Ronald Acuña Jr. Is Back in MVP Form

This article is a part of Verducci’s View, a new weekly baseball newsletter from Sports Illustrated senior writer Tom Verducci. Every Monday, Tom empties out his notebook over email and covers MLB’s hottest topics, provides in-depth analysis through both text and video breakdowns, looks forward to what’s worth watching during the week and more.

Ronald Acuña Jr. of the Braves may be hitting .259 with career lows in exit velocity and hard-hit rate, but don’t be fooled by the overall stats. If the star outfielder can fight through a left shin contusion he suffered Tuesday night on a foul ball at the plate—he’s currently considered day-to-day—he’ll be a force to be reckoned with in October. Ever since mid-August when Acuña began to knock off the rust from two IL stints, he’s been a dangerous, dynamic hitter.

The tell-tale sign is how Acuña is getting to high fastballs he used to miss.

Acuna vs. 95+ MPH	No.	BA	SLG	HR	Attack Angle
Through Aug. 22	315	.183	.268	1	9°
Since	119	.393	.857	4	7°

Pitchers were dominating Acuña with velocity over his hands. No more. Acuña has made the adjustment. While his barrel had been working underneath the pitch plane, now he is flattening his attack angle, as you can see here:

Acuña heads my list of hitters who are most likely to cap a disappointing year with a strong finish.

Down Year but Primed for Big October
1. Ronald Acuña Jr., Braves
2. Mookie Betts, Dodgers
3. Will Smith, Dodgers
4. Trevor Story, Red Sox
5. José Ramírez, Guardians

New York Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole — Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole looked better in his last outing. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Gerrit Cole, Game 2 Starter?

Yankees righthander Gerrit Cole broke through a late-season slump with an improved outing Friday in Arizona (six innings, two earned runs).

As I said last week here, Cole has been throwing too many strikes in the middle of the plate. His fix: tighten the delivery to be more compact and move almost six inches on the rubber toward the third base side.

A frequent tinkerer, Cole began the season toward the center of the rubber but after the Red Sox pounded him for four runs June 27, he moved to the first base side July 3 and stayed there for 13 starts. But after his poor start Sept. 12 against the Mets, which included a career high of hard hits, he returned to the center.

Here you can see his foot position change on the rubber in his past two starts:

Gerrit Cole on the rubber, side-by-side — MLB

It’s the quickest fix to a command issue. You don’t need to change mechanics, just the lane in which the ball leaves your hand.

How did it work? His command was much better. Look at his fastball heat maps and it’s clear he did a better job of keeping the ball out of the center lane:

Cole Fastball Heat Maps

This start moved Cole closer to getting the ball ahead of Max Fried or Carlos Rodon (or both) in a wild-card series against Boston.

As usual, Cole pounded the zone. He has not issued a walk among 71 batters faced in his past three starts. But still a concern: the swing-and-miss still has not returned to his game. He had only six swings-and-misses against Arizona. His September whiff rate is 17%, down from 22.4% entering the month.

Yankees manager Aaron Boone will have a difficult decision in choosing who starts after Schlittler, a decision that should be based on how Cole, Fried and Rodon are throwing the ball rather than sheer numbers or opponent trends. The Red Sox are slightly better against left-handed pitching (24–15, .746 OPS) than right-handed (60–55, .713 OPS), though the return of Roman Anthony changes that a bit.

📺 TV on TV This Week

Sunday, Sept. 27: Postseason Preview, 8 p.m. ET (MLB Network)

Up to 53 pressure-packed games in 33 days. The best month in all of sports is just about here.

I’ll’ll also be recording a playoff preview show on Monday along with MLB editor Will Laws and staff writer Ryan Phillips. Look out for that on our

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