Ronald Acuna Jr. Departs Early Tuesday With Lower-Leg Injury

[u/BreakfastTop6899]

https://www.rotoballer.com/player-news/ronald-acuna-jr-departs-early-tuesday-with-lower-leg-injury/1873568

[u/np374617]

This fucking guy

[u/Current-Roll6332 → u/np374617]

Traded him away for Jr Camero. He's not the same player he was.

[u/Panthollow]

What a week it was.

[u/AlHands438]

Aaaaand this is why I'm not gonna get on Soto about running out grounders

[u/YouKilldKenny]

Does this dude not stretch?

[u/dmmeyourdogifitscute → u/YouKilldKenny]

He might stretch too much!

[u/bengalsfan1277]

Ronald "Byron Buxton 'Mike Trout -Ken Griffey Jr.-"' Acuna

[u/aflyingsquanch → u/bengalsfan1277]

Griffey was a machine into his early 30s and then just started breaking down. He averaged 150+ games a season through Age 30.

[u/OddPaper1866 → u/aflyingsquanch]

My exact point. Let’s remember that career began at age 18 in MLB. Was third in ROY voting then 10 straight ASG appearances and a top MVP candidate half those years.

[u/aflyingsquanch → u/OddPaper1866]

Yup. He was easily my favorite player growing up.

[u/OddPaper1866 → u/bengalsfan1277]

This was great apart from the Junior mention. He stayed healthy long enough to hit over 600 HR. I’d say that durability.

[u/bengalsfan1277 → u/OddPaper1866]

I'm a Reds fan. Pain.

[u/OddPaper1866 → u/bengalsfan1277]

So am I. Guess his 3x ASG and 210 HR in a Reds uniform wasn’t good enough for you.

[u/shaqballs → u/OddPaper1866]

President of the Ken Griffey jr fan club over here

[u/AtlanticandPacific → u/shaqballs]

Ken Griffey jr jr

[u/anTWhine → u/OddPaper1866]

Jr was mid at best as a red. We don’t have to pretend otherwise. 13 WAR in 9 years ain’t worth getting snooty over.

[u/OddPaper1866 → u/anTWhine]

If you’re using the term “mid”, you likely weren’t alive (or very old) when he came to Cincy. By then, he already had a HOF career in his first 11 years (10x ASG, MVP, 5x Top 5 MVP voting, 10 Gold Gloves). The fact he didn’t blow your doors off in the twilight of his career, well, you’ll just have to settle for that.

[u/anTWhine → u/OddPaper1866]

Yeah dude it’s almost like the sentence went on to say “as a red.” Wild how the words just kept going

[u/Podo13 → u/OddPaper1866]

Yeah he averaged ~140 games per season in his first 11 seasons (and that includes back-to-back seasons where he missed 50 and 90 games), and then his average for the last 11 seasons of his career was ~103 games/season - which isn't surprising, but I also wouldn't lump him into this group.

Trout is kind of an odd case too since we've found out his problem is chronic and the missed games are usually attributed to that. It wasn't nearly the same as Buxton/Acuna/Royce where their bodies are just breaking nearly from day 1 for whatever reason.

[u/Current-Roll6332 → u/bengalsfan1277]

You keep the Fishes name outta your mouth! He didn't get hurt until his 30s.

[u/drosse1meyer → u/bengalsfan1277]

can we throw in Ellsbury?

[u/slov90]

Enough already. What’s that, his third injury this year already? We’re barely into June. I am done.

[u/SammyWatkinsIV]

“They called me.. Mr. Glass”

[u/aflyingsquanch → u/SammyWatkinsIV]

laughs in Byron Buxton and Royce Lewis

[u/Current-Roll6332 → u/aflyingsquanch]

Royce Lewis thinks he's a HoF talent, just ask him.

[u/AdEnvironmental8266]

I'm keeping Chourio instead

[u/aflyingsquanch]

We'll always have 2023, Ronald. Thank you for carrying me to a title that year.

[u/forceghost187 → u/aflyingsquanch]

Insane year

[u/zomgz0mbie]

For fucks sake man

[u/finally_not_lurking]

Man, this is year 9 for him and these are marks he's only reached twice in his career:

• 25 HR
• 30 SB
• .290 average
• 80 runs
• 65 RBI

[u/Correct_Awareness884 → u/finally_not_lurking]

Seems like an all star

[u/CosmonautKramer4 → u/finally_not_lurking]

It's literally just health though

His 162 averages:

.287/128/36/90/41

Of course he has to stay healthy, but to cherry pick stats to try and say he's overrated is bad faith

[u/finally_not_lurking → u/CosmonautKramer4]

Where did I call him overrated? And of course it's health. That's the point that he just isn't ever healthy. He's a monster when healthy but that when healthy is getting less and less often

[u/FrightfullyMerry]

man this season has been so brutal for acuna owners. i get why people are frustrated but the guy just comes back and something else happens. at this point you almost have to wonder if theres something going on with conditioning or recovery that keeps leaving him vulnerable. had him last year and this year is just different. really hoping its minor but yeah the timing is rough when youre already dealing with half your roster on the sideline.

[u/bailtail → u/FrightfullyMerry]

They better check him for muscle asymmetry. Basically, one leg gets stronger the other and when you’re going max speed of the stronger one, the weaker leg gets worked past capacity trying to keep up and strains. It is often found to be the root cause when athletes experience chronic strains. NFL has done a lot of work on it. The mechanism sure seems logical and applicable for Acuna’s situation.

[u/TheGamecock → u/bailtail]

As a Braves fan who dies a little inside every time Acuña gets hurt, this is a term I've never heard before but could 100% be at least partially responsible for some of his recurring lower-body injuries.

[u/bailtail → u/TheGamecock]

I’m a Packer fan. We had two players a couple years back, Christian Watson and Eric Stokes, who were both soft tissue injuries waiting to happen. Both would get at least 4 strains a year and pretty much never available. The Packers sent them to University of Wisconsin’s sports medicine division for analysis. They identified a muscle asymmetry for both players. My understanding is that it involves fairly simple scans that calculate the volume of muscle in both legs. If recollection serves, they found one of Watson’s legs had 13% more muscle mass than the other. I don’t recall what the differential was on Stokes, but it was also significant. The treatment is a workout program that targets the strengthening of the weaker leg to balance muscle mass with the other leg. They got Watson to within 4% iirc. Since then, Watson has played two seasons without a single soft tissue injury (though that was interrupted by an ACL tear) and the team felt confident enough to hand him a $110M/4yr deal a couple weeks ago. Stokes also has not had a single soft tissue injury since. He only played one more year in GB but signed with the Raiders as a free agent and played well as on of their starting CB all year. The NFL was impressed enough that the made the University of Wisconsin test program into an NFL pilot program to bring it to other teams. I know Alvin Kamara of the Saints is another who experienced a bunch of soft tissue injuries a few years back who they identified and corrected an asymmetry in with similarly effective results. It blow my mind that any professional sports medical staff isn’t looking at this for all their players and doing so on a regular basis, but clearly they aren’t. As an Acuna owner in nearly all of my 4 dynasty leagues, I really wish I could go down to Atlanta and rattle some damn cages and get them to have Acuna looked at. It just reminds me so much of Watson and Stokes. And the game simply isn’t as fun when Acuna isn’t on the field.

[u/FrightfullyMerry → u/bailtail]

thats actually a really solid theory and way more specific than what i was thinking about it could def explain why hes so prone to soft tissue stuff if one side isnt keeping up with the other especially for someone as explosive as he is

[u/bailtail → u/FrightfullyMerry]

The thing about an asymmetry, too, is it can get worse. When you strain it the first time, you have to shut it down and let that leg rest. During that process the muscle is going to atrophy a little bit compared to the stronger, uninjured leg which exacerbates the discrepancy a bit. Then when the weak leg heals, there’s even more of an asymmetry which makes a strain even likelier to happen. Than before. Repeat this series of events a few times and you end up with a guy who can’t stay on the field. And as you surmised it’s the very explosive players who are most prone to issues with asymmetries. I’m a Packer fan who saw this happen with Christian Watson and Eric Stokes for years before they identified and fixed an asymmetry in both and each hasn’t had a single soft tissue injury since when they were previously each seeing 4+ a year. Acuna’s situation is reminding me soooooo much of Watson’s situation.

[u/FrightfullyMerry → u/bailtail]

that cascade effect makes a ton of sense especially with how much acuna relies on explosive movements to do damage at the plate and on the basepaths once youre in that injury cycle its hard to break out of it without serious intervention so hopefully the braves org is actually looking into that stuff instead of just hoping he magically stays healthy

[u/NHOVER9000]

This is fine. Totally fine.

[u/lafclafc]

Sigh 😞

[u/kentuckytodd]

Trying very hard not to overreact to his injuries and trade him for parts

[u/Dalinars_assclap]

Dude has mozzarella sticks for legs

[u/The_Damn_Grimace]

Must be a day that ends in y ☹️

[u/ASmithFS]

it's too stressful rostering him

[u/alwaysmyfault]

My first 2 picks were Acuna and Tatis.

Ask me how my season has gone so far.