{"id":445755,"date":"2026-01-29T19:21:30","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T19:21:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/445755\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T19:21:30","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T19:21:30","slug":"braves-ronald-acuna-jr-makes-final-decision-on-world-baseball-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/445755\/","title":{"rendered":"Braves Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr. Makes Final Decision on World Baseball Classic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6b\">The big announcement has come for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/mlb\/braves\/onsi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Atlanta Braves<\/a> right fielder Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr. According to Major League Baseball&#8217;s official X (Twitter) page, he will represent Venezuela in the World Baseball Classic. <\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr. is ready to show out in the <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/WorldBaseballClassic?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#WorldBaseballClassic<\/a> \ud83d\ude24<\/p>\n<p>La Bestia will play for Team Venezuela! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/EQvj8yDrDp\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/EQvj8yDrDp<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 MLB (@MLB) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MLB\/status\/2016903705916817894?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">January 29, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6h\">Acu\u00f1a went down to Venezuela for winter ball this offseason, with speculation building that he would return to the WBC. Since the Braves greenlit that, it felt like it was only a matter of time before he made this move official. <\/p>\n<p lang=\"es\" dir=\"ltr\">HR de &#8216;La Bestia&#8217; \ud83e\udd8d Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr. para empatar el juego y levantar la tribuna. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/unBRRal9tw\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/unBRRal9tw<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Guairistas \ud83e\udd88\ud83c\udf0a (@guairistas) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/guairistas\/status\/2004694914710556712?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">December 26, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6n\">During the Winter Meetings, Team Venezuela was holding out hope for him to participate like he did back in 2023.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6q\">&#8220;Ronald Acu\u00f1a represents right now probably like the second or third icon in our country, and having him right now playing in Venezuela for our country, people are crazy out there watching him play. So, I&#8217;m hoping he&#8217;s with us at the WBC,&#8221; Team Venezuela manager Omar Lopez said during the Winter Meetings.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6t\">What happens next for the Atlanta Braves? Don&#8217;t miss out on any news and analysis! Take a second,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/mlb\/braves\/onsi\/newsletter\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">sign up for our free newsletter<\/a>, and get breaking Braves news delivered to your inbox daily!<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6w\">The 2023 National League MVP is coming off his fifth All-Star season, one where he didn&#8217;t even see action until late May. Despite the delayed arrival due to recovering from his second ACL injury, he came out of the gate playing at a level where the fans couldn&#8217;t ignore it. He was voted a starting outfielder alongside Kyle Tucker and Pete Crow-Armstrong. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-9\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6z\">In 95 games played, he batted .290 with a .935 OPS, 21 home runs and 42 RBIs. Along with the All-Star season, he was named the National League&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/mlb\/braves\/onsi\/news\/ronald-acuna-jr-atlanta-braves-player-comeback-player-of-the-year\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Comeback Player of the Year<\/a>. If he is to be healthy next season, he could be back in contention for the MVP. He has stiff competition, but he is someone more than capable of forcing himself into the discussion.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-10\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"72\">Acu\u00f1a has been doing everything he can to show what he can do now that he&#8217;s healthy. He recently <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/mlb\/braves\/onsi\/news\/braves-ronald-acuna-jr-shows-off-full-capabilities-latest-bp\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">took batting practice left-handed<\/a> and sent a ball to the moon. There was also a post of him fielding grounders in the infield. He won&#8217;t be doing either of these things in a live game any time soon, but for workouts, it&#8217;s good that he&#8217;s doing a diverse series of workouts. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-11\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"75\">The World Baseball Classic is set to start on March 5. Venezuela will be playing in Pool D at LoanDepot Park in Miami. Along with Venezuela, pool consists of Dominican Republic, Israel, Netherlands and Nicaragua. They&#8217;ll be the pool&#8217;s first game on March 6 when they face the Netherlands at noon EST. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-12\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"78\">Other Braves players for the World Baseball Classic await to be confirmed. Soon-to-be Hall of Fame inductee Andruw Jones <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/news\/andruw-jones-goal-is-to-win-the-world-baseball-classic\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">will be the manager<\/a> of The Netherlands. <\/p>\n<p>More From Atlanta Braves on SI<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The big announcement has come for Atlanta Braves right fielder Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr. According to Major League Baseball&#8217;s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-445755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}