3 Reasons Austin Riley Must Start at 3B for Atlanta Braves in 2020
By Seth Carter
Installing Higher Ceilings
Camargo’s ceiling as an everyday player is not as high as Austin Riley’s, but his floor is a lot higher. He’s a safer bet.
If Riley ends up being incapable of hitting major-league breaking balls and his floor caves in, then Camargo will serve as a more stabilizing force, not likely as a superstar.
That’s the allure of Austin Riley, he brings the superstar potential. Austin Riley most likely does not have the ability (at this point) to replace Josh Donaldson‘s batting average or on-base percentage, but he does give the Braves a chance at replacing the home runs.
Riley is a potential cleanup or five-hole hitter if he can tame his k-rate a little. Look, I’m not saying the kid needs to be Tony Gwynn up there, just get the strikeout rate back into Earth’s atmosphere.
Between Triple-A and the Majors last season, Riley hit a combined 33 homers in just 491 plate appearances while walking only 36 times. There is a bright side to the progress that he made between 2018 and 2019 in Gwinnett.
- Riley’s AAA 2018 Stats: 8.0 BB% // 29.3 K% // .282/.346/.464
- Riley’s AAA 2019 Stats: 10.3 BB% // 20.1% // .293/.366/.626
The ceiling for Riley in the clouds. Is he going to strike out a lot? Barring a miracle, yes. However, his career walk-rate in Triple-A is 8.9%, so he’s shown that he’s capable of competency at the plate outside of just hitting homers.
If you watched last year, you saw when he was on, he was able to wait back and drive fastballs to the opposite field with authority. He finished the season with the third-highest average distance on balls in play for players with at least 150 batted balls.