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Atlanta Braves: It’s time to fall in love with Austin Riley again

By Jake Mastroianni

WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 14: Austin Riley #27 of the Atlanta Braves celebrates scoring on a double by Dansby Swanson #7 (not pictured) in the ninth inning during a baseball game against the Washington Nationals at Nationals Park on September 14, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 14: Austin Riley #27 of the Atlanta Braves celebrates scoring on a double by Dansby Swanson #7 (not pictured) in the ninth inning during a baseball game against the Washington Nationals at Nationals Park on September 14, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty Images) /
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Austin Riley #27 of the Atlanta Braves. (Photo by Mike Stobe/Getty Images)
Austin Riley #27 of the Atlanta Braves. (Photo by Mike Stobe/Getty Images) /

A tale of two halves

Let’s break down the two halves for Austin Riley. I’m going to take a look at the numbers from May 15 when he was called up to June 19 — about a month’s work when he was really good. And then we’ll compare it to June 20 on when he was not so good.

To get the basic numbers out of the way, Riley hit .292/.348 with 11 home runs and 32 RBI in his first 130 Major League at-bats. In his next 144 big league at-bats he hit just .167/.218 with 7 home runs and 17 RBI.

I know BABIP doesn’t give you a complete picture of the situation, but his .355 BABIP in the first half was not sustainable; nor was his terrible .230 BABIP in the second half.

Riley is always going to strikeout a ton, that’s just part of his game and you’ll live with it when he’s hitting a home run every 15-20 at-bats.

Even in the Minor Leagues, he had a strikeout percentage of around 27 percent.

In the first half when things were going great he was still striking out 30 percent of the time, which would have been among the worst in baseball.

But in the second half, it was unbearable to watch as he struck out a staggering 41.7 percent of the time.

Of players who got at least 250 plate appearances in 2019, Riley ranked third-worst with a strikeout percentage of 36.4 percent.

Again, you can live with 25-30 percent when you’re home run to fly ball rate is around 30 percent — like it was for Riley in the first half. But when that HR/FB rate is 15.6 percent like it was in the second half and you’re striking out 40 percent of the time … yikes.

The difference in linedrive percentage from the two halves is pretty drastic. He hit a linedrive 32.2 percent of the time in the first half and just 17.3 percent of the time in the second half.

And when you mix that with the fact that his hard-hit rate dropped from 48.8 percent to 35.8 percent you can understand why things were such a struggle for him in the second half.

He also started to pull the ball a lot more in the second half (43.2 percent of the time), while in the first half he was driving the ball to center a lot more (46.5 percent of the time).

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