The Wildcard: How Austin Riley can make or break the Atlanta Braves season

Adjustments needed

Austin Riley was an insanely good hitter from when he was called up on May 15th through early July. However, after that, he had a large degree of difficulty handling pitches of all kinds, most notably sliders and fastballs.

This struggle following a period of success is nothing new for Riley. In an excellent article from Fangraphs, they break down the struggles that Riley had early in his career.

"“In the 2016-2017 offseason, Eric wrote up Riley, reflecting his ongoing journey toward shoring up holes against velocity and maintaining quickness defensively: Riley began the year struggling with any sort of velocity and then improved the timing of his footwork, quieted his hands and started hitting. Late in the year, he was turning on plus velocity.”"

I think that his struggles are rooted in the fact that pitchers began throwing him more off-speed pitches. This in turn made him change his approach at the plate, which likely made him more late on fastballs due to his worries about the slider.

With a whole offseason to work on his timing on all pitches, I think Riley will be able to adjust to the difficulty of the pro level, just like he did in the minors.

Throughout his Minor League career, he struggled when facing a new level but then figured it out the second season. We’re hoping that’s the case in 2020 with the Braves.

A healthy and productive Riley is key to the Braves success in 2020. With him, the lineup after the first four players looks a lot better. Without him, the bottom four looks a bit shaky, especially after you look at the Dodgers lineup since their trade for Mookie Betts (still pending).