Atlanta Braves Top 3 to Crack MLB’s ‘Top 100 Right Now’ in 2021
By Seth Carter
Austin Riley
In 44 games at AAA-Gwinnett, Austin Riley smashed 15 homers and slashed .293/.366/.626. He was disgusting, but in a good way for Braves’ fans.
Riley has proven he’s a slugging machine over five minor league seasons with a .501 SLG. In two seasons at AAA-Gwinnett, Riley has a very solid .353 on-base percentage, drawing 46 walks in 119 games.
The biggest issue for Riley is the frequency in which he swings and misses. He has struck out in 25.6% of his Triple-A plate appearances so far.
Unimaginably, when he made the leap to the majors, his 25.6% minor-league rate trembled in the shadows of his 36.4% strikeout percentage. Riley had the second-worst strikeout percentage on the team last year. He was second only to Julio Teheran’s 40% rate. Riley finished 1.4 points worse than Mike Soroka — it was bad.
If you watched, I don’t need to tell you about it. While his hot start was lots of fun, the underlying strikeout percentage was lurking.
The hope
While in Gwinnett last year he brought his strikeout-rate down from 29.3% the previous season, to 20.1%. His walk percentage went up from a solid 8.0% in 2018, to 10.3% in 2019. He’s a young player still making strides in the right direction.
The power is there, as is the ability to take a walk. He’s going to strikeout a lot, but his power potential is bonkers.
Last season in Gwinnett he hit 15 homers in just 194 at-bats. That’s a homer every 11.6 at-bats. If we average that out over the 473 at-bats ZiPS projects he’ll receive in 2020, that’s 41 homers.
I am in no way saying because he did this in the minors it means he will do it in the majors. The annals of Major League Baseball history is full of guys who were legends in the minors and couldn’t hack it in the majors.
If Riley can make the same type of progress at the Major League level that he made in Triple-A last season, we could be looking at a superstar third baseman in 2020 for the Atlanta Braves.
Riley has perhaps the largest gap of any player in camp between his floor and his ceiling. We could see him in next year’s list if he ends up being closer to the ceiling than the floor.