The Atlanta Braves Lock Up Ronald Acuña Jr. To An 8-Year, $100 Million Extension

The wave of extensions continues to roll on throughout the league as the 2018 National League Rookie of the Year Ronald Acuña Jr. lands himself an eight-year, $100 million extension with the Atlanta Braves. It’s their second most lucrative contract ever in franchise history, and it goes to a 21-year-old with only 115 big league games under his belt. The deal also includes a pair of club options worth $17 million, making the max potential for this deal to become $134 million over 10 years.

Last year, Acuña burst onto the scene and hit .293 with a .917 OPS, 26 doubles, 26 homers, and swiped 16 bags in just 111 games. Forget the Rookie of the Year award; Acuña finished 12th for the National League MVP, and one might correctly assume that he finishes much, much higher had it not been for a knee injury that sidelined him for a month.

Regardless of the lack of major league experience, this is a HUGE win for the Braves organization. What they’ve gone out and done here is secure one of the most talented players in the game for the next decade at a ridiculously affordable cost through what will more than likely be the best years of his career. Had the Braves gone year-to-year with Acuña, there’s no doubt that the price tag ends up being well north of $100 million when it’s all said and done, and there’s a strong chance that they wouldn’t be able to afford him once he hit free agency, so you lose out on multiple years of his prime. Those prime years belong to Atlanta now.

Think about it this way — we just saw an offseason where Bryce Harper and Manny Machado signed MONSTER contracts that covered their age-27 through 30 seasons as free agents. The Braves will get Acuña through those same prime years at a rate that isn’t even in the same stratosphere as those aforementioned players, assuming both option years are picked up.

Young superstars getting paid and staying with the teams that did the work to get them in their organizations in the first place; that’s good for the game.