Earlier this offseason, Ronald Acuña, Jr. posted photos on one of his social media accounts of the opening of a car wash of which he is an owner. Located in suburban Atlanta, north of the stadium that sits approximately one mile outside of the Atlanta city limits, Acuña, Jr.’s latest business venture makes for an apt metaphor the last eight months of the young phenom’s 2024 baseball season – one that started with 49 games of struggles and ended with another significant knee injury. For Acuña, Jr. – the soon-to-be, 27-year-old Venezuela-native – 2024 was a baseball season that the 2023 National League Most Valuable Player would like to irradiate from his memory.

What better way to wash away half-a-year of muck and grime than through an automated car wash? With 2025 rapidly approaching – and rehabilitation from his second-major knee injury in three years likely to delay the start of his regular season by at least a few weeks according to Atlanta Braves President of Baseball Operations, Alex Anthopoulos – Acuña, Jr. will set-out to try to re-gain the form that made him the third player from Venezuela to earn a Most Valuable Player Award honors.

From a baseball family that includes his father and grandfather playing minor league baseball and an uncle and multiple cousins who played in MLB – and his brother Luisangel, who debuted with the New York Mets last season – Acuña, Jr. has matriculated from a value international free agent signing with the Atlanta Braves in July 2014 at age 16 to one of the game’s biggest stars.His rise to fame was swift. Three years after signing his first professional contract, he was ranked the top overall prospect in the sport by Baseball America and the Most Valuable Player of the Arizona Fall League.

Debuting with Atlanta in April 2018, his first season in the big league unknowingly laid out the blueprints of his career, thus far. Tantalizing, generational talent beset by injuries that have throttled the rate of his accent. The 2018 National League Rookie of the Year played in 111 games producing 4.4 fWAR while taking home 27 of 30 first-place votes. Although it was almost a month into the 2018 season before Acuña, Jr. took his first MLB at bat, it was an ACL sprain in his left knee that caused him to miss a month’s worth of games, including most of June.

Fast forward to the end of 2024 and the first player in MLB history to hit 40-or-more home runs and steal 70-or-more bases in a single season has played in 722 career games, been a four-time National League All-Star selection, won three Silver Slugger Awards, was the afore mentioned Rookie of the Year, and in 2023 he was the unanimous selection for National League Most Valuable Player. So far in his career, he’s posted 28.3 fWAR with a 141 wRC+ and for those that like traditional counting stats, has 196 career stolen bases and 165 home runs with a triple-slash line of .289/.379/.525.

And yet, as the dynamic lead-off hitter is set to enter 2025, it is easy to lament what might have been had injuries not peppered his seven seasons. Between his left ACL issue in 2018, a complete tear of his right ACL in 2021 and a similar injury to his left ACL in 2024, Acuña, Jr. has lost more than 250 career games due to injury. Add in games lost due to the cancellation of games due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and “La Bestia” has lost two full seasons of games in his career – all before he turned 27.

Forget, for a moment, the possible lost awards and accolades. Looking only at his 162 game averages, those two lost seasons could have added an additional 70 home runs and 80 stolen bases to those specific, high-profile stat lines. If those missed game were to magically appear on the back of his metaphorical baseball card, he’d be knocking on the door of 250 career home runs and 300 stolen bases. That’s to say nothing of his other offensive statistics. Through his seven seasons, Acuña, Jr. has only played in 150 or more games in a single season twice. His next best season total? 119 games.

This decade, Generation X baseball fans – and those older – frequently brought up the name of one player when talking about the on-the-field exploits for Acuña, Jr. combined with a seemingly ever-ending string of injuries. Former Cincinnati Reds outfielder Eric Davis. Davis, like Acuña, Jr., combined power and speed as well as anyone in the history of the game – if not better. Davis, who spent his prime years playing on the artificial turf covered concrete in Cincinnati, never played in more than 135 games in his 17-year career. Like Davis, Acuña, Jr., has had a dynamic power and speed combination; but unfortunately, the comparable between Davis and Acuña, Jr. includes an ability stay on the field, with Acuña, Jr. averaging slightly more than 103 games per season between 2018 and 2024.

Acuña, Jr. entered 2024 as arguably the best player in the National League and the expectations were astronomical. Even the most casual of baseball fan could look his Baseball Savant page for 2023 and see that lots of 100s in the percentile rankings underscoring the fact that he was utterly elite. With Shohei Ohtani joining the Los Angeles Dodgers, the pontification coming into Spring Training was if Ohtani – himself coming off surgery – would be healthy enough to challenge Acuña, Jr. for MVP. There was talk of Acuña, Jr. becoming the first single season 50 home run and 50 stolen base player in the game’s history. While that 50/50 season came to pass, it was Ohtani, not Acuña, Jr. to reach the milestone.

From the beginning of his 2024 season, Acuña, Jr. struggled. The plate discipline that catapulted him to the upper echelon of baseball’s elite in 2023 fell back down to earth. The power that led him to 41 home runs, the second time he reached that number in a season, was absent as he managed only four round-trippers in 49 games. Rather than seeing almost all of his offensive metrics in the elite range, it oscillated between above average and average or worse. Whatever caused his swing to go array, went from being explained as a slow start to a troublesome pattern that wasn’t reversing. Then, while on the base paths in a game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, his left knee gave way with the subsequent diagnosis ending his season. For the third time since becoming a big leaguer, his knees had failed him.

Acuña Jr.’s knees had become his version of Achilles’ heel. With lessons learned from his last knee rehabilitation, the hope is that when Acuña Jr. does take the field in 2025, he will be able to do so with production that exceeds his 2022 season, when he returned after first ACL surgery at less than 100-percent.

Atlanta signed Acuña Jr. to a then-record setting contract in 2019 and in doing so guaranteed themselves the ability to retain their young outfielder through the 2028 season, although the final two years of that $100 million contract are team options. Juan Soto, who was runner-up to Acuña Jr. in the 2018 Rookie of the Year voting, is hitting free agency this offseason and likely to cash in to the tune of $600 million or more. In comparison, the value the Braves got in the Acuña Jr. is irrefutable. Yet the unknown of Acuña Jr.’s future productivity does protect the organization if he is unable to return to his past All-Star form.

For Acuña Jr., 2025 isn’t the make-or-break season for him. He had one of the best offensive seasons of his generation in the second season after returning form his last major knee injury. A return to that kind of success could set him up for another massive contract – either with Atlanta or elsewhere. Standing in front of his Big Peach Car Wash location on November 7, Atlanta’s right fielder looked strong, healthy and happy. The sun was shining brightly on him and his peach No. 13 jersey.

Hopefully that is a precursor of things to come.