Despite a big Sunday for the Atlanta Braves, they have a glaring weakness in the lineup right now with no real answers for third base.
The Atlanta Braves currently have a top 10 offense in baseball if you just look at the numbers, but you might not realize that if you watch them every day or if you look at the individual numbers.
Their three best players got off to slow starts — Ronald Acuna Jr. and Freddie Freeman both broke out on Sunday, while Ozzie Albies is on the IL.
Dansby Swanson was the team’s best hitter to start the year but he’s cooled off — as has Marcell Ozuna.
The OPS leaders on this team both come from the catcher position in Tyler Flowers and Travis d’Arnaud.
Despite all that, the Braves offense has still been good enough to get the job done with the pitching we have.
And it’s kind of masked a real issue that has presented itself at third base.
Throughout the first spring training, we saw Johan Camargo and Austin Riley engage in an intense battle for the hot corner position. Both looked great at the plate and deserving of a roster spot.
We didn’t really get to see much from either in the summer camp; although we did see Riley hit a couple of bombs against the Miami Marlins.
And then Camargo started the season a little banged up, which opened the door for Riley to start the year at first.
To me, at least, Riley had a much better approach at the plate the start the season even though he wasn’t getting great results.
He had two hits in his first three games including a moonshot in New York, but then went hitless the rest of the month of July.
Johan actually had one more hit than Riley in July in nine fewer at-bats.
That led to Camargo getting the majority of the starts at third in August, and after going 4-for13 to start the month he’s now in the midst of an 0-for-13 stretch.
And with Riley’s playing time being reduced he has just 3 hits in 15 at-bats this month with a home run.
Atlanta Braves third baseman by the numbers:
In 14 games and 40 at-bats Camargo has 7 hits, 2 doubles, 1 home run, 5 runs, 2 RBI, 3 walks, and 14 strikeouts.
Riley has played in 12 games and over 38 at-bats has 5 hits, 1 double, 2 home runs, 4 runs scored, 6 RBI, 4 walks, and 16 strikeouts.
Their AVG/OBP/SLG/OPS slash lines look like this:
Camargo: .175/.250/.300/.550
RIley: .132/.209/.316/.525
At this point, you know you’re going to get on a base a little more with Camargo, but you’re going to get more power production from Riley.
On the defensive side, both have been great, and Riley has been even better than we might have imagined.
But still, we’re 17 games into the season and neither has separated from other. And normally 17 games would still be a small sample size, but not in a 60 game season.
We’ve seen how quickly the Braves have moved pitchers out of here that aren’t performing.
At what point do they considering looking for another option at third base?
It’s really not fair to Camargo or Riley, and I hate the way they go back-and-forth in the starting lineup so that neither one of them can get in any kind of rhythm.
But I also understand you don’t have time to wait for one of them to get going in a short season and Snit is hoping one of them catches fire and you can run with him.
If it’s me I run Riley out there every day for the next two weeks and see if he shows any kind of improvement at the plate that gives you hope. He has the most upside and I think just his presence in the lineup puts more fear in the pitcher than Camargo.
Will see how Snit plays it and what the Braves do before the trade deadline if they’re not comfortable with either one.