Atlanta Braves superstar and reigning NL MVP Ronald Acuña Jr.’s 2024 season is over after tearing his ACL on Sunday in Pittsburgh.
One of the most dynamic players in baseball, Acuña is also one of the most collected athletes in the sports card hobby.
A slow start to the 2024 regular season has completely reshaped his card market, however, and a variety of key rookie cards have dropped significantly in price compared to his record-breaking 41-homer, 73-stolen base season in 2023.
A second ACL tear will almost certainly drive Acuña’s prices lower, though data from card pricing tool Market Movers shows his cards have already been falling since the start of the regular season.
Over the last 60 days, Market Movers has tracked 153 different PSA 10s for Acuña across over 1,500 sales — those cards are collectively down 17% in price over that period.
Narrowing to only Acuña’s most popular cards, nine of his 10 most-sold PSA 10 rookies tracked over the last 60 days have declined in price, with the most popular seller, his 2018 Topps Update Base PSA 10, dropping 33% from $49 to $33.
Over the last 365 days, Acuña’s 2018 Topps Update Base PSA 10 has been tracked more than 1,900 times and is down 41% in price after selling for $55 one year ago.
Of those popular rookies, Acuña’s 2017 Bowman 1st Chrome Prospects PSA 10 has been the biggest decliner in terms of total dollar amount. A $95 card just two months ago has dropped down to around $68 across 69 total sales.
That 2017 Bowman sold for $174 the day after Acuña secured the first 40-70 season last year.
Looking beyond Acuña’s low-end market, his 2017 Bowman 1st Chrome Prospect Auto PSA 10 has dropped 33% over the last two months — it most recently sold for $1,680 in late April after an $800 drop in price.
Acuña’s 2018 Topps Chrome Refractor PSA 10s have been hit hard across multiple variations, too. The Gold Refractor /50 is down $520 in price to $2,600 over the last 60 days while the Blue Refractor /150 is down $324 to just $776.
The drop since a record-setting MVP season is to be expected, though Acuña’s decline has also outpaced the market as a whole.
The SCI 500, which tracks the most important cards in the hobby, is down 0.1% over the last 60 days while the Ronald Acuña Jr. Index, which is made up of 54 important cards, is down 11% over that same period.
Price decline after an injury is to be expected, though pairing it with a slow start could prove to be devastating for collectors already holding Acuña’s key cards in the coming months.
There's no indication that a second ACL tear will put Acuña’s career in jeopardy, though it’s fair for collectors and fans alike to question what his play will look like when he returns in 2025.
Short of major shifts in the market as a whole, it’ll likely be hard for Acuña’s prices to recover to what they were in his historic MVP season.
The coming months could be a buying season for those looking to add Acuña to their personal collection at a discount, while those holding his most high-end cards might start looking for the least painful exit strategy.
Ben Burrows is a reporter and editor for cllct.