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.
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.