After Long Absenses, Injured Stars Acuña, Strider Bolstering Braves

In the storied history of Major League Baseball, no team has lost its first seven games and still reached the postseason.

This year, however, the Atlanta Braves could become the first.

Instead of signing or trading for stars to bolster the ballclub, the Braves are about to activate two superstars who missed most of last season.

And not just ANY superstars.

Spencer Strider, who led all pitchers with 20 wins and 281 strikeouts in 2023, started just twice last year before his right elbow needed surgical repair.

And Ronald Acuña, Jr., the National League’s unanimous MVP two years ago, was lost for the year last May 26, when he tore his left ACL while running the bases in Pittsburgh.

Strider is scheduled to return next week while Acuña is slated for the end of the month after homering in his first rehab game Tuesday night.

For the Braves, getting them back is like adding both a Cy Young Award winner and Most Valuable Player to their lineup.

Before the two All-Stars went down last year, the team had won six straight division titles – the longest active streak in the game. Atlanta reached the playoffs in 2024 but finished second to the Philadelphia Phillies in the National League East.

This year, the New York Mets jumped to an early lead, helped in part by a softer schedule than Atlanta’s. The Braves, for example, lost the first seven of their meetings with the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres – teams the Mets have yet to face.

Both Acuña and Strider could be entering their prime years. Both turn 27 after this season ends.

Strider needed UCL brace surgery last April, while Acuña joined him on the injured list a month later. Only Strider, who made one start this year before a hamstring strain landed him on the IL again, has appeared since his initial injury.

In the meantime, their team’s performance has been sluggish at best.

Minus Acuña, the leadoff hitter who turned in baseball’s only 40/70 season in 2023, the offense has been sluggish. Free agent signee Jurickson Profar, given three years at $42 million, played only four games before incurring an 81-game suspension that would also include any postseason games. And neither Jarred Kelenic nor ex-Yankee Alex Verdugo has proven a viable understudy in left field. Kelenic, in fact, has been returned to the minors.

Only third baseman Austin Riley and rookie catcher Drake Baldwin, who plays sparingly, have hit much lately. Even Matt Olson, whose 54-homer season in 2023 was a franchise record, hasn’t produced with his usual prodigious power.

The starting rotation has also taken deep hits: long-time staff ace Max Fried left via free agency to accept a juicy contract from the New York Yankees (a record eight years and $213 million); Charlie Morton bolted for Baltimore; Reynaldo Lopez made one start before submitting to shoulder surgery; Strider has yet to take a regular turn this year; and defending Cy Young Award winner Chris Sale started slowly enough to warrant concern over his age (36) and injury history.

Forced to rely on kids, manager Brian Snitker has gotten surprising results from Spencer Schwellenbach, AJ Smith-Shawver, and Grant Holmes, all in their first full seasons, and Bryce Elder, a 2023 All-Star who skidded all the way back to the minors before resurfacing.

The biggest problem on the mound has been closer Raisel Iglesias, who has given up six home runs in six weeks of 2025 after yielding only four for all of last season. He’ll be a free agent this fall and could be pressing with a new contract on his mind.

All will be forgiven if Acuna and Strider pick up where they left off. The former went 1-for-3 in his first actual game, in the Complex League, and earned a promotion to Triple-A Gwinnett, Atlanta’s top affiliate. The Braves, mindful of his slow recovery from his right ACL tear in 2022, don’t plan to rush him – no matter how desperate they are for hitting.

Atlanta’s long list of one-run losses this season include a 2-1 defeat at Coors Field, normally a high-altitude paradise for hitters, and two of three games at Pittsburgh’s PNC Park last weekend. Both the Rockies and Pirates are bad teams mired in bad seasons and have fired their managers within the past week.

The stoic Snitker, almost a clone of Hall of Fame manager Bobby Cox when it comes to strategy, has presided over a significant rebound, with the Braves finally hitting .500 for the first time Tuesday with a 21-21 record. That left them 6½ games behind the first-place Mets and 3½ behind second-place Philadelphia. They have yet to face New York, from whom the won the season’s series last year, 7-6.

Both New York and Philadelphia pay their players more than Atlanta, which ranks eighth with a projected 2025 payroll of $211 million. Acuña and Strider, like many of their teammates, are signed to long-term extensions.

The former inked an eight-year, $100 million contract on April 2, 2019. It carries club options for both 2027 and 2028.

Strider, one of precious few pitchers given a long-term deal by injury-conscious baseball operations president Alex Anthopoulos, got a six-year, $75 million contract that provides an annual average of $12,500,000 and contains a 2029 option.

Both contracts are guaranteed – and will be considered team-friendly if the two superstars pick up where they left off.

middle of April last year. Just over a month later, Acuña suffered a torn left ACL. The club limped through the rest of the season without those two, qualifying for a Wild Card spot in the final game of the season. They were quickly swept by the Padres in the Wild Card round.

Here in 2025, things have gotten out to a rough start. Strider was reinstated from the IL last month but made just one start before a hamstring strain put him back on the shelf. Jurickson Profar, signed in the offseason to bolster the outfield in Acuña’s absence, played just four games before receiving an 80-game PED suspension. Reynaldo López made just one start before requiring arthroscopic shoulder surgery and is going to be out for several months.

Around all of those speedbumps, Atlanta has managed to somewhat tread water, currently sporting a 19-21 record. The upcoming returns of both Acuña and Strider should improve their chances of climbing in the standings going forward.

When last healthy, Acuña was on top of the world. He was the Most Valuable Player in the National League in 2023. He hit 41 home runs and stole 73 bases that season, producing a .337/.416/.596 batting line and 171 wRC+. FanGraphs considered him to be worth 9.1 wins above replacement while Baseball Reference had him at 8.4. That was all the more impressive because he had recovered from a previous ACL tear in his right knee.

His initial return from that injury, suffered in June of 2021, was more good than great. He was reinstated from the IL in April of 2022 and then hit .266/.351/.413 for a 115 wRC+ that year. But in 2023, he was firing on all cylinders and was one of the best players in the world.

It’s anyone’s guess which version of Acuña will show up this year. With his previous ACL tear, he was eventually able to get back to MVP-level performance, but with a half-decent season in between. Now that he has suffered tears in both ACLs, it’s hard to say what’s ahead, but it shouldn’t take too much longer to find out. Rehab assignments for position players can last as long as 20 days. Even if Acuña uses that entire timeline, he’ll be back by early June, unless he suffers a setback of some kind.

When he does return, the club will have to decide which player loses playing time. Eli White is currently holding down Acuña’s right field spot. He has a .284/.333/.506 line and 127 wRC+, but is getting some help from a .350 batting average on balls in play. He could drop into a fourth outfielder role but left fielder Alex Verdugo has a .241/.300/.325 line and 76 wRC+ on the year, comparable to his poor season with the Yankees in 2024, so perhaps White could slide over to left and take some time there.

As for Strider, it seems there’s a chance he could be back as soon as a week from now, if the sim game goes well. Even if he does go on a rehab assignment, it might be a brief one. Whenever he’s healthy, he should slot next to Chris Sale, Spencer Schwellenbach and AJ Smith-Shawver in the rotation. Bryce Elder and Grant Holmes are currently in the mix but both have ERAs close to 5.00. Elder has a tepid strikeout rate but a good walk rate while Holmes has been getting more punchouts but also giving out more free passes.