Harold Reynolds of MLB Network explains why Ronald Acuña Jr's MVP candidacy can't be adequately explained with counting stats
We've seen a lot of movement over the last few days concerning the National League MVP race - how it's been Ronald Acuña Jr's race to win all season, and then Mookie Betts of the Los Angeles Dodgers surged ahead with a huge August, where he's batted .454/.512/.796 with 9 homers.
National media's trying to show the stats to explain why Mookie Betts should be the favorite, like in this series of tweets from ESPN's Jeff Passan. He even went out of his way to take a little dig at Braves fans, illustrating how Ronald's actually barely above Freddie Freeman in baserunning runs added.
But there's something Jeff Passan (and a lot of the national media) is forgetting: Not everything a player does shows up in the box score.
Harold Reynolds of MLB Network took some time to break it down, and it boils down to one thing - opposing pitchers throw easier pitches to hit when Ronald Acuña Jr is on base, because of the threat of the stolen base.
Here's some charts, starting off with how Atlanta's 2-4 hitters are performing with and without Ronald Acuña Jr on base:
| Where's Ronald? | Batting Average | On-base percentage | Slugging | OPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
He's on first! | .432 | .447 | 1.054 | 1.501 |
He's not on first! | .303 | .365 | .536 | .902 |
The reason those hitters perform better with Ronald Acuña Jr on 1st? They get more fastballs to hit:
| Where's Ronald? | Fastball% | Offspeed% | Breaking% |
|---|---|---|---|
He's on first! | 70.4% | 10.8% | 18.3% |
He's not on first! | 57.6% | 12.5% | 28.7% |
And this isn't just the first inning - ANY inning in which Ronald Acuña Jr is on first base and 2nd base is open, the Braves offense performs significantly better than league average with significantly more fastballs being thrown.
| Who is on 1st? | Fastball% | Offspeed% | Breaking% | OPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Ronald! | 63.0% | 13.0% | 23.2% | 1.082 |
Someone else from ATL | 54.7% | 14.8% | 30.2% | 0.957 |
MLB Avg runner | 56.6% | 13.1% | 30.0% | 0.752 |
And if you curious where Mookie Betts factored into this, using this same bit of criteria:
| Where's Mookie? | Fastball% | OPS |
|---|---|---|
On First Base! | 60.0% | 1.005 |
Not on First Base! | 61.1% | .970 |
You can watch the full segment from MLB Network here:
(Special credit goes to the Braves subreddit, r/Braves, for their work on this and highlighting the Harold Reynolds video)
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