Braves’ Ronald Acuña Jr., Drake Baldwin win MLBPA Players Choice awards

Acuña, 27, returned from a torn ACL that prematurely ended his 2024 campaign and hit .290 with a .935 OPS in 95 games. He even announced his return in dramatic fashion, homering off the first pitch he saw May 23, his first day back in the lineup.

The 467-foot leadoff shot was the best moment of his career, Acuña said in the MLBPA video honoring his award.

“It was better than winning MVP, better than any award I’ve won so far,” he said.

Acuña hit 21 homers with 42 RBIs, accumulating 3.1 bWAR, the fourth-best mark of his career. He’ll now enjoy a healthy offseason in which he’s expected to play winter ball in his native Venezuela, according to El Emergente, a Venezuelan news outlet.

Acuña also won MLBPA Players Choice Comeback Player in 2022. Other Braves winners include Tim Hudson (2010), John Smoltz (2002) and Andres Galarraga (2000).

Baldwin, meanwhile, follows Acuña as another Brave to win an illustrious rookie honor. He hit .274 with an .810 OPS in 124 games while showing legitimate defensive improvement over that span, too. Baldwin was a revelation, greatly helping a Braves lineup that sputtered far too much in the first half.

“He looked like a gamer,” Mariners catcher and American League MVP candidate Cal Raleigh said in MLBPA’s video on Baldwin.

Baldwin established himself as a core player in the Braves’ future. The team had veteran backstop Sean Murphy signed long-term, but it rejected trade pitches around Baldwin last winter because it felt confident in Baldwin’s prospects. That proved wise.

“A lot of what drives me to be successful is seeing how hard everybody else works and seeing how much they put into it,” Baldwin said. “You just want to go out there and perform your best every night to give them the best show and win as many baseball games as you can.”

Baldwin joins Spencer Strider (2022), Acuña (2018), Craig Kimbrel (2011), Rafael Furcal (2000) and Chipper Jones (1995) as MLBPA Players Choice Outstanding Rookie winners.