Braves: Johan Camargo remains favorite in third base battle with Austin Riley

Through the first week of spring training games for the Atlanta Braves, the third base battle is becoming a fun one to watch with two good options at the moment.

It’s only been a weeks worth of spring training games for the Atlanta Braves, but we’ve got a pretty good indication of how the third base battle is going to go.

Coming into spring training it felt like it was Johan Camargo‘s job to lose.

Not only has the 26-year-old switch-hitter proven he can handle the job over a full season, but he’s come into camp in better shape and has looked good at the plate with 4 hits in 12 at-bats, including a home run.

And it’s not like Austin Riley hasn’t been impressive as well with 4 hits in 13 at-bats and only 1 strikeout. But I’ve always thought that if the two were close to even performance-wise in spring training, the nod would go to Camargo.

Again, Camargo is the more experienced player with a history of success over a full season.

Riley is still just 22 years old and could benefit from some more time in the minors to work on the issues he had at the big leagues.

I know he would love to make the big league team out of camp, and that’s certainly still possible, but hopefully he understands that we need to see the adjustments he’s made over the offseason in real games.

While everything looks good in spring training, you have to keep in mind that these are still just spring training games. And it’s not like you’re facing Max Scherzer three times in a game.

But right now Brian Snitker and the Braves have to be pretty happy with the competition because both guys look really good.

This raises the question, can both guys make the roster?