The Atlanta Braves season ended with a loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Division Series.
Ronald Acuña Jr. had an abysmal series at the plate and was not necessarily great in the National League Wild Card Series either. The 2023 MVP was injured when the Braves won the World Series in 2021, and fans are still waiting for him to impact a deep run in October. However, his future with the team is now up in the air.
He has $17 million club options for the next two seasons, and for the first time in his career, his future with the Braves is uncertain. The Braves could decline his club option, trade him or extend him. There was a point in time when extending Acuña was a no-brainer. However, after injuries and postseason chokes, that is no longer so cut and dry.
"I want to stay here my whole career, that hasn’t changed,” Acuña told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Gabriel Burns with tears in his eyes. “But I can’t control that. It’s hard when you don’t help your team. It’s tough.”
Acuña knows he cannot control what the Braves do with him. The entire league knows what type of force Acuña can be when he's healthy, and with two years of control left, the Braves could try to trade him if they know they don't want to extend him.
On the flip side, if the Braves think he can still be a superstar, now might be the time to extend him. His value is lower now than it was after his MVP season, and he still means a ton to the franchise. However, with how the season ended, fans may not be supportive of an extension. Acuña was booed by home fans in the season-ending loss to the Dodgers, and he is right to be questioning his future with the team.
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