Ronald Acuña versus Juan Soto. Why Acuña has been better statistically.
Sure, Soto has the bat. But, in pretty much every other area of his game, the Atlanta Braves’ Acuña has been better.
Acuña excels in baserunning, and not just with steals. He is not elite defensively but is much better than Soto. As most know, Acuña is very good with his bat too. These are not just eye test observations either, the metrics back it up.
Let’s look at the numbers. Some metrics will be used that may seem advanced to some readers, like Wins Above Replacement (WAR), Weighted Runs Created Plus (wRC+), Ultimate Baserunning (UBR), Defensive Runs Saved (DRS), and others. The mathematical formulas are an entire article in themselves, so a brief overview will be used to save time. The research on these metrics is well worth it, and a very interesting read, especially if statistics are your thing.
- WAR: WAR is not the end all be all stat. However, it does a very good job of encompassing a full body of work from a player. It is an accumulation stat that factors in offense, baserunning, and defense at a very granular level down to adjusting value based on which position is played. It measures it by wins, meaning a player with 4.0 WAR would add 4 more wins to their team’s record than a player with 0.0.
- wRC+: wRC+ takes a player’s offensive numbers that they can actually control (like On Base Average, not RBIs that are more manipulated by chance), adjust it based on factors like which ball parks they played in, and how the rest of the league has hit that year, and measures the amount of runs they created all on their own. After all, creating runs is the entire point of hitting. A wRC+ of 100 is league average.
- UBR: UBR factors in all the aspects of baserunning, minus steals, and measures it by runs it creates. We may often forget that there is more to baserunning than just stealing a base.
- DRS: DRS shows how many runs were saved versus the average defender. It measures total defense, like range, route running, etcetera. There is much more to defense than just fielding percentage. A player may get an error on a play that a large majority of players can’t even get to. Likewise, a ball that is hit right at you is much easier to field than one that a player has to have good range to get to. DRS measures this.
Over 313 games, Soto owns an elite slash line of .295/.415/.557. This equates to a wRC+ of 152. That is 52% better than league average. In a very small sample size last year of 47 games, he had an impressive wRC+ of 201. 201 is the highest wRC+ in a season since 2004 from Barry Bonds. We all know there is some debate on whether we should count Bonds stats due to steroids. If we don’t factor in seasons from players connected to steroids, a wRC+ 201 was the highest since Rogers Hornsby in 1924. We need to remember though, rates stats like OBP and OPS tend to regress over long seasons. Odds are that Soto’s wRC+ would have dropped some over a standard season length.
Soto’s offense has been impressive over 313 games, there is no doubt. However, that is where the impressiveness ends. Soto is very much a “one phase of the game” player. Soto has -14 DRS in 2603.2 innings in the field. That means if you took a league average defender and put him in for Soto, approximately 14 less runs would have been scored against the Nationals over that span. Defensive WAR (dWAR) is the defensive factor of Wins Above Replacement. Soto has accumulated -2.9.
From a baserunning standpoint, Soto is not doing himself any favors. Soto did well in 2018 with a UBR of 2.0. Since then, his baserunning has been a disaster with a UBR of -4.2.
From an overall game standpoint, Soto is still very impressive. His lack of defense and baserunning is acceptable with how well he hits. Factoring in his overall game, Soto averages an insanely good 5.69 WAR per 162 games played. For reference, Mike Trout, the consensus best player in baseball, averages a 9.79.
Now, let’s look at the Atlanta Braves’ Ronald Acuña. He has lagged behind Soto offensively in his 313 games. Even lagging behind Soto, he has still been very good offensively.
He owns a very impressive slash line of .281/.371/.538, which equates to a wRC+ of 137. Last year, in a shortened season, he hit to a 157 wRC+. As you can see, both players hit better than their career average in a shortened season.
Offensively, Acuña is no slouch. What is crazy is that he does very well in the other phases too.
Defense
If we move on to defense, you can see how he gains ground on Soto. In 2676.2 innings, Acuña has 13 DRS. What really sticks out is that when he is in Right Field, he is insanely good.
In only 383.1 innings, he has 9 DRS. If you want to compare dWAR, Acuña has accumulated 1.3.
Baserunning
If the defense does not open eyes to why Acuña rivals Soto, surely his baserunning will. Acuña is lethal at stealing bases, as evident by his league leading 37 stolen bases in 2019. Stealing is not the only aspect of baserunning he is good at though. In 313 games, Acuña has a UBR of 7.1. Remember, UBR factors in all the aspects of baserunning outside of steals.
If we look at Acuña’s overall body of work, in his 313 games he averages 6.05 WAR per 162 games played. It is important to use WAR in a “per 162 games played” scenario when comparing players since they rarely play the same number of games in a season, or career for that matter.
Recap time!
So, let’s do a recap. Both have played 313 games prior to 2021. Soto leads offensively with a 152 wRC+ to 137. However, Acuña leads in everything else. Acuña leads 13 to -14 in DRS, 1.3 to -2.9 in dWAR, 7.1 to -2.2 in UBR, and most importantly in full body of work with 6.05 WAR per 162 games played to 5.69.
Sure, you can’t always use a full career to compare how players currently rank, but both players entered the league the same year, and 313 games is less than 2 full standard seasons. Also, if you only look at 2020, they both had the same WAR with 2.4.
Next. Advanced Metrics Show Why Braves Signed Jeff Mathis. dark
Again, it may be splitting hairs to compare these players since they are both top 10 players in all of MLB, but to say Soto ranks higher than Acuña is just simply wrong, statistically speaking.