It’s not often that you get to tell someone that you watched a Hall of Fame player in their prime.
As we prepare for the National Baseball Hall of Fame announcements the end of this month, one writer at MLB.com wanted to let everyone know who is on a Hall of Fame pace.
Mike Petriello, one of the wizards behind new MLB Statcast features, wrote an article about how there’s historically forty active Hall of Famers playing in any given season, going back to 1955.
And when discussing who currently fits that description, two different Braves players came up.
OF Ronald Acuña Jr
Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports
The first Braves player to come up was in Tier 5, titled “It’s not too soon to call them legends.” Ronald Acuña Jr and Juan Soto share this distinction, as both are approaching 30 WAR at age 26 or younger.
With the caveat of “barring serious injury or off-field issues”, which is obviously a given, Petriello discusses how the start for these two players is inevitably bound for Cooperstown at anything resembling their current pace.
For Acuña, he has 25.9 WAR in 673 career games, with 161 homers, 180 stolen bases, and a career .292 batting average. He’s won Rookie of the Year (2018) and MVP (2023), with four All-Star selections, three Silver Slugger awards, and has received down-ballot MVP votes three other seasons, including a 5th place finish in 2019.
For Soto, who is one year younger than Acuña but also hasn’t missed most of a full season to injury like Acuña did, he’s at 28.6 WAR in 779 career games. Soto’s sitting on 160 homers, 50 stolen bases, and a career .284 batting average plus a best-in-baseball .421 on-base. He’s not yet won an MVP award, finishing in the top ten four separate times, but he has three All-Star selections and three Silver Sluggers to his name, as well as a runner-up in the Rookie of the Year award to Ronald.
SP Spencer Strider
Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports
In Tier 10, called “The young right-now stars”, Strider makes an appearance alongside other notable youngsters like Yordan Alvarez, Julio Rodríguez, and Rafael Devers.
For Strider, Petriello notes that while he (and everyone in this tier) have a lot of work to do to get into the Hall of Fame, there’s the best of the young stars in baseball and statistically, multiple of them are bound to finish as Hall of Famers.
For Strider, he’s put up 10 WAR in his first two-plus seasons in baseball. He’s struck out 483 batters in his 320.2 career innings, including leading all of baseball last season in strikeouts (281) and strikeout rate (13.5 K/9). Strider’s already put up a Rookie of the Year runner-up campaign together, with an All Star nod and a 4th-place finish in Cy Young voting in just his first two full seasons in the majors.
(Of note is that the all-time leader in K/9, using MLB’s criteria of minimum 1000 innings pitched, is Strider’s new rotation mate Chris Sale at 11.0638 K/9 through his 1780.2 career innings.)
Is that it?
No other current Atlanta Braves made the list, which makes sense. To earn inclusion into the Baseball Hall of Fame, ostensibly you need to either hit specific statistical milestones or be one of the best in baseball at a specific thing. After his 40/40 season and MVP award, Acuña seems on path to hit certain home run milestones. Strider is one of the best strikeout artists in the game, with no other pitcher coming within the same stratosphere as Strider at striking out batters last season.
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