Why Ronald Acuña Jr.'s extension is a no-brainer for everyone but Alex Anthopoulos

Ronald Acuña Jr. just won his first NL MVP last season. The star right fielder for the Atlanta Braves just turned 26 years old. Thus far in his illustrious MLB career, he is a four-time NL All-Star, a three-time Silver Slugger, the 2018 NL Rookie of the Year and the 2023 NL MVP. His future is about as bright as they come. While he is still under contract with the Braves through 2026, he is grossly underpaid.

Upon arriving at Braves' spring training earlier this week, Acuña expressed his desire to stay in Atlanta uniform throughout his big league career. "It's not a secret that I want to be a Brave for life. It's my hope that we can make that happen soon." Of course, we are three full seasons out until Acuña will be playing in a contract year. We are talking about him hitting free agency at 29, if that were to happen...

For anyone who has watched him play over the last six years, Acuña should be allowed to play out the rest of his prime for the organization that signed him out of his native Venezuela. However, he has to have some level of self-awareness and take a hometown discount to do so. Chipper Jones was always willing to do that, while Freddie Freeman rolled the dice and cost him dearly back in 2022.

To be frank, this will all come down to Anthopoulos' assessment of Acuña in the coming months.

Anthopoulos has already let Freeman and Dansby Swanson walk. Max Fried could be next after this season. The question remains is why does re-signing Acuña feel so obvious, but not a guarantee?

Ronald Acuña Jr. extension talk is so painfully obvious, he has to stay put

Since taking over the Atlanta front office over half a decade ago, Anthopoulos has been consistent at what he does, for better or worse. Nothing ever leaks out of the Braves' front office to the media because that is the way Anthopoulos operates. It is not exactly cutthroat, but he prefers to operate in total silence. He is not afraid to pay guys big money, but it's always done in the same exact manner.

Anthopoulos will gladly extend a younger player well before he hits arbitration. He has done this before with Acuña, Ozzie Albies, Michael Harris II, Austin Riley and Spencer Strider. The list goes on. He will always trade for a player who is approaching or already in arbitration and extend him. The best examples of that are Matt Olson and Sean Murphy coming over from the Oakland Athletics recently.

However, Anthopoulos will not pay a premium for a player at or near 30. The only time he has done this was with designated hitter Marcell Ozuna after the 2020 COVID-shortened season. He was sensational that year. Ozuna's awful 2021 and 2022 seasons nearly had him on the cusp of being released. After a slow start to 2023, Ozuna bounced back and had one of his best seasons to date.

Anthopoulos will also by or trade for depreciated assets at any given time. Look at how he went about adding Charlie Morton a few years back, as well as Chris Sale this past offseason. Basically, Anthopoulos has already showns us what he wants to do. He is consistent, but he is never going to deviate from his plans. That means Acuña will get his extension if he is willing to take a discount.

Letting Acuña walk would be terrible, but I think he and Anthopoulos will find a way to make this work.