Ronald Acuña Jr. Among Top Fantasy OF Options for Next Season

When he's healthy, there are few options better than the Atlanta Braves stuperstar right fielder

Acuña is expected to be a consistent force next season | Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Death, taxes, and Ronald Acuña Jr. continuing to dominate. The Atlanta Braves’ right fielder has been sensational throughout his seven-year career with the team, and CBS Sports’ Chris Towers continues to ride the RAJ train headed into 2026.

Acuña is Towers’ third-best outfielder for fantasy baseball ahead of the 2026 draft, and it’s not hard to see why: he’s never put up fewer than 300 points in a healthy, non-COVID season.

Even in the year of his first ACL injury, 2021, in which he only played 82 games, Acuña managed to put up 344.5 points over the season. This is good for an average fantasy points per game of 4.2, tied for the second-highest of his career.

Acuña has even gone as far as to put up over 800 points in 2023, his MVP year, averaging a whopping 5.1 fantasy points per game. Some believe his repeated ACL injuries make the three-time Silver Slugger a risky draft, but he’s likely to be far from it.

Of course, the possibility remains of a re-injury, but even in the seasons he’s unable to finish, he’s still a top producer in fantasy for as long as he can step onto a field. He’s never averaged less than three fantasy points per game in a season throughout his entire career, and he seems to be playing much stronger than he was in 2022, when he was coming off of his first ACL injury.

Simply put, a healthy Ronald Acuña, Jr. is an absolute dynamo in fantasy baseball, though if you have the option to draft Aaron Judge or Juan Soto, the two players above him on Towers’ rankings, they’re probably not a bad idea.

Judge and Soto are the only two outfielders in baseball who’ve been able to match or surpass Acuña’s production, but neither has had to rehab from multiple season-ending injuries. They’re obviously a safer bet, but neither has shown as high an upside as Acuña’s 817 fantasy points in his 2023 season, two seasons after his first ACL injury.

Acuña is now two seasons removed from his second ACL injury, so if history repeats itself, which it often tends to, he may just crack the top two, or even the top spot, once it’s all said and done.

Whatever the case, it’s clear that a now fully healthy and fully rehabbed Acuña is a higher-celling option for the 2026 season, so if he falls to you, the third-ranked outfielder in baseball may just be worth considering over players like Judge and Soto.