Braves lock in Acuña and Albies for 2027

Atlanta exercised Ronald Acuña Jr.'s $17 million option and Ozzie Albies's $7 million option Thursday, keeping both cornerstones under contract through next season. The moves were never really in doubt — these are two of the five players who made the NL All-Star roster for this club — but the timing is notable. The Braves just finished a season in which the rotation fractured badly enough that Chris Sale and Grant Holmes were essentially carrying the staff alone by September, and the offseason question isn't whether to keep Acuña and Albies. It's what to build around them.

Acuña played 50 games this season, still working back to full form, and posted a .385 on-base percentage that signals the underlying skills remain intact even when the counting stats don't pop. Albies was an All-Star. Locking both in is the easy part of what figures to be a complicated winter for a front office that needs to address a rotation that lost Spencer Strider and never really recovered.

The core is secured. The hard decisions come next.