Although Ronald Acuna Jr. isn’t requesting a huge contract extension, the Braves still need to consider his options.
Ronald Acuna Jr., the most dynamic player in baseball, is a member of the Atlanta Braves squad. Though there are valid arguments made by players like Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Aaron Judge, and Juan Soto to suggest otherwise, reasonable people can’t argue that Acuna Jr. is the best player in baseball because he has the ability to alter games in more ways than any other player in the league at any given time. In a few years, the argument over who was the greatest player of this era would seem absurd if he keeps playing at this rate.
In addition to being amazing, Acuna Jr.’s stay with the Braves has been especially noteworthy because of how inexpensive he has been relative to the amount of output he has generated in his brief career. The Braves owe Acuna Jr. $17 million per year for the next three seasons as well as hold club options for 2027 and 2028 at a cost of $17 million each, per the terms of the agreement he signed prior to the 2020 campaign. There may not be a better contract in all of baseball, value-wise, assuming he stays healthy.
Because of that worth, some speculated that Ronald Acuna Jr. meant to break up his current contract and sign a new one when he stated during the first few days of spring training that he wanted to be a Brave for life. Ronnie was obviously only expressing his desire to remain in Atlanta permanently, which is what most rational Braves fans should want, so those individuals are obviously too stupid for their own benefit.
But the conversation as a whole does bring up an intriguing issue regarding Ronald Acuna Jr.’s potential future with the Braves. When could be the best time to complete an extension and how much will it cost? Nobody seems to think that the timing makes sense for an extension to be completed right now, with the possible exception of the Braves if Ronnie is hoping to offer them another sweetheart deal.
Look for Acuna Jr.’s next deal to use Juan Soto’s free agent deal as a framework
When it comes to contracts, we start to enter uncharted ground when discussing players the quality of Ronald Acuna Jr. We are discussing a player who is destined for the Hall of Fame and was the best player of his generation. In terms of attempting to find a deal that Ronald would accept while also balancing the team’s future roster demands, it must be extremely difficult for the Braves to even consider valuing a player who might only be a 40/40 threat for the foreseeable future.
One thing is clear and that is that there probably won’t be discussions about an extension this year and honestly probably not in 2025, either. There is no urgency to get a deal done soon as Acuna Jr. loves playing in Atlanta and he has shown no resentment whatsoever about his current deal. Once he gets to the last guaranteed year of his contract in 2026, the two sides should get together and talking about replacing his option years along with at least a few more additional years, but probably not before that.
As for how much Acuna Jr. could make with such an extension, the best comparison might be a deal that hasn’t been done yet. Mike Trout’s extension with the Angels isn’t an uninteresting starting point, but that deal is a few years old now. Shohei Ohtani’s megadeal with the Dodgers is a unicorn situation full of deferrals and marketing opportunities in Japan that don’t apply to Ronald.
Instead, the best place for conversations to start might be with the deal that Juan Soto ends up signing next offseason. Soto famously turned down an over $400 million extension with the Nationals and may be looking to eclipse $500 million next offseason. That could end up being pie in the sky thinking, but he is in the same “best of the best” conversations that Ronald is right now. Once that deal gets done, the Braves will have to make a decision as to whether or not they can even remotely compete with that and Ronald will have to decide if his desire to stay a Brave for life means that he is willing to leave some money on the table.
