The Atlanta Braves took home plenty of accolades for their impressive offense last season – tying the single-season homer record with 307 longballs, the highest team slugging percentage in baseball history (.501), and being the first team to both hit 300 or more homers and stealing 100 or more bases (132) in the same season.

And if nothing significantly changes for one of their key contributors, they can add to those accolades in 2024.

Ronald Acuña Jr won the 2023 National League MVP award on the strength of his absurd 41 homer, 73 steal season, obliterating the previous record for steals in a 40/40 season (46).

And if he’s able to put up similar numbers in 2024 – not even equal, but in the same stratosphere – Acuña will make some history.

We’ve talked about Ronald’s Steamer projections from FanGraphs already, but it’s worth repeating, simply because of how absurd it is:

If Ronald can meet that admittedly conservative projection (compared to last season), it’d be a historic performance.

MLB researcher Sarah Langs dove into the predictions to see how rare a 30-50 season is, and it’s only happened three times in baseball history: 1987 Eric Davis, 1990 Barry Bonds, and Ronald last season.

And so if Ronald does it again, he’d be the first player with multiple 30-50 seasons in baseball history, as well as the first player with three 30-30 seasons through the age of 26.

And obviously, 40 homers isn’t but one prolific hitting barrage away from the projection, which would constitute the first time any player has had more than one 40/40 season in baseball history, either. For what it’s worth, Ronald almost did it under the old rules, coming in with 41 homers and 37 steals in his 2019 finish, one in which he was rewarded with a 5th-place finish in the MVP voting as well as an All-Star berth and a Silver Slugger award.

Back to back MVPs has only happened 13 times since the award’s origination in 1931, and not since fellow Venezuelan Miguel Cabrera did it in 2012 and 2013.

But if Ronald put up a second 40/40 season, it’d be hard to see how anyone else could do enough to have a case at getting the 2024 award over him.