not how it turned out. Again by the age Acuna would have been when he became eligible for free agency, Brian's best hitting seasons were behind him.
So if RA's career takes a similar path, will this contract look bad in retrospect ? I'm not trying to insult Brian, just making a point about a bird in hand vs potential.
It was cool to watch Big Mac make his homecoming debut with Frenchy in the booth. Those guys were rookies together and their relationship goes back to the farm days, IIRC.
Either way, you included McCann.
“So if RA's career takes a similar path, will this contract look bad in retrospect ?”
We can take the opposite stance and say what if he continues to play at a high level? Then yes, this would be a “bad” deal for him. We won’t know until after next season when his original contract would've been up.
AnotherDawg. Frenchy and Brian go back longer than their time with the Braves. They have been friends since they were both 15 years old. They went to high school 10 miles apart, Brian's parents moved to the area from Upstate NY, Frenchy's from Massachusetts. Both fathers were coaches, they ran on parallel tracks much of their lives.